Science Daily

Scientists are using new imaging techniques to measure the atomic nanostructure of ancient crystal fragments at meteorite impact sites. The end goal? To understand when impacts ended and life began.

Research based on more than 180 fossil insects preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles indicate that the climate in what is now southern California has been relatively stable over the past 50,000 years.

Evidence from the age of the dinosaurs to today shows that chemical weathering of rocks is less sensitive to global temperature, and may depend on the steepness of the surface. The results call into question the role of rocks in setting our planet's temperature over millions of years.

In 2013, researchers studying mosses and microbes growing at the southern end of the Antarctic Peninsula documented unprecedented ecological change over the last 50 years, driven by warming temperatures. Now, the same research group has confirmed that those striking changes in the Antarctic are widespread, occurring all across the Peninsula.

Engineers have known for some time that calcium chloride salt, commonly used as deicer, reacts with the calcium hydroxide in concrete to form a chemical byproduct that causes roadways to crumble. A civil engineer is working on a new recipe for concrete, using cast-off products from furnaces, that can hold its own against the forces of chemical erosion.

Temperatures in the Arctic are increasing twice as fast as in the rest of the globe, while the Antarctic is warming at a much slower rate. A new study shows that land height could be a 'game changer' when it comes to explaining why temperatures are rising at such different rates in the two regions.

A Greenland ice core providing a first glimpse at the history of reactive oxidants shows that for big temperature swings in the past 100,000 years, reactive oxidants are actually higher in cold climates. This means that new mechanisms -- not just water vapor, plant and soil emissions -- must affect the concentration of ozone and other oxidants in the atmosphere.

The sediments of Lake Van in Eastern Anatolia (Turkey) are a valuable climate archive. Now, using the salinity measured in sediment porewater, scientists have reconstructed the huge lake-level fluctuations that occurred over the past 250,000 years. This approach – based on simple physical concepts – is likely to be more widely applied in the future.

One million miles from Earth, a NASA camera is capturing unexpected flashes of light reflecting off our planet.

Glaciers around the world are disappearing before our eyes, and the implications for people are wide-ranging and troubling, a glacier expert concludes in a new study.

The higher the seawater temperature in the tropical Pacific, the more likely ice breakup will occur in East Antarctica, according to researchers.

By the second half of this century, rising air temperatures above the Weddell Sea could set off a self-amplifying meltwater feedback cycle under the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, ultimately causing the second-largest ice shelf in the Antarctic to shrink dramatically.

Climate change around Antarctica can severely affect Australia's rainfall and even influence the distribution of wet and dry zones across southeast Asia, an international study has revealed.

The warming climate has dramatically reduced the size of 39 glaciers in Montana since 1966, some by as much as 85 percent. On average, the glaciers have reduced by 39 percent and only 26 glaciers are now larger than 25 acres, which is used as a guideline for deciding if bodies of ice are large enough to be considered glaciers.

New research by chemist has shed new light on ice crystal formation by combining an electron backscatter with a large single crystal ice model. Scientists discovered that an ice crystal's flat sides are formed by a hexagon that is larger and consists of a central water molecule surrounded by six others in the same layer.

African lions are under the same threats extinct sabre-toothed tigers faced.

A warming climate could affect the stability of alpine grasslands in Asia's Tibetan Plateau, threatening the ability of farmers and herders to maintain the animals that are key to their existence, and potentially upsetting the ecology of an area in which important regional river systems originate, says a new study.

Scientists have now discovered an active hydrological system of water conduits and sediment ridges below the Antarctic ice sheet.

One of the robust features of global warming under increasing greenhouse gas concentrations is that different places warm at different paces. It turns out that the fast warming in each region has its own cause. Ocean heat transport links subpolar and Arctic warming, but that is not the whole story.

Scientists have known for over a decade that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass and contributing to sea level rise.