The world's largest deserts—areas that receive less than 10 inches of annual rainfall—are led by the Antarctic and Arctic regions.

Explore three of the world's most iconic deserts

Investigate the Gobi Desert in Central Asia, the Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan, and the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa as you learn about the wildlife and people that call these places home. Click through images of the Gobi Desert, which—located in...

Hot, semiarid, coastal, cold: An overview of the four desert types

This article describes the various characteristics of deserts, including their geography, their climate, their soil, and the wildlife and vegetation that inhabit them. All desert climates are characterized by extreme temperatures and low rainfall,...

How glaciers melt

Greenland and Antarctica are home to most of the world's glacial ice, including its only two ice sheets, making them areas of particular interest to scientists. Watch this three-minute video to learn why understanding them is not just interesting, but crucial to our near-term adaptability and our long term survival in a changing world.

The British Antarctic Survey created a map of what Antarctica would look like if it lost all 27 million cubic kilometers (6.5 million cubic miles) of its ice—enough to fill almost 6,500 Grand Canyons.

Earth's easily accessible surface water in rivers and lakes accounts for about 0.01% of all the water on Earth, but 70% of this surface water is used for agriculture.

Ranking the 10 hottest places on Earth

Death Valley in California often gets the press for the hottest recorded air temperature in the world. What about the runners-up? This list compiles the rest of the Earth's hottest spots, from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to Kebili in Tunisia.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current—Earth's most powerful ocean current—formed about 34 million years ago.

The robust wine production of Antarctica

Antarctica might not be known for its agriculture, but parts of its unique climate are suitable for growing wine grapes. Most of the wine produced there is icewine, a style of dessert wine commonly found in Canada and Germany. This guide covers Antarctica’s unique soil composition, grape varieties, and how exactly penguins contribute to this unusual wine-growing region. There’s even a recommendation for an Antarctic tasting room for adventurous souls.

Take a virtual journey through the world's deserts with Google Earth and BBC

Explore some of the world’s deserts in this “Natural Treasures” collaboration between Google Earth and BBC Earth. Visit the Namib Desert in Namibia where the simplest strategy to escape the heat is to emerge only in the cool of the night....

What can be found underneath the Saharan sands?

Watch this 19-minute video to learn more about what can be found under the Sahara Desert, which spans almost all of northern Africa and is one of the largest deserts in the world. Deep under the Sahara desert sands lies evidence of life that once...

The Arctic warms more quickly than the rest of the planet because of the loss of surface ice, a lack of vertical air circulation, and the release of thermal energy as water vapor condenses.

What is the tundra?

This article provides a geographical overview of the tundra biome. It explains the Arctic tundra is found in the Northern Hemisphere surrounding the Arctic Circle. A second type of tundra, called the alpine tundra, exists on high-altitude mountain...

China's tree belt around the Taklamakan Desert has become a carbon sink

Decades of planting trees along the Taklamakan Desert in northwest China (the world's largest shifting-sand desert) have increased vegetation enough to create a measurable carbon sink, absorbing more carbon dioxide than the area emits. The effort demonstrates a key large-scale climate mitigation strategy, though it has raised concerns over water use and long-term sustainability.

Desert wildlife: diverse, threatened, and misunderstood

This article sheds light on the surprisingly diverse wildlife that thrive in deserts, while also highlighting the gaps in human understanding of these ecosystems. Deserts are home to one-quarter of terrestrial vertebrate species—three percent of...

Often considered the largest natural mirror on Earth, Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat—a desert formation covered in minerals.

The world's largest waterfall is in the ocean and is more than three times the height of Angel Falls, the largest waterfall on land.

A 1,000 square kilometer patch of solar panels in Africa can power most of Europe

The $500 billion Desertec initiative would have constructed massive solar farms in the Sahara and expansive electrical transmission networks across continents. However, the plan was built on concentrated solar power technology, which is more expensive and less practical than photovoltaics.

Permafrost—soil, rocks, and sand that are held together by ice and remain frozen for at least two consecutive years—covers about 15% of the Northern Hemisphere's land area.

Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon sink on the planet, storing almost twice as much carbon as the atmosphere and all living plants and animals combined.

How melting ice impacts the whole world

Melting glaciers and ice caps are far from where most people live, but their impact can be felt across the planet. Visit four places—the American West, a Himalayan valley, the northern Atlantic, and Texas—with this immersive interactive to see the various impacts of melting ice around the world.

Why the ozone hole altered Southern Hemisphere jet streams and rainfall patterns

Ozone depletion over Antarctica shifted jet streams southward, drying Australia while increasing rainfall in Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. Around the turn of the millennium, these trends began to slow as the Montreal Protocol phased out ozone-depleting substances.

Search for psychrotolerant and psychrophilic microorganisms found in Antarctica

Developed following a five-week expedition to the southern continent, "Life Under the Ice" allows users to examine a petri-dish-like microscopic world and uncover recordings of organisms that can withstand, or even thrive, in the harsh environment.

Instabilities in the polar jet stream can bring cold Arctic air southward

The polar jet stream marks the boundary between mid-latitude air and the much colder polar air, which are normally contained by the polar vortex—a ring of strong winds that circles the Arctic around 16 to 50 kilometers (10 to 30 miles) above the Earth's surface. Climate change may be responsible for "blocking patterns" that distort the jet stream, allowing polar air to leak into lower latitudes.

Mapping how the El Niño-Southern Oscillation affects weather patterns around the world

In the warm episode (El Niño), summers in India, Indonesia, Australia, and the Caribbean are drier than normal, while winters bring wetter, cooler conditions to the US Gulf Coast and warmer conditions to the Pacific Northwest. During the cold episode (La Niña), these are reversed, with India, Indonesia, and the southern Caribbean experiencing greater rainfall in the summers.

Why does it matter that the tundra is melting?

This article explores the tundra's unique environment, where specialized plants and animals thrive despite harsh conditions. One of the most important elements of this ecosystem is permafrost, a layer of permanently frozen soil that many tundra...

Although an estimated 99.999% of the deep ocean has not been explored, techniques such as sonar have been used to identify the deepest known point in each of Earth's five oceans.

Explore an interactive map of global water gaps, caused by human consumption surpassing the rate at which water reserves are replenished by the hydrologic cycle.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

One of the hottest known exoplanets seems to snow an active ingredient of sunscreen, titanium dioxide—but only on the dark side of the planet.

Adapt or freeze: How plants and animals thrive in the Arctic Tundra

This article explores the fascinating ways both animals and plants adapt to survive in Alaska's arctic tundra, an ecosystem marked by its extreme weather. Most tundra plants are perennials with short growing seasons that focus on gathering and...