Feed aggregator

It's called ArcCI (or Arctic CyberInfrastructure) and promises to combine the thousands of images that have been taken along the years of the Arctic Ocean into one global database that will help scientists and the world see the physical changes occurring in the region including ice loss. The hope is that this web-based repository will allow researchers to spend more time analyzing information rather than just collecting and processing data.

A new study could help us understand how our planet was formed. Scientists report that their research shows that Earth's inner core is solid -- a finding made possible by a new method for detecting shear waves, or 'J waves' in the inner core.

In an extensive and rigorous study of animal life on the Central Arctic Ocean floor, researchers have shown that water depth and food availability influence the species composition, density, and biomass of benthic communities.

Scientists have now identified a key mechanism, which they call the 'ice-ocean governor,' that controls how fast the Beaufort Gyre spins and how much fresh water it stores. Researchers report that the Arctic's ice cover essentially sets a speed limit on the gyre's spin.

Winds blowing across snow dunes on Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf cause the massive ice slab's surface to vibrate, producing a near-constant set of seismic 'tones' scientists could potentially use to monitor changes in the ice shelf from afar, according to new research.

Climatologists may be unable to accurately predict regional climate change over the North Atlantic because computer simulations have failed to include real data from the Greenland region over the last three decades -- and it could lead to regional climate predictions for the UK and parts of Europe being inaccurate.

A new study reveals phytoplankton spring blooms in the Arctic Ocean, which were previously nonexistent, are expanding northward at a rate of one degree of latitude per decade. Although blooms did not previously occur in this area, phytoplankton were present in the Arctic's central basin at low biomass. The study also found the primary productivity of the phytoplankton, or the rate at which phytoplankton convert sunlight into chemical energy, is increasing during the spring blooms.

A new method for observing water within ice has revealed stored meltwater that may explain the complex flow behavior of some Greenland glaciers, an important component for predicting sea-level rise in a changing climate.

Century-scale climate variability was enhanced when the Earth was warmer during the Last Interglacial period (129,000-116,000 years ago) compared to the current interglacial (the last 11,700 years), according to a new study.

The classic account of the ancient city of Koh Ker is one of a briefly-occupied and abruptly-abandoned region, but in reality, the area may have been occupied for several centuries beyond what is traditionally acknowledged, according to a new study.

Poleward transport of warm, moist, and dust-laden air masses from the Sahara Desert results in ice melting in southeast Greenland, scientists have found.

The story of human presence on Earth can be told by studying the sediment and soil accumulation of these chemical compounds in human feces.

A new study found that while dead whales are valuable sources of fat and protein for some polar bears, this resource will likely not be enough to sustain most bear populations in the future when the Arctic becomes ice-free in summers.

Antarctica's sandy polar desert, the McMurdo Dry Valleys, has undergone changes over the past decade and the recent discovery of thawing permafrost, thinning glaciers and melting ground ice by a research team are signs that rapid and widespread change could be on the horizon.

Evidence of a variable but progressively drying climate coincides with a major shift in stone-tool-making abilities and the appearance of modern Homo sapiens. Sediment cores obtained by the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project provide the first continuous environmental context for the diverse archeological evidence recovered from nearby localities in the East African rift valley.

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, according to the latest report from the world's leading body of climate change experts.

Scientists were able to record a sudden outburst of a glacial lake with seismometers deployed the year before in the wake of the catastrophic Ghorka earthquake in April 2015. The authors of a new study argue that such major flood events have a greater impact on erosion rates than the annual monsoon rainfalls. The reason is that the water masses mobilize large boulders and coarse sediment which usually protect the riverbed.

The Industrial Revolution brought about many things: the steam engine, the factory system, mass production. But not, apparently, more wildfires. Actually, the opposite. A new study finds that emissions from fire activity were significantly greater in the preindustrial era, which began around 1750, than previously thought. As a result, scientists have underestimated the cooling effect the aerosol particles produced by these fires had on the past climate.

Arctic sea ice likely reached its 2018 lowest extent on Sept. 19 and again on Sept. 23, 2018. Analysis of satellite data showed that, at 1.77 million square miles (4.59 million square kilometers), 2018 effectively tied with 2008 and 2010 for the sixth lowest summertime minimum extent in the satellite record.

Stronger efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions should be undertaken to avoid global warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius -- without relying on potentially more expensive or risky technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's surface.