Science Daily

Glaciologists have uncovered large valleys in the ocean floor beneath some of the massive glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica. Carved by earlier advances of ice during colder periods, the troughs enable warm, salty water to reach the undersides of glaciers, fueling their increasingly rapid retreat.

A new model reconstruction shows in exceptional detail the evolution of the Eurasian ice sheet during the last ice age. This can help scientists understand how climate and ocean warming can affect the remaining ice masses on Earth.

A new model reconstruction shows in exceptional detail the evolution of the Eurasian ice sheet during the last ice age. This can help scientists understand how climate and ocean warming can effect the remaining ice masses on Earth.

An international team of researchers has identified the genetic mutations which allowed microalgae (phytoplankton) from the Southern Ocean to adapt to extreme and highly variable climates -- a step towards understanding how polar organisms are impacted by climate change.

In the Antarctic Ocean, large populations of the diatom Fragillariopsis cylindrus dominate the phytoplankton communities. To learn more about how F. cylindrus adapted to its extremely cold environment, a team of researchers conducted a comparative genomic analysis involving three diatoms. The results provided insights into the genome structure and evolution of F. cylindrus, as well as this diatom's role in the Southern Ocean.

A new study provides important details on the extent of sea ice, which can protect ice shelves from the impacts of ocean storms, in the Antarctic Peninsula.

Climate scientists now reconstructed how tiny droplets of sulfuric acid formed high up in the air after the well-known impact of a large asteroid and blocking the sunlight for several years, had a profound influence on life on Earth.

Scientific efforts are aimed at learning more about the effects of pink snow algae on glaciers and snowfields covering Pacific Northwest stratovolcanoes.

Ice core records from the two poles show that during the last ice age, sharp spikes in Arctic temperatures shifted the position of winds around Antarctica.

A huge iceberg looks set to break away from the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. Satellite observations from December 2016 show a growing crack in the ice shelf which suggests that an iceberg with an area of up to 5,000 square kilometers is likely to calve soon.

The first comprehensive analysis of the Great Barrier Reef at a time of rapid sea-level rise during the beginning of the Last Interglacial found it almost died. The research shows the reef can be resilient but questions remain about cumulative impacts. The research also provides an accurate identification of the age of the fossil reef that grew before the modern Great Barrier Reef, some 129,000-121,000 years ago.

When summer temperatures rise in Greenland and the melt season begins, water pools on the surface, and sometimes disappears down holes in the ice. That water may eventually reach bedrock, creating a slipperier, faster slide for glaciers. But where does it go once it gets there, and what happens to it in the winter? A new study helps answer these questions.

Scientists have deployed a high-tech mooring beneath the seasonally ice-covered waters around Antarctica to better understand ocean acidification in polar regions.

About 15,000 years ago, the ocean around Antarctica has seen an abrupt sea level rise of several meters. It could happen again.

One of the world's largest ocean circulation systems may not be as stable as today's weather models predict, according to a new study. In fact, changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation -- the same deep-water ocean current featured in the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' -- could occur quite abruptly, in geologic terms, the study says.

To help policymakers more confidently prepare for the effects of climate change, a group of preeminent climate scientists evaluated the scientific work and expert judgments behind the most recent projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regarding the potential ecological, social, economic and meteorological repercussions of climate change.

Researchers are closer to understanding how the loss of glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru is affecting water resources in a region responding to global climate change.

The thawing and erosion of Arctic permafrost coasts has dramatically increased in the past years and the sea is now consuming more than 20 meters of land per year at some locations.

Southeast Asia is home to numerous felids, including the Asian golden cat and the bay cat. The two cat species are closely related sister species which split from each other 3.16 million years ago. Yet, their more recent history was quite different. Scientists could now show that, after a massive volcanic eruption about 73,000 years ago, the Asian golden cat survived only in Indochina, from where it expanded its range in dramatic fashion during the peak of the last Ice Age. The cooler and drier climates at the time pushed its sister species, the bay cat, however, into rainforest refuges on Borneo.

Surface meltwater that drains to the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet each summer causes changes in ice flow that cannot be fully explained by prevailing theories.