Science Daily

Every school child knows that ice melts in the summer and freezes in the winter. But it turns out that the process isn’t that simple in the Arctic, where one type of sea ice structure, called an ice ridge, can actually get stronger in the summer due to melting.

Scientists examining naturally occurring uranium levels in ancient deep sea corals have discovered new insights into how the major northern ice sheets retreated during the last major deglaciation on Earth.

Carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere passed a troubling milestone for good this summer and locked in levels of the heat-trapping gas not seen for millions of years.

The ocean circulation that is responsible for England's mild climate appears to be slowing down. The shift is not sudden or dramatic, as in the 2004 sci-fi movie "The Day After Tomorrow," but it is a real effect that has consequences for the climates of eastern North America and Western Europe.

New research shows that the longest and highest-quality records of historical ocean water levels may underestimate the amount of global average sea level rise that occurred during the 20th century.

Researchers have compiled 30 years of data to construct the first ice core-based record of atmospheric oxygen concentrations spanning the past 800,000 years. The record shows that atmospheric oxygen has declined 0.7 percent relative to current atmospheric-oxygen concentrations, a reasonable pace by geological standards, the researchers said. During the past 100 years, however, atmospheric oxygen has declined by a comparatively speedy 0.1 percent because of the burning of fossil fuels, which consumes oxygen and produces carbon dioxide.

Earlier recent work has shown that the east, southeast and northwest regions of the Greenland ice sheet have contributed to 77% of the total mass loss over the last century. Now, researchers have used GPS data to show that the east, southeast and northwest also contributed significantly to ice mass loss in the past, over thousands of years: about 40% of the total loss of ice mass.

By analyzing ice cores drilled from deep inside the Greenland ice sheet, researchers have started to calculate how much Arctic sea ice there was in the past.

A shift in westerly winds, which has led to climate impacts in Australia and the Southern Ocean, is human-induced, new research suggests. To date, limited data on Antarctic climate has meant that it’s been difficult to disentangle changes caused by human activity from natural fluctuations.

New research shows that human pollution of the atmosphere with acid is now almost back to the level that it was before the pollution started with industrialization in the 1930s. The results come from studies of the Greenland ice sheet.

A new study on the Greenland Ice Sheet provides valuable insight on climate change, using unique research methods to establish new estimates of ice loss for both modern and ancient times, says geologists.

In the late summer of 2016, a field team monitored Caspian tern chicks through to fledging in Cape Krusenstern National Monument in Alaska. This discovery of Caspian terns breeding above the Arctic Circle in the Chukchi Sea is nearly 1,000 miles farther north than previously recorded – a strikingly large jump in the range of nesting for this (or any) species.

By adding highly accurate radiocarbon dating of soil to standard Earth system models, environmental scientists have learned a dirty little secret: The ground will absorb far less atmospheric carbon dioxide this century than previously thought.

The same hotspot in Earth's mantle that feeds Iceland's active volcanoes has been affecting scientists' calculations of ice loss in the Greenland ice sheet, causing them to underestimate the melting by about 20 gigatons (20 billion metric tons) per year.

Tiny ocean fossils distributed widely across rock surfaces in the Transantarctic Mountains point to the potential for a substantial rise in global sea levels under conditions of continued global warming, according to a new study. The study indicates the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) has a history of instability during ancient warm periods and could be vulnerable to significant retreat and partial collapse induced by future climate change.

Experts have established two new world records for the longest reported distance and the longest reported duration for a single lightning flash in, respectively, Oklahoma (United States of America) and southern France. The lightning flash over Oklahoma in 2007 covered a horizontal distance of 321 kilometers (199.5 miles). The lightning event over southern France in 2012 lasted continuously for 7.74 seconds.

Severe hurricanes, storm surges and an increase in the number of icebergs are just some of the changes planet Earth has experienced due to warming oceans over the last 20 years, according to a new report.

New research illuminates where and why novel species combinations are likely to emerge due to recent changes in temperature and precipitation.

The Arctic is nearing its seasonal sea ice minimum this month, but predicting exactly when the region will see its first ice-free summer may be more difficult than previously believed, according to the results of new research.

The Arctic's ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent on September 10, 2016, according to scientists. Arctic sea ice extent on that day stood at 4.14 million square kilometers (1.60 million square miles), statistically tied at second lowest in the satellite record with the 2007 minimum.