Equator

Observed versus simulated historical tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) trends. a The mean of observed SST trend (Mean Observed) (colors; °C/decade) from five observations-based products (HadISST, COBE, COBE2, ERSSTv5, and Kaplan) over 1958–2014. b–d Panels showing the trend of SST (colors; °C/decade) over 1958–2014 within the CMIP6 multi-model mean (CMIP6-MMM), fully coupled ensemble mean (FC), and mechanically decoupled ensemble mean (MD),…

European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter has identified massive ice and ice water deposits beneath the surface of Mars. The Mars Express orbiter was also the first to confirmed the presence of ice on Mars in 2004…

ESA’s Mars Express has provided new insights into Mars’s Medusae Fossae Formation, revealing deep layers of water ice, the largest such discovery in the region. This ice could significantly impact our understanding of Mars’s climate history and is crucial for future human exploration. Credit: Planetary Science Institute/Smithsonian InstitutionRecent Mars Express data reveals the Medusae Fossae Formation contains extensive water ice layers, offering new clues about Mars’s past and supporting future exploration.Windswept…

A European probe has found massive ice deposits beneath the equator of Mars, a finding that could alter our fundamental understanding of the red planet’s climatic history.  The discovery was made by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter. This veteran spacecraft has circled the red planet for 20 years, revealing several secrets about its past and present climate. While it’s not the first time the probe has found ice deposits, this is by far the largest amount of water ice ever…

Data from ESA's Mars Express indicates that there may be subterranean ice deposits at the Martian equator that are up to 2.3 miles (3.7 km) thick. With enough water to fill the Red Sea, this could be a tremendous resource for future Mars colonies.The modern Martian environment is about as dry as you can get. Scientists often use Earth's Atacama desert as an experimental stand-in, but the Atacama, though one of our planet's driest spots, is a tropical rainforest in a monsoon compared to Mars.That isn't to say that the Red…

The surface of Mars may appear barren and lifeless, but it seems the red planet is keeping quite a few secrets hidden from prying human eyes.Luckily, we have technology – and a new radar survey of the Medusae Fossae Formation region on the Martian equator has revealed what appears to be giant layered slabs of buried water ice, several kilometers thick.It's the most water ever found around Mars' middle, and suggests the dry old dustball isn't quite as devoid of the stuff as we thought.There's as much water buried there,…

Not far from the bank of Wapiti River, just 11 kilometres from Grande Prairie, there's a paleontological goldmine: an ancient riverbed that contains fragments of skeletons of hundreds, possibly thousands, of animals from the late Cretaceous period, some 70 million years ago. Discovered in 2014,  the bonebed is known as a DC site, or, more formally, Wapiti Unit 3.It yields a wide range of fossils and teeth from many species of prehistoric vertebrates, said Corwin Sullivan, a University of Alberta paleontologist who does…

El Niño is making its return after a nearly eight-year hiatus, and forecasters say it could impact winter weather on the Prairies.The climate pattern happens when the temperature of Pacific Ocean waters along the equator off the coast of Peru rises above normal.The air above that water then warms and moves northward.In Western Canada, this intrusion of warmer air can change the overall pattern of the polar jet stream — a narrow band of fast-moving air that separates colder weather to the north from milder weather to the…

This video was produced by Trevor Kjorlien as part of the CBC Creator Network. Learn more about the Creator Network here.During wintertime in Montreal, it's easy to think that we live in a northern part of the world. It's cold, it's snowy and it's dark at 4:30 p.m. But surprisingly, Montreal is at nearly the exact halfway point between the North Pole and the equator.How we measure the EarthIf you have a globe near you, take a closer look at it.At the equator, this is 0. And going further north of the equator, this number…

More than 600 million years ago, the planet was frozen from pole to pole, covered in half-kilometer-thick ice sheets that darkened every ocean. How sea life clung on during Snowball Earth, as this inhospitable period is known, has long been a mystery. A new study bolsters the idea that the global glaciation wasn’t all encompassing. Geochemical evidence from ancient rocks suggests zones of open ocean may have been present north of the Tropic of Cancer, a region…