Science Daily

West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier have been undergoing rapid changes, with potentially major consequences for rising sea levels. However, the processes that underlie these changes and their impact on these ice sheets have not been fully charted. One of these processes has now been described in detail: the emergence and development of damage/cracks in part of the glaciers and how this process reinforces itself.

The fast-warming Arctic has started to transition from a predominantly frozen state into an entirely different climate with significantly less sea ice, warmer temperatures, and more rain, according to a comprehensive new study of Arctic conditions.

Scientists have compiled a continuous, high-fidelity record of variations in Earth's climate extending 66 million years into the past. The record reveals four distinctive climate states, which the researchers dubbed Hothouse, Warmhouse, Coolhouse, and Icehouse. These major climate states persisted for millions and sometimes tens of millions of years, and within each one the climate shows rhythmic variations corresponding to changes in Earth's orbit around the sun.

Human impact can explain ninety-six percent of all mammal species extinctions of the last hundred thousand years, according to a new study.

Newly discovered deep seabed channels beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica may be the pathway for warm ocean water to melt the underside of the ice. Data from two research missions, using aircraft and ship, are helping scientists to understand the contribution this huge and remote glacier is likely to make to future global sea level rise.

Ancient hunters stayed in the coldest part of Northern Europe rather than migrating to escape freezing winter conditions, archaeologists have found.

A researcher developed a mathematical method that shows climate change likely caused the rise and fall of an ancient civilization. A new article outlines the technique he developed and shows how shifting monsoon patterns led to the demise of the Indus Valley Civilization, a Bronze Age civilization contemporary to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.

Through the analysis of vegetation from a Bering Sea island, researchers have determined that the extent of sea ice in the region is lower than it's been for thousands of years.

Scientists studying life on the surface of glaciers in the Arctic and Alps challenge assumptions on virus evolution. Their study shows that, contrary to expectations, the viruses on glaciers in the Alps, Greenland and Spitsbergen are remarkably stable in the environment.

Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica whose melting rates are rapidly increasing have raised the global sea level by 1.8cm since the 1990s, and are matching the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst-case climate warming scenarios.

Climate change occurring shortly before their disappearance triggered a complex change in the behavior of late Neanderthals in Europe: they developed more complex tools, suggests new research.

A new study finds that the success rate of summiting Mount Everest has doubled in the last three decades, even though the number of climbers has greatly increased, crowding the narrow route through the dangerous 'death zone' near the summit. However, the death rate for climbers has hovered unchanged at around 1% since 1990.

Scientists have nailed down the temperature of the last ice age -- the Last Glacial Maximum of 20,000 years ago - to about 46 degrees Fahrenheit.

A new study says that many of the ice shelves ringing Antarctica could be vulnerable to quick destruction if rising temperatures drive melt water into the numerous fractures that currently penetrate their surfaces. The shelves help slow interior glaciers' slide toward the ocean, so if they were to fail, sea levels around the world could surge rapidly as a result.

Arctic sea ice is melting more quickly than once assumed. Today's climate models have yet to incorporate the steep rise in temperatures that have occurred over the past 40 years.

Black carbon from fires is an important short-term climate driver because it can affect the formation and composition of clouds. Scientists are figuring out how.

Reduced resilience of plant biomes in North America could be setting the stage for the kind of mass extinctions not seen since the retreat of glaciers and arrival of humans about 13,000 years ago, cautions a new study.

Ice is melting at a surprisingly fast rate underneath Shirase Glacier Tongue in East Antarctica due to the continuing influx of warm seawater into the Lützow-Holm Bay.

The eastern Arctic Ocean's winter ice grew less than half as much as normal during the past decade, due to the growing influence of heat from the ocean's interior, researchers have found.

By creating conditions akin to the center of Earth inside a laboratory chamber, researchers have improved the estimate of the age of our planet's solid inner core, putting it at 1 billion to 1.3 billion years old.