Science Daily

Glaciers extending into freshwater lakes can form long, submerged terraces that menacingly rise above the surface when icy chunks fall into the water.

The dramatic loss of ice in the Arctic is influencing sea-ice transport across the Arctic Ocean. Today only 20 percent of the sea ice that forms in the shallow Russian marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean actually reaches the Central Arctic, where it joins the Transpolar Drift; the remaining 80 percent of the young ice melts before it has a chance to leave its 'nursery.'

Researchers provide first conclusive evidence linking widespread ocean oxygen loss and rising sea levels to a 430-million-year-old mass extinction event.

According to new research, changes similar to those after the ice age 10,000 years ago could be in store today because a warming Arctic weakens the temperature difference between the tropics and the poles. This, in turn, results in less precipitation, weaker cyclones and weaker mid-latitude westerly wind flow -- a recipe for prolonged drought.

In a first-ever study of two of the largest deep earthquakes ever recorded in human history, researchers reveal new and surprising information about our planet's mysterious, ever-changing interior.

NASA research shows that Jakobshavn Glacier, which has been Greenland's fastest-flowing and fastest-thinning glacier for the last 20 years, has made an unexpected about-face. The glacier is still adding to global sea level rise, but at a slower rate.

Scientists have generated significant findings that highlight the impact of high-latitude dusts on the conversion of clouds' water droplets to ice -- or glaciation -- within low-level clouds in the Arctic region. These results contribute to a better understanding of factors at the land surface and how they affect cloud formations.

A new study reveals the importance of a small number of intense storms around Antarctica in controlling the amount of snow falling across the continent.

Researchers have analyzed information contained in the rings of ancient pine trees from northern Scandinavia to reveal how clouds have reduced the impact of natural phases of warmth in the past and are doing so again now to moderate the warming caused by anthropogenic climate change.

Glaciers that drain ice sheets such as Antarctica or Greenland often flow into the ocean, ending in near-vertical cliffs. As the glacier flows into the sea, chunks of the ice break off in calving events. Although much calving occurs when the ocean melts the front of the ice, and ice cliff above falls down, a new study presents another method of calving: slumping. And this process could break off much larger chunks of ice at a quicker rate.

Remote communities in the Peruvian Andes, as well as communities downstream, depend on the water from melting glaciers and mountain ecosystems to provide them with food and power, and to support industry.

A scientific study describes for the first time the submarine cartography of a high-latitude system in the IBIS channel, which covers tens of kilometers in the northern western area of the Barents Sea, in the Arctic Ocean. This channel is one of the few submarine valleys in polar latitudes that kept its geological architecture during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

Sea ice in the Arctic appears to have hit its annual maximum extent after growing through the fall and winter. The 2019 wintertime extent reached on March 13 ties with 2007's as the 7th smallest extent of winter sea ice in the satellite record, according to scientists.

'Surprisingly, we found that biotic, or living, interactions are crucial in shaping biodiversity patterns even in the extreme ecosystems of the Antarctic Dry Valleys.'

Americans are most comfortable when their indoor climate is like the northeast African outdoors -- warm and relatively dry.

In the Atlantic Ocean, a giant 'conveyor belt' carries warm waters from the tropics into the North Atlantic, where they cool and sink and then return southwards in the deep ocean. This circulation pattern is an important player in the global climate. Evidence increasingly suggests that this system is slowing down, and some scientists fear it could have major effects. A new study provides insight into how quickly such changes could take effect if the system continues weakening.

Inuit communities' travel skills and regional knowledge have helped mitigate the effects of Arctic climate change on travel conditions, according to a new study.

For the entire history of our species, humans have lived on a planet capped by a chunk of ice at each pole. But Earth has been ice-free for about 75 percent of the time since complex life first appeared. This variation in background climate, between partly glaciated and ice-free, has puzzled geologists for decades.

Over the last 540 million years, the Earth has weathered three major ice ages -- periods during which global temperatures plummeted, producing extensive ice sheets and glaciers that have stretched beyond the polar caps. Now scientists have identified the likely trigger for these ice ages.

When geologists set out years ago to examine signs of a major cosmic impact that occurred toward the end of the Pleistocene epoch, little did they know just how far-reaching the projected climatic effect would be.