Science Daily

Researchers have used radiocarbon measured in deep-sea fossil corals to shed light on carbon dioxide levels during Earth's last deglaciation. Fossil corals have the unique advantage that they can be precisely dated by radiometric uranium-series dating, giving an age scale that can be directly compared to the ice core records.

You might expect that little happens in the Arctic Ocean during the cold and dark winter. But that just isn't so, according to researchers who have sampled the activities of many different species during three consecutive winters in Kongsfjorden, Svalbard.

Many studies predict that future sea-level rise along the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts will increase flooding. Others suggest that the human-caused warming driving this rise will also boost the intensity and frequency of big coastal storms. Now, a new study quantifies how they could interact to produce alarming spikes in the combined height and duration of flooding. It projects that coastal flooding could possibly shoot up several hundredfold by 2100, from the Northeast to Texas.

When it comes to climate change, it's rare to get any good news. But a researcher who's reported evidence, after more than two decades of study, has some: the loss of sea ice over Antarctic waters in some areas has led to the increased growth of creatures living on the seafloor. Those underwater assemblages are acting as an important and unexpected carbon sink.

New analysis of the effects of melting permafrost in the Arctic points to $43 trillion in extra economic damage by the end of the next century, on top of the more than the $300 trillion economic damage already predicted.

In the last 30,000 years there was, at times, more mixing in the Southern Ocean than previously thought. This meant that vast quantities of nutrients were available to phytoalgae, which in turn contributed to storing the greenhouse gas CO2 during the last glacial period.

Researchers have found unique genetic mutations in the Inuit genome that make them more adapted to cold as well as a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids, with the side effect of shorter height. This is the first evidence human populations have adapted to particular diets and differ in their physiological response. While a fish oil diet may be healthful for Inuit, this may not be true for other populations.

Scientists have now answered a 40-year-old question about Arctic ice thickness by treating the ice floes of the frozen seas like colliding molecules in a fluid or gas.

Methane emissions from Arctic tundra increase when sea ice melts, according to a new study. This connection has been suspected before, but has lacked strong evidence until now.

According to a NASA analysis of satellite data, the 2015 Arctic sea ice minimum extent is the fourth lowest on record since observations from space began.

A new portal can serve as an early warning system for researchers and decision-makers around the globe.

New work demonstrates that the planet's remaining fossil fuel resources would be sufficient to melt nearly all of Antarctica if burned, leading to a 50- or 60-meter (160 to 200 foot) rise in sea level. Because so many major cities are at or near sea level, this would put many highly populated areas where more than a billion people live under water, including New York City and Washington, D.C.

Researchers have shown for the first time that phytoplankton (plant life) in remote ocean regions can contribute to rare airborne particles that trigger ice formation in clouds. Results show that the organic waste from life in the oceans, which is ejected into the atmosphere along with sea spray from breaking waves, stimulates cloud droplets to freeze into ice particles.

High levels of methylmercury, a potent neurotoxin, in Arctic life are a byproduct of global warming and the melting of sea-ice in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, research concludes. To mitigate global warming, many governments are turning to hydroelectric power but this research also suggests that flooding for hydroelectric development will put even more methylmercury into ecosystems than climate change.

As climate change accelerates ice melt in the Arctic, polar bears may find caribou and snow geese replacing seals as an important food source, shows a recent study. The research is based on new computations incorporating caloric energy from terrestrial food sources and indicates that the bears' extended stays on land may not be as grim as previously suggested.

A fourth wheat gene governing vernalization -- the biological process requiring cold temperatures to trigger flower formation -- has been identified, giving plant breeders one more tool for developing improved varieties of wheat that are adaptable to climate change.

Spatially corrected sea-level records for the Pacific coast indicate that uplift rates are overestimated by 40 percent, scientists report. Uplift is the vertical elevation of Earth's surface in response to plate tectonics.

Today's ice sheets may be more resilient to increased carbon dioxide levels than previously thought, a new study suggests. This work explored these very old conditions and found that sea level might not have risen as much as previously thought -- and thus may not rise as fast as predicted now.

The mass balance of glaciers is mainly influenced by winter precipitation and summer temperature. In a recent study, researchers used simple statistical models to assess and quantify the relative importance of summer temperature and winter precipitation for annual mass balances of eight Scandinavian glaciers.

Fifty million years ago, the Cowboy State was crawling with crocodiles. Fossil records show that crocs lounged in the shade of palm trees from southwestern Wyoming to southern Canada during the Cretaceous and Eocene.  Exactly how the middle of the North American continent -- far from the warming effects of the ocean -- stayed so temperate even in winter months has long eluded scientists.