Science Capsules

Beyond roughly ten days, forecasts stop being predictions and start being guesses, and the causes cut deep. The reasons here range from tiny errors snowballing through chaotic turbulence, to the limits of models and measurements, to ensemble techniques that squeeze out a little more range, with real hurricane data marking the wall. Knowing why the limit exists tells you exactly how much trust a long-range forecast deserves.

Ice sheets, ocean currents, and cloud physics could shift Earth's climate faster than the smooth curves in most projections. The findings diverge on how close those tipping points are, how much to trust the models that predict them, and how finance and policy should price risks that arrive suddenly rather than gradually. What you take from them shapes how urgent, and how hedged, you think climate decisions need to be.