On a hot afternoon in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression, a small pool called Gaet’ale Pond is so salty that crystals crunch underfoot. On the other side of the world, Utah’s Great Salt Lake has lost most of its water and now sends salty dust toward nearby cities. From Ethiopia to Antarctica, the saltiest lakes in the […]
On any given day, you might check a weather app before leaving home, but hear about climate change later in the news. The two terms are related, but they do not answer the same question. Weather describes short-term atmospheric conditions, while climate describes the longer pattern that appears when many years of weather are averaged […]
On most world maps, Lake Baikal looks narrow and remote. In reality, it is a giant rift lake in southern Siberia whose depth, age, clarity, and endemic wildlife place it in a category of its own. That is why Baikal matters not just as a superlative on a map, but as one of the world’s […]
Imagine looking out of an airplane window as you fly over northern Canada or Siberia. For hundreds of miles (hundreds of kilometers), you see dark green forests, and then suddenly, the trees fade away into a low, open plain. That sharp boundary is where taiga gives way to tundra.Both biomes circle the high latitudes of […]
