This Was the Decade We Knew We Were Right
Everything is connected, and everything is changing
Stories by Kate Marvel
Kate Marvel is a climate scientist at Columbia University and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. She received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge and has worked at Stanford University, the Carnegie Institution and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Her writing has appeared in Scientific American, the On Being podcast and Nautilus magazine. Marvel has given talks in places as diverse as comedy clubs, prisons and the TED main stage.
Shut Up, Franzen
Climate change is real, and things will get worse. But because we understand the driver of potential doom, it’s a choice, not a foregone conclusion
The Three Little Pigs and Climate Change
A fable for our time
Lost Cities and Climate Change
Some people say “the climate has changed before,” as though that should be reassuring. It’s not
Creeping toward Permanent Drought
Both trees and climate models are telling us the same frightening story
Global Warming: How Hot, Exactly, Is It Going to Get?
The latest climate models are giving disturbing answers
Deep Time
Dead things, bubbles in ice cores, layers of sediment: together, they testify to the power of the atmosphere to change Earth
Hollywood: Can You Get Climate Change Right for Once?
During Oscar season, it's good to take note that if we only see climate in apocalyptic terms, we miss stories that are more compelling and more realistic
Thinking about Climate on a Dark, Dismal Morning
Hope is the knowledge that we can prevent bad things—but also the realization that we might choose not to
How Should You Talk to Policymakers about Climate Change?
Nobody knows for sure what the most effective strategy is, but I have a few ideas
A Thanksgiving Meditation in the Face of a Changing Climate
I feel grief, guilt, anger, determination, hope and sadness all at the same time. But what I feel more than anything is gratitude for what we have
Who Needs Halloween?
Climate change will bring plenty of tricks and very few treats
Slaying the Climate Dragon
A fairy tale whose ending, still unwritten, is by no means guaranteed to be happy
The People Who Could Have Done Science Didn't
Because they were women, and they were told, at every stage, that they weren’t good enough. It was a lie
Don't Be Fooled: Weather Is Not Climate
But climate affects weather
The Truth Sometimes Hurts
We scientists need help to communicate in a post-truth world
Climate Change: We're Not Literally Doomed, but...
…there’s space for action between “everything is fine” and “the apocalypse is upon us”
Open-and-Shut Case
The climate is changing, there are fingerprints all over the scene, and we know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that humans are mostly responsible
Adapting to Climate Change Will Take More Than Just Seawalls and Levees
Our government’s unconscionable policies are a scary precedent
Why I Won't Debate Science
Once you put established facts about the world up for argument, you’ve already lost
Welcome to Scientific American's New Climate Science Column
It’s about this beautiful, messy, funny, tragic planet and the terrible, wonderful humans who live here
Will Changing Cloud Cover Accelerate Global Warming?
Scientists are beginning to understand whether changing cloud cover will accelerate global warming or slow it down