Science Daily

An international team of scientists has become the first to conduct a study of global peatland extent and carbon stocks through the last interglacial-glacial cycle 130,000 years ago to the present. The team discovered that northern peatland expanded across high latitudes during warm periods and were buried during periods of cooling, or glacial advance.

A new study shows climate change may have contributed to the decline of Cahokia, a famed prehistoric city near present-day St. Louis. And it involves ancient human feces.

Computer modeling shows that marine stratus clouds could disappear if atmospheric CO2 levels climb high enough, raising global temperatures.

The Amazon rainforest has evolved over millions of years and even through ice ages. Yet today, human influences and global climate change put this huge ecosystem at risk of large-scale dieback -- with major consequences for its capability as a global CO2 sink. New research now reveals a key player in shaping the resilience of the Amazon, and finds that regions with generally higher rainfall variability are more resilient to current and future climate disturbances.

Several years ago, an international team of scientists raised sediments from the bottom of Lake Van in eastern Turkey reflecting the past 600,000 years. Soil scientists and paleobotanists have now evaluated the drill cores for residues of early fires -- with surprising findings. The fires did not mainly occur during particularly dry periods as assumed, but in comparatively humid and warm periods.

A major volcanic event could have triggered one of the largest glaciations in Earth's history -- the Gaskiers glaciation, which turned the Earth into a giant snowball approximately 580 million years ago. Researchers have discovered remnants of such a large igneous province that resulted from vast lava flows.

Total human carbon dioxide emissions could match those of Earth's last major greenhouse warming event in fewer than five generations, new research finds. A new study finds humans are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate nine to 10 times higher than the greenhouse gas was emitted during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a global warming event that occurred roughly 56 million years ago.

The ice-covered season plays an important role in the development of river channels, a new study shows. The spatial variability of sediment transport and differences in depositional and erosional locations increase in ice-covered conditions.

Researchers have succeeded in constructing, from scattered data, a world map of the diversity of tree species. Climate plays a central role for its global distribution; however, the number of species in a specific region also depends on the spatial scale of the observation, the researchers report. The new approach could help improve conservation.

A study has revealed what south-east Queensland's rainfall was like over the last 7000 years -- including several severe droughts worse and longer lasting than the 12-year Millennium Drought.

Marine scientists have developed a methodology to assess fish stocks that combines new data with archeological and historical records - some dating back to the 8th Century AD.

Geologic carbon and hydrate reservoirs in the ocean pose a climate threat beyond humanmade greenhouse gases.

The filling and draining of meltwater lakes has been found to cause a floating Antarctic ice shelf to flex, potentially threatening its stability.

In one generation, the climate experienced in many North American cities is projected to change to that of locations hundreds of miles away -- or to a new climate unlike any found in North America today. A new study and interactive web application aim to help the public understand how climate change will impact the lives of people who live in urban areas of the United States and Canada.

Researchers have provided a new estimate for the glacier ice volume all around the world, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Their conclusion: previous calculations overestimated the volume of the glaciers in High Mountain Asia.

A NASA glaciologist has discovered a possible second impact crater buried under more than a mile of ice in northwest Greenland.

A new study on ice cores shows that reductions in sea ice in the Arctic in the period between 30-100,000 years ago led to major climate events. During this period, Greenland temperatures rose by as much as 16 degrees Celsius.

As climate change melts Greenland's glaciers and deposits more river sediment on its shores, an international group of researchers has identified one unforeseen economic opportunity for the Arctic nation: exporting excess sand and gravel abroad, where raw materials for infrastructure are in high demand.

New research reveals that biodiversity 'hotspots' in the tropics produced new species at faster rates over the last 25 million years, but those in temperate regions are instead full of migrant species that likely sought refuge from shifting and cooling climates.

The weather these days is wild and will be wilder still within a century -- in part, because the water from melting ice sheets off Greenland and in the Antarctic will cause extreme weather and unpredictable temperatures around the globe. A new study is the first to simulate the effects, under current climate policies, that the two melting ice sheets will have on ocean temperatures and circulation patterns as well as on air temperatures by the year 2100.