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Read science articles on the ice age, glaciation and climatology. Discover the connection between ice ages and global warming.
Updated: 1 hour 52 min ago

Newly discovered fossil, likely subaqueous insect

Wed, 01/27/2021 - 08:32
A newly discovered trace fossil of an ancient burrow has been discovered. The fossil has an important role to play in gauging how salty ancient bodies of water were, putting together a clearer picture of our planet's past.

Increasing ocean temperature threatens Greenland's ice sheet

Mon, 01/25/2021 - 18:18
Scientists have for the first time quantified how warming coastal waters are impacting individual glaciers in Greenland's fjords. Their work can help climate scientists better predict global sea level rise from the increased melting.

Climate change in antiquity: Mass emigration due to water scarcity

Mon, 01/25/2021 - 10:31
The absence of monsoon rains at the source of the Nile was the cause of migrations and the demise of entire settlements in the late Roman province of Egypt. This demographic development has been compared with environmental data for the first time by professor of ancient history, leading to a discovery of climate change and its consequences.

Global ice loss increases at record rate

Mon, 01/25/2021 - 08:43
The rate at which ice is disappearing across the planet is speeding up, according to new research. And the findings also reveal that the Earth lost 28 trillion tons of ice between 1994 and 2017 - equivalent to a sheet of ice 100 meters thick covering the whole of the UK.

Microbes fuelled by wind-blown mineral dust melt the Greenland ice sheet

Mon, 01/25/2021 - 08:43
Scientists have identified a key nutrient source used by algae living on melting ice surfaces linked to rising sea levels. They discovered that phosphorus containing minerals may be driving ever-larger algal blooms on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Paleoclimate study of precipitation and sea ice in Arctic Alaska

Mon, 01/25/2021 - 08:43
A new study in Arctic Alaska has investigated sea ice dynamics and their impact on circulation and precipitation patterns in Arctic Alaska on a long-term basis.

Climate and carbon cycle trends of the past 50 million years reconciled

Fri, 01/22/2021 - 13:06
Oceanographers fully reconciled climate and carbon cycle trends of the past 50 million years -- solving a controversy debated in the scientific literature for decades.

Geoscientists reconstruct 6.5 million years of sea level stands in the Western Mediterranean

Fri, 01/22/2021 - 07:50
The geological features in caves from Mallorca provide scientific insights for understanding modern-day sea level changes.

Rocks show Mars once felt like Iceland

Thu, 01/21/2021 - 12:19
A comparison of chemical and climate weathering of sedimentary rock in Mars' Gale Crater indicate the region's mean temperature billions of years ago was akin to current conditions on Iceland.

Antarctica: The ocean cools at the surface but warms up at depth

Thu, 01/21/2021 - 12:18
Scientists have concluded that the slight cooling observed at the surface of the Southern Ocean hides a rapid and marked warming of the waters, to a depth of up to 800 meters. These results were obtained thanks to unique data acquired over the past 25 years.

Scientists discover how the potentially oldest coral reefs in the Mediterranean developed

Thu, 01/21/2021 - 12:17
A new study brings unprecedented insights into the environmental constraints and climatic events that controlled the formation of the potentially oldest coral reefs in the Mediterranean.

2020 tied for warmest year on record, NASA analysis shows

Fri, 01/15/2021 - 09:30
Earth's global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, according to an analysis by NASA.

Greenland melting likely increased by bacteria in sediment

Thu, 01/14/2021 - 15:38
Bacteria are likely triggering greater melting on the Greenland ice sheet, possibly increasing the island's contribution to sea-level rise, according to scientists. That's because the microbes cause sunlight-absorbing sediment to clump together and accumulate in the meltwater streams, according to new study. The findings can be incorporated in climate models, leading to more accurate predictions of melting, scientists say.

Accounting for the gaps in ancient food webs

Thu, 01/14/2021 - 12:01
Studying ancient food webs can help scientists reconstruct communities of species, many long extinct, and even use those insights to figure out how modern-day communities might change in the future. There's just one problem: only some species left enough of a trace for scientists to find eons later, leaving large gaps in the fossil record -- and researchers' ability to piece together the food webs from the past.

Wetland methane cycling increased during ancient global warming event

Wed, 01/13/2021 - 11:07
Wetland methane cycling increased during a rapid global warming event 56 million years ago and could foreshadow changes the methane cycle will experience in the future, according to new research.

Northern lakes at risk of losing ice cover permanently, impacting drinking water

Wed, 01/13/2021 - 11:07
Close to 5,700 lakes in the Northern Hemisphere may permanently lose ice cover this century, 179 of them in the next decade, at current greenhouse gas emissions, despite a possible polar vortex this year, researchers have found. Those lakes include large bays in some of the deepest of the Great Lakes, such as Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, which could permanently become ice free by 2055.

Red and green snow algae increase snowmelt in the Antarctic Peninsula

Wed, 01/13/2021 - 11:06
Red and green algae that grow on snow in the Antarctic Peninsula cause significant extra snowmelt on par with melt from dust on snow in the Rocky Mountains, according to a first-of-its-kind scientific research study. This could have serious impacts on regional climate, snow and ice melt, freshwater availability and ecosystems, yet is not accounted for in current global climate models.

Melting icebergs key to sequence of an ice age

Wed, 01/13/2021 - 11:06
Scientists claim to have found the 'missing link' in the process that leads to an ice age on Earth.

A bucket of water can reveal climate change impacts on marine life in the Arctic

Tue, 01/12/2021 - 10:01
We know very little about marine life in the Arctic. Now researchers are trying to change that. They have shown that a simple water sample makes it possible to monitor the presence, migration patterns and genetic diversity of bowhead whales in an otherwise hard-to-reach area. The method can be used to understand how climate changes and human activities impact life in the oceans.

New study of Earth's crust shows global growth spurt three billion years ago

Tue, 01/12/2021 - 07:54
Researchers have used ancient crystals from eroded rocks found in stream sediments in Greenland to successfully test the theory that portions of Earth's ancient crust acted as 'seeds' from which later generations of crust grew.

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