Atmospheric rivers
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow corridors of water vapor that move through the atmosphere and can deliver major rain or snow when they reach land.
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Earth Science Topics
Browse Qlopedia topics grouped under Earth Science.
121 topics, showing 73-96 on page 4 of 6.
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Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration is the combined movement of water from land to the atmosphere through evaporation and plant transpiration. It connects soil moisture, vegetation, irrigation, drought, weather, and climate because it moves both water and energy through landscapes.
Savanna
A savanna is a grass-dominated ecosystem with scattered trees or shrubs, shaped by seasonal rainfall, fire, grazing, soils, and climate. Savannas occur in Africa, South America, Australia, Asia, and other regions, supporting distinctive wildlife, livelihoods, and land-management challenges.
Tundra
Tundra is a cold, mostly treeless biome found in high-latitude Arctic regions and high mountain environments. Short growing seasons, low temperatures, wind, frozen ground, and slow nutrient cycling shape its plants, animals, soils, and vulnerability to climate change.
Albedo
Albedo is the fraction of incoming sunlight that a surface or planet reflects. Bright snow, ice, clouds, deserts, forests, oceans, and cities all reflect and absorb energy differently, making albedo an important part of Earthโ€s energy balance and climate feedbacks.
Monsoon
A monsoon is a seasonal shift in winds and rainfall patterns, driven by changing temperature contrasts between land and ocean. Monsoons bring life-sustaining rain to many regions, but their timing and intensity can also shape floods, drought, agriculture, ecosystems, and public health.
Glaciers
Glaciers are large, long-lasting masses of ice that form from compacted snow and move under their own weight. They store freshwater, carve landscapes, feed rivers, record past climates, and contribute to sea-level rise when they lose more ice than they gain.
Permafrost
Permafrost is ground that remains at or below freezing for at least two consecutive years. It can contain soil, rock, sediment, ice, and ancient organic carbon, making it important for Arctic landscapes, ecosystems, infrastructure, and climate feedbacks.
The phosphorus cycle
The phosphorus cycle is the movement of phosphorus through rocks, soils, water, living organisms, sediments, agriculture, and the ocean. It is slower and less atmospheric than the carbon or nitrogen cycles, but it is vital for DNA, RNA, ATP, cell membranes, crops, and aquatic ecosystems.
The nitrogen cycle
The nitrogen cycle is the movement of nitrogen through air, water, soils, rocks, microbes, plants, animals, and human systems. It explains how an abundant atmospheric element becomes usable by living things and how excess reactive nitrogen can disrupt ecosystems.
Marine snow
Marine snow is the steady fall of tiny organic particles from the sunlit ocean into deeper water, feeding deep-sea life and moving carbon through the ocean.
Thermohaline circulation
Thermohaline circulation is the slow movement of deep ocean water driven by density differences caused mainly by temperature and salinity.
Upwelling
Upwelling is the rise of deeper, colder, often nutrient-rich water toward the ocean surface, where it can fuel plankton growth and productive marine food webs.
Sediment
Sediment is loose material such as sand, silt, clay, gravel, or organic particles that is moved and deposited by water, wind, ice, or gravity.
Coastal erosion
Coastal erosion is the wearing away and movement of shoreline land by waves, currents, storms, sea level rise, and changes in sediment supply.
Groundwater recharge
Groundwater recharge is the process that moves water from the surface through soil and rock into aquifers, helping refill underground water stores.
River delta
A river delta is a low, often branching landform built where a river drops sediment as it slows near a lake, sea, ocean, or other standing water.
Erosion
Erosion is the movement of soil, rock, or sediment by water, wind, ice, waves, or gravity, reshaping landscapes while also creating risks for land and water.
Estuary
An estuary is a sheltered coastal water body where river water and seawater mix, creating productive habitats shaped by tides, runoff, sediment, and salinity.
Floodplain
A floodplain is the low land beside a river or stream that can spread with water during floods, storing water, sediment, nutrients, and risk.
Watershed
A watershed is the land area where water drains toward a shared outlet, linking hillsides, streets, soils, streams, groundwater, and downstream communities.
Wildfire
Wildfire is an unplanned fire burning through vegetation such as forests, grasslands, shrublands, or peat. Fire can be an important ecological process, but severe or fast-moving wildfires can threaten lives, homes, ecosystems, air quality, water supplies, and infrastructure.
Drought
Drought is a period of unusually dry conditions long enough to create water shortages or ecological stress. It can affect soil moisture, crops, rivers, reservoirs, aquifers, ecosystems, energy, public health, and food systems, and it often develops slowly before impacts become obvious.
Aquifers
Aquifers are underground layers of rock or sediment that store and transmit groundwater in usable amounts. They supply wells, springs, rivers, farms, and cities, but they can be depleted or polluted if pumping, recharge, and land use are not managed carefully.