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Exopolymeric substances
Exopolymeric substances (EPS) are organic polymers, mostly polysaccharides and proteins, excreted by microbes such as bacteria and phytoplankton, binding marine snow aggregates and driving biofilm fouling.
Experimental Lakes Area
The Experimental Lakes Area is a research region of 58 small lakes in northwestern Ontario, Canada, set aside in 1968, where scientists manipulate entire lake ecosystems to study pollution.
Explosive cyclogenesis
Explosive cyclogenesis, sometimes called bombogenesis, is the rapid deepening of an extratropical cyclone; the resulting storm is colloquially called a bomb cyclone, with hurricane-force winds.
Export production
Export production (EP) is the organic carbon produced in the ocean's sunlit surface layer that sinks toward the deep ocean, linking photosynthesis to the biological carbon pump.
Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralized international climate movement founded in the United Kingdom in 2018 that uses nonviolent mass civil disobedience to demand government action on climate change.
Extinction risk from climate change
Extinction risk from climate change, also known as species extinction from global warming, is the likelihood that a changing climate drives species or ecosystems extinct, projected to rise steeply with warming.
Extratropical cyclone
An extratropical cyclone, also called a mid-latitude or frontal cyclone, is a low-pressure storm system driven by horizontal temperature contrasts, and it brings most fall-to-spring weather in temperate zones.
Extratropical transition
Extratropical transition (ET) is the gradual process by which a tropical cyclone at higher latitudes becomes an extratropical cyclone, its energy shifting from latent heat to temperature contrasts, often while retaining strong winds.
Extreme Cold
Extreme cold: temperatures far below local historical averages that endanger people, animals, and infrastructure. Driven by polar vortex and cold air damming; causes hypothermia below 95°F and frostbite; higher mortality risk than extreme heat.
Extreme event attribution
Extreme event attribution, also called attribution science, is the field of climate science that quantifies how human-caused climate change altered the likelihood or intensity of specific extreme weather events.
Extreme weather
Extreme weather is weather that is rare at a particular place and time of year, including heat waves, cold snaps, droughts, heavy rainfall, and tropical cyclones. Climate change makes hot extremes more frequent.
Eye (cyclone)
The eye of a cyclone is the calm, often clear center of a tropical cyclone, with light winds and the storm's lowest pressure, surrounded by the eyewall.
Eyewall
The eyewall is the ring of cumulonimbus clouds surrounding the eye of a tropical cyclone, typically 5 to 25 nautical miles wide and containing the storm's strongest winds.
Eyewall replacement cycle
An eyewall replacement cycle, also called a concentric eyewall cycle, is when an outer ring of thunderstorms in an intense hurricane starves and replaces the original eyewall.
f-ratio (oceanography)
The f-ratio is a dimensionless index in biological oceanography, the fraction of phytoplankton production fueled by nitrate rather than recycled ammonium, introduced by Dugdale and Goering in 1967.
Facies
Facies, a term coined by Swiss geologist Amanz Gressly in 1838, is a body of rock with distinctive observable characteristics reflecting the environment in which it formed.
Facies analysis
Facies analysis is the sedimentological method of describing rock units, called facies, by their physical, chemical, and biological features to reconstruct the depositional environments that formed them, a method applied in fossil fuel exploration.
Faille
Faille is a ribbed woven fabric, typically light silk; the French word also denotes a geological fault along which rock blocks move, as in earthquakes or creep.
Faint young Sun paradox
The faint young Sun paradox is the conflict between a Sun 20 to 25% fainter on early Earth and geological evidence that liquid water existed.
Falkland Islands oil
Falkland Islands oil refers to offshore petroleum resources around the Falkland Islands, where the Sea Lion field, discovered in 2010, is set to produce first oil in 2028.
Fallstreak hole
A fallstreak hole, also called a hole punch cloud or skypunch, is a large circular gap in a thin cloud layer of supercooled droplets, usually triggered by aircraft.
Fast ice
Fast ice, also called landfast ice, is sea ice fixed along the coast to shore, shoals, or grounded icebergs, covering about 1.8 million km² of the Arctic in winter.
Fault (geology)
A fault is a fracture in rock along which the two sides have moved relative to each other, and it is the primary source of earthquakes.
Fault scarp
A fault scarp is a step in the ground surface caused by slip on a fault, formed when earthquake rupture breaks through to the surface, and serves as primary evidence of past earthquakes.
Fayalite
Fayalite is the iron-rich end-member of the olivine group of nesosilicate minerals, with formula Fe₂SiO₄, forming a solid-solution series with forsterite that defines natural olivine.
February 13–17, 2021, North American winter storm
Winter Storm Uri, a February 2021 winter storm and Arctic outbreak, brought record cold and snow to the central United States and collapsed the Texas power grid.
February 2006 North American blizzard
The February 2006 North American blizzard was a powerful nor'easter that moved up the East Coast on February 11 and 12, 2006, setting New York City's record snowfall of 26.9 inches.
February 2007 North American blizzard
The February 2007 North American blizzard was a major winter storm that crossed the United States from February 12 to 14, 2007, causing at least 15 deaths.
February 2013 North American blizzard
The February 2013 North American blizzard, also known as Winter Storm Nemo, buried the northeastern United States under up to 40 inches of snow on February 8 and 9, 2013.
February 2026 North American blizzard
The February 2026 North American blizzard, or Winter Storm Hernando, comprised two severe storms, including the Blizzard of 2026 that gave Providence its largest snowstorm on record.