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Aims. The Sun shows strong variability in its magnetic activity, from Grand minima to Grand maxima, but the nature of the variability is not fully understood, mostly because of the insufficient length of the directly observed solar activity…
In recent years extensive studies on the Earth's climate system have been carried out by means of advanced complex network statistics. The great majority of these studies, however, have been focusing on investigating correlation structures…
In particular, without the greenhouse effect, essential features of the atmospheric temperature profile as a function of height cannot be described, i.e., the existence of the tropopause above which we see an almost isothermal temperature…
Data obtained by the GONG and MDI instruments over the last seven years are used to study how solar dynamics -- both rotation and other large scale flows -- have changed with time. In addition to the well known phenomenon of bands of faster…
Using Greenwich sunspot data for 120 years it was recently observed that activity regions on the Sun's surface tend to lie along smoothly changing longitude strips 180 degrees apart from each other. However, numerical experiments with…
Some initial investigations into various atmospheric phenomena and the influence of the solar cycle on weather have been made. Strongly negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices, which cause cold and dry winter weather in North West…
In many dryland environments, vegetation self-organizes into bands that can be clearly identified in remotely-sensed imagery. The status of individual bands can be tracked over time, allowing for a detailed remote analysis of how human…
This paper reviews our growing understanding of the physics behind coronal heating (in open-field regions) and the acceleration of the solar wind. Many new insights have come from the last solar cycle's worth of observations and theoretical…
Tropical limit for macroscopic systems in equilibrium defined as the formal limit of Boltzmann constant k going to 0 is discussed. It is shown that such tropical limit is well-adapted to analyse properties of systems with highly degenerated…
We propose a framework to examine future migration patterns of people under different sea level rise scenarios using models of human migration. Specifically, we couple a sea level rise model with a data-driven model of human migration,…
General atmospheric circulation is the system of atmospheric motions over the Earth on the scale of the whole globe. Two main types of circulation have been identified: zonal - characterized by low amplitude waves in the troposphere moving…
Extreme heat is a growing threat to both individual livelihoods and broader economies, killing a growing number of people each year as temperatures rise in many parts of the world and limiting productivity. Many studies document the link…
Kinetic energy (KE) cascade in the turbulent ocean is pivotal in connecting diverse scales of oceanic motions, redistributing energy, and influencing ocean circulation and climate variability. However, its response to global warming remains…
We'll examine plate tectonics on Earth -- its features and forces -- and examine some concepts that may allow astronomers to ask useful questions regarding numeric models that putatively predict tectonic activity. But exo-planetologists…
An essential component of planetary climatology is knowledge of the tropospheric temperature field and its variability. Previous studies of Jupiter hinted at periodic behavior that was non-seasonal, as well as dynamical relationships…
The importance of the sea ice retreat in the polar regions for the global warming and the role of ice-albedo feedback was recognized by various authors [1,2]. Similar to a recent study of the phenomenon in the Arctic [3] we present a…
Tropical mathematics redefines the rules of arithmetic by replacing addition with taking a maximum, and by replacing multiplication with addition. After briefly discussing a tropical version of linear algebra, we study polynomials build…
We seek to model the coupled evolution of a planet and a civilization through the era when energy harvesting by the civilization drives the planet into new and adverse climate states. In this way we ask if triggering "anthropocenes" of the…
Ecological systems show a variety of characteristic patterns of biodiversity in space and time. It is a challenge for theory to find models that can reproduce and explain the observed patterns. Since the advent of island biogeography these…
The carbon footprint of astronomical research is an increasingly topical issue. From a comparison of existing literature, we infer an annual per capita carbon footprint of several tens of tonnes of CO$_2$ equivalents for an average person…