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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.

A well-known period of abrupt climate change 12,000 years ago occurred rapidly in northern latitudes but much more gradually in equatorial regions, a discovery that could prove important for understanding and responding to future climate change, scientists say.

At the bottom of a frigid Antarctic lake, a thin layer of green slime is generating a little oasis of oxygen, a team of researchers has found. It's the first modern replica discovered of conditions on Earth two and a half billion years ago, before oxygen became common in the atmosphere.

Ice experts have developed a straightforward new technique for estimating sea ice concentration in the Arctic Ocean, and the new method improves the US Navy's short-term sea ice forecast of ice edge location by almost 40 percent. With shipping on the rise in the Arctic Ocean, improving these short-term forecasts makes navigating in Arctic waters safer.

On Greenland's ice sheet, a vast icy landscape crisscrossed by turquoise rivers and dotted with meltwater lakes, a small cluster of orange camping tents popped up in late July. The camp, home for a week to a team of researchers, sat by a large, fast-flowing river. Just half a mile (a kilometer) downstream, the river dropped into a seemingly bottomless moulin, or sinkhole in the ice. The low rumble of the waters, the shouted instructions from scientists taking measurements, and the chop of the blades of a helicopter delivering personnel and gear were all that was heard in the frozen landscape.