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A new study of climate changes and their effects on past societies offers a sobering glimpse of social upheavals that might happen in the future. The prehistoric groups studied lived in the Amazon Basin of South America hundreds of years ago, before European contact, but the disruptions that occurred may carry lessons for our time.

A nearly 100-year-old physics model captures the essential mechanism of pattern formation and geometry of Arctic melt ponds.

Researchers have presented support for the theory that marine invertebrates with larger body size are generally more sensitive to reductions in oxygen than smaller animals, and so will be more sensitive to future global climate change. However, evolutionary innovation can to some extent offset any respiratory disadvantages of large body size.

Warming waters in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have significantly increased thunderstorms and rainfall, which may affect the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and global sea-level rise, according to a new tudy.

In a new study, researchers confirm a theory from the 1970s that coastal hunter-gatherers processed much of their shellfish at the beach before returning with their meat to camps on higher ground, leaving the heavy shells by the water. This finding has dramatic implications for past analyses of hunter-gatherer diets -- because many beachside shell middens would now be destroyed or underwater due to past sea level rises since the last Ice Age.

Using rare oxygen molecules trapped in old ice and snow, US and French scientists have answered a long-standing question: How much have 'bad' ozone levels increased since the start of the Industrial Revolution?

Why did a giant hole appear in the sea ice off Antarctica in 2016 and 2017, after decades of more typical sea ice cover? Years of Southern Ocean data have explained the phenomenon, helping oceanographers to better predict these features and study their role in global ocean cycles.

Drone surveys have revealed extreme erosion on the Arctic coastline, highlight the ongoing change in the region in a warming climate.

The transition to plate tectonics started with the help of lubricating sediments, scraped by glaciers from the slopes of Earth's first continents, according to new research.

A new study of Patagonia's ice fields finds that many glaciers in the region are much thicker than previously thought.

An ancient, cosmopolitan lineage of plants is shaking up scientists' understanding of how quickly species evolve in temperate ecosystems and why.

Identifying the movements of extinct species from millions of years ago can provide insights into ancient migration routes, interaction between species, and the movement of continents.

A mass die-off of seabirds in the Bering Sea may be partially attributable to climate change, according to a new study.

Northern and Central Asia have been neglected in studies of early human migration, with deserts and mountains being considered uncompromising barriers. However, a new study argues that humans may have moved through these extreme settings in the past under wetter conditions. By analyzing past climate, northern Asia emerges as a potential route of human dispersal, as well as a zone of potential interaction with other hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans.

A new study assesses the contribution that Asia's high mountain glaciers make to relieving water stress in the region. The study has important economic and social implications for a region that is vulnerable to drought. Climate change is causing most of the region's glaciers to shrink.

Atmospheric researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have now developed a climate model that can accurately depict the frequently observed winding course of the jet stream, a major air current over the Northern Hemisphere.

Supernovae bombarded Earth with cosmic energy starting as many as 8 million years ago, with a peak some 2.6 million years ago, initiating an avalanche of electrons in the lower atmosphere and setting off a chain of events that feasibly ended with bipedal hominins.

Scientists have discovered an ancient geologic structure that restricts where ocean water flows, and reveals that local ocean currents may play a critical role in the ice shelf's future retreat.

What effects does climate change have on the genetic diversity of living organisms? In a new study, researchers studied the genome of the alpine marmot. Results were unexpected: the species was found to be the least genetically diverse of any wild mammal studied to date. The alpine marmot has lost its genetic diversity during ice-age related climate events and been unable to recover its diversity since.

The team that led a twin satellite system launched in 2002 to take detailed measurements of the Earth, called the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), reports on the contributions that their nearly two decades of data have made to our understanding of global climate patterns.