Science Daily

In roughly 200 million years, the continents will once again unite into a supercontinent. A new study explores how the next Pangea could affect the global climate.

The frozen permafrost in the Arctic is thawing on an alarming scale. By analyzing an annual record of satellite images, researchers have now confirmed these findings: thermokarst lakes in Alaska are draining one by one because warmer and wetter conditions cause deeper thaw, effectively weakening frozen ground as a barrier around lakes. In the season 2017/2018, lake drainage was observed on a scale that scientists didn't expect until the end of the century.

A new study looking at seven centuries of water flow in south Asia's mighty Brahmaputra River suggests that scientists are underestimating the river's potential for catastrophic flooding as climate warms.

By analyzing sediment cores taken from six sites in southern Greece, an international team of researchers identified trends in cereal, olive, and vine pollen indicating structural changes in agricultural production between 1000 BCE and 600 CE. The researchers combine varying fields of scientific research to provide evidence for a market economy in ancient Greece characterized by integrated agricultural production and a major expansion of trade.

As temperatures rise due to climate change, the melting of polar ice sheets is accelerating. An international team of scientists has now examined the dynamics of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet more closely using deep-sea sediments dating back approximately 2.5 million years. Their results indicate that, in a constantly warming climate, the ice masses of East Antarctica could be much less stable than previously thought.

Innovative molecular techniques explain how corals on the east coast of Australia survived previous tough conditions--enabling the Great Barrier Reef to become the vast reef it is today. Scientists mapped the rise and fall of two coral populations on the reef, tracking which genes rapidly evolved to endure changing conditions, while measuring the flow of genes between locations.

Over the past 40,000 years, ice sheets thousands of kilometers apart have influenced one another through sea level changes, according to new research. New modelling of ice sheet changes during the most recent glacial cycle demonstrates, for the first time, that during this period, changes in the Antarctic ice sheet were driven by the melting ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere.

Trace elements such as iron and zinc are essential micronutrients for all kinds of organisms. Below ice sheets, which cover around ten percent of the Earth's land surface, larger quantities of these substances are mobilised than previously assumed. This is shown by new data from Greenland and Antarctica, which were collected and analysed by an international research team.

Weather systems responsible for transporting moisture from the tropics to temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere have been gradually shifting toward the South Pole for the past 40 years, a trend which could lead to increased rates of ice melt in Antarctica, according to new research.

Global warming already affects Siberian primrose, a plant species that is threatened in Finland and Norway. According to a recently completed study, individuals of Siberian primrose originating in the Finnish coast on the Bothnian Bay currently fare better in northern Norway than in their home area. The results indicate that the species may not be able to adapt to quickly progressing climate change, which could potentially lead to its extinction.

Researchers have shared new insights into melting icebergs and lake ice formation.

The impact of sea surface temperature variations in the tropical Pacific on global climate has long been recognized. For instance, the episodic warming of the tropical Pacific during El Niño events causes melt of sea ice in far-reaching parts of the Southern Ocean via its effect on the global atmospheric circulation. A new study demonstrates that the opposite pathway exists as well.

The largest freshwater bacterium, Achromatium oxaliferum, is highly flexible in its requirements, as researchers have now discovered: It lives in places that differ extremely in environmental conditions such as hot springs and ice water. The adaptation is probably achieved by a process which is unique to these bacteria: only relevant genes are enriched in the genomes and transcribed, while others are archived in cell compartments.

As winters become milder and lake ice less stable, more children and young adults are falling through the ice and fatally drowning, say researchers. A new study, which looked at 4,000 drownings in 10 countries, including Canada, Russia, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and the United States, found warming winter air temperatures were a good predictor of the number of drownings.

Scientists recently published a study that could help researchers learn where protections are needed the most for bowhead whales.

An expedition finds that holes in the Greenland ice sheet, called moulins, are much larger than previously thought.

New research reveals that tropical cyclones were actually more frequent in the southern Marshall Islands during the Little Ice Age, when temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were cooler than they are today. This means that changes in atmospheric circulation, driven by differential ocean warming, heavily influence the location and intensity of tropical cyclones.

Scientists noted that the slope on Barry Arm fjord on Prince William Sound in southeastern Alaska slid some 120 meters from 2010 to 2017, a slow-moving landslide caused by glacial melt that could trigger a devastating tsunami. These are some of the first measurements to quantify how the slope is falling there; the study also models a potential tsunami.

Computational models suggest that melting water originating in the deep interior of Greenland could flow the entire length of a subglacial valley and exit at Petermann Fjord, along the northern coast of the island. Updating ice sheet models with this open valley could provide additional insight for future climate change predictions.

Researchers studying the Bering and Chukchi seas for three weeks in October found no ice and a surprisingly active ecosystem as they added another year's data to a key climate change record.