What is a tornado Tornadoes are powerful whirlwinds that occur primarily during the summer months in warmer regions of the United States, Europe, and Northeast Asia. Generated primarily from cumulonimbus clouds, these winds are often accompanied by thunderstorms, sometimes with hail. Unlike typical whirlwinds, tornadoes are incredibly large, sometimes reaching hundreds of metres in diameter. …
What is a flood? Flooding generally refers to the inundation of previously dry land by an overflow of water. It can be seen as a natural phenomenon where the water in a stream or river exceeds its base line and overflows, which can be caused by a variety of factors. It is commonly referred to …
What is flooding? Types of floods and their effects Read More »
What is a cloud A cloud is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals in the atmosphere. They can occur not only on Earth, but also on other planets or moons. The cloud-like formations we often see floating between stars are called ‘nebulae’, which are collections of material between stars, or interstellar matter. The …
Climate crisis The Earth is in the midst of one of the most important and urgent environmental crises of our time: climate change. This change is caused by an increase in average temperatures around the world through global warming, resulting in complex variability in the Earth’s weather patterns. While records show traces of climate change …
A tidal flat is a flat area of coastal land with a sandy or clayey bottom that is covered by seawater at high tide but exposed as land at low tide. Biology and ecological characteristics of tidal flats Tidal flats are one of the most productive ecosystems in the ocean. The productivity of tidal flats …
The Importance of Conserving Tidal Flats: The Surprising Value They Hold Read More »
According to Article 1 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and semi-humid regions caused by climate change and human activities such as overgrazing, overcultivation and overharvesting of forests. In the case of the Sahara Desert in Africa, the desert is gradually expanding into southern …
Definition. A spring in which groundwater is warmed above average temperatures by geothermal forces and dissolves to the surface. Opening Hot spring water rises to the surface from deep underground along faults and fractures, such as regular fractures in igneous rocks, some of which are direct surface discharges, while others are horizontally distributed within shallow …
Lunar Eclipses A lunar eclipse is a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon, or Sun-Earth-Moon, and only occurs during a full moon. However, it does not always occur on the full moon each month. This is because the ecliptic plane, the plane of the Moon’s orbit, is tilted …
Tsunamis are tidal waves, also known as seismic waves, that are primarily caused by earthquakes. Tsunamis are a type of long-periodic ocean wave that are enormous and destructive in their shape and magnitude. Although it has been known for hundreds of years that earthquakes generate tidal waves, not all undersea earthquakes produce tsunamis. The effects …
Overview In volcanic rocks, such as lava flowing from basaltic lavas or ignimbrites formed from condensed volcanic ash, shrinkage fractures or cooling fractures form regularly as the rock cools and contracts, giving the rocks separated by the fractures an elongated columnar shape with a cross-section of four to six angles. They vary in diameter from …