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Accurate temperature estimates of ancient oceans are vital because they are the best tool for reconstructing global climate conditions in the past. While climate models provide scenarios of what the world could look like in the future, paleoclimate studies (study of past climates) provide insight into what the world did look like in the past.

Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking.

Although overhunting led to the demise of some prehistoric megafauna after the last ice age, a new study found that the extinction of the woolly rhinoceros may have been caused by climate change. By sequencing ancient DNA from 14 woolly rhinos, researchers found that their population remained stable and diverse until only a few thousand years before it disappeared from Siberia, when temperatures likely rose too high.

A new study suggests that future reductions in seasonal snowpack as a result of climate change may negatively influence forest growth in semi-arid climates, but less so in wetter climates.

A new study supports predictions that the Arctic could be free of sea ice by 2035.

Glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand have lost more ice mass since pre-industrial times than remains today, according to a new study. The study mapped Southern Alps ice loss from the end of the Little Ice Age -- roughly 400 years ago -- to 2019. It found that relative to recent decades, the Southern Alps lost up to 77% of their total Little Ice Age glacier volume.

A new study which provides a global estimate of rock cover on the Earth's glaciers has revealed that the expanse of rock debris on glaciers, a factor that has been ignored in models of glacier melt and sea level rise, could be significant.

Experts have reconstructed the depth of the Southern Ocean at key phases in the last 34 million years of the Antarctic's climate history.

A large number of the valley networks scarring Mars's surface were carved by water melting beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers as previously thought, according to new research. The findings effectively throw cold water on the dominant 'warm and wet ancient Mars' hypothesis, which postulates that rivers, rainfall and oceans once existed on the red planet.

Ancient sediment found in a central Texas cave appears to solve the mystery of why the Earth cooled suddenly about 13,000 years ago.

Alarming results from a 2019 survey of well-known archaeological site Ageröd reveal drastic bone and organic matter deterioration since the site's initial excavations in the 1940s, suggesting action is needed to preserve findings from Ageröd and similar sites, according to a new study.

A study details the changes that occurred in the Arctic in September of 2018, a year when nearly 10 million kilometers of sea ice were lost throughout the summer. Its findings give an overview of how sea ice has receded over the 40 years of the satellite era and show how the summer's extensive decline is linked to global atmospheric processes as far south as the tropics.

Global ice ages may have been triggered by sharp declines in incoming sunlight, research finds.

Researchers reveal that given the right food in the right laboratory conditions, microbes collected from subseafloor sediment as old as 100 million years can revive and multiply, even after laying dormant since large dinosaurs prowled the planet.

A new study uses satellite data over the Southern Hemisphere to understand global cloud composition during the industrial revolution. This research tackles one of the largest uncertainties in today's climate models -- the long-term effect of tiny atmospheric particles on climate change.

An endangered aquatic insect that lives in icy streams fed by glaciers might not mind if the water grows warmer due to climate. A new study found that mountain stoneflies can tolerate warmer water temperatures at least temporarily. In fact, they might even be stressed in their current extremely cold environments.

The discovery of the first active methane seep in Antarctica is providing scientists new understanding of the methane cycle and the role methane found in this region may play in warming the planet.

Ancient climate records from Leviathan Cave, located in the southern Great Basin, show that Nevada was even hotter and drier in the past than it is today, and that one 4,000-year period in particular may represent a true, ''worst-case'' scenario picture for the Southwest and the Colorado River Basin -- and the millions of people who rely on its water supply.

In five years, will the winter be mild, and will the following summer be rainy? Unfortunately, reliable answers to such questions are not possible. Nevertheless, there are quantities like the sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic, that are known to promote trends in the weather over Europe. To that, North Atlantic sea surface temperatures are predictable several years into the future - as suggested by a new study.

Questions about the stability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet are a major source of uncertainty in estimates of how much sea level will rise as the Earth continues to warm. For decades, scientists thought the East Antarctic Ice Sheet had remained stable for millions of years, but recent studies have begun to cast doubt on this idea. Now, researchers report new evidence of substantial ice loss from East Antarctica during an interglacial warm period about 400,000 years ago.