July 31, 2013

130 Years of Earth Surface Temperatures

The weather has been all over the place this year, with record highs and lows recorded in hundreds of different locations around the globe. So how exactly are temperatures changing globally?

bigthinkeditor

The weather has been all over the place this year, with record highs and lows recorded in hundreds of different locations around the globe. So how exactly are temperatures changing globally?

To provide perspective, scientists combined temperature records from over 1000 weather stations since 1880 with modern satellite data. The result is the video below, which shows 130 years of Earth surface temperatures.

Image Credit: GISS, NASA

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Can We Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth?

The stem cell scientist Sir Ian Wilmut who cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996 has outlined how to resurrect a woolly mammoth by using cells from frozen carcasses.