Ice Ages News

April 24, 2024

Top Headlines

Researchers Find Oldest Undisputed Evidence of Earth's Magnetic Field

Apr. 24, 2024 — A new study has recovered a 3.7-billion-year-old record of Earth's magnetic field, and found that it appears remarkably similar to the field surrounding Earth ...

Warming Climate Is Putting More Metals Into Colorado's Mountain Streams

Apr. 23, 2024 — Warming temperatures are causing a steady rise in copper, zinc and sulfate in the waters of Colorado mountain streams affected by acid rock drainage. Concentrations of these metals have roughly doubled in these alpine streams over the past 30 years, ...

Feedback Loop That Is Melting Ice Shelves in West Antarctica Revealed

Apr. 22, 2024 — New research has uncovered a feedback loop that may be accelerating the melting of the floating portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, pushing up global sea levels. The study sheds new light on the mechanisms driving the melting of ice shelves ...

Data-Driven Music: Converting Climate Measurements Into Music

Apr. 18, 2024 — A geo-environmental scientist from Japan has composed a string quartet using sonified climate data. The 6-minute-long composition -- entitled 'String Quartet No. 1 'Polar Energy Budget'-- is based on over 30 years of satellite-collected climate data ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:54pm EDT

Ice Age Climate Analysis Reduces Worst-Case Warming Expected from Rising CO2

Apr. 17, 2024 — A detailed reconstruction of climate during the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, provides information on ...

Paradox of Extreme Cold Events in a Warming World

Apr. 17, 2024 — The Warm Arctic-Cold Continent (WACC) phenomenon is the puzzling combination of Arctic warming and extreme coldness in specific mid-latitude regions. However, the progression of WACC events remains ...

Yellowstone Lake Ice Cover Unchanged Despite Warming Climate

Apr. 16, 2024 — While most lakes around the world are experiencing shorter durations of ice cover, the length of time that Yellowstone Lake is covered by ice each year has not changed in the past century, possibly ...

New Radar Analysis Method Can Improve Winter River Safety

Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have developed a way to use radar to detect open water zones and other changes in Alaska's frozen rivers in the early winter. The approach can be automated to provide current hazard maps ...

New Approach Needed to Save Australia's Non-Perennial Rivers

Apr. 10, 2024 — An extensive review of current research incorporating geomorphology, hydrology, biogeochemistry, ecology and Indigenous knowledges identifies prevailing factors that shape water and energy flows in ...

Ocean Currents Threaten to Collapse Antarctic Ice Shelves

Apr. 11, 2024 — Meandering ocean currents play an important role in the melting of Antarctic ice shelves, threatening a significant rise in sea ...

Tiny Plastic Particles Are Found Everywhere

Apr. 9, 2024 — Microplastic particles can be found in the most remote ocean regions on earth. In Antarctica, pollution levels are even higher than previously ...

Humans Can Increase Biodiversity, Archaeological Study Shows

Apr. 9, 2024 — Through the ages, the presence of humans has increased the heterogeneity and complexity of ecosystems and has often had a positive effect on their ...

Climate Change Threatens Antarctic Meteorites

Apr. 8, 2024 — Antarctica harbors a large concentration of meteorites imbuing the icy continent with an unparalleled wealth of information on our solar system. However, these precious meteorites are rapidly ...

Melting Glaciers in a Warmer Climate Provide New Ground for Invasive Species

Apr. 1, 2024 — In 2022 and 2023, biologists from research institutes in the UK and the Falkland Islands led two expeditions to South Georgia to study the impacts of ...

These Plants Evolved in Florida Millions of Years Ago: They May Be Gone in Decades

Apr. 2, 2024 — Scrub mints are among the most endangered plants you've probably never heard of. More than half of the 24 species currently known to exist are considered threatened or endangered at the state or ...

Scientists Warn: The Grey Seal Hunt Is Too Large

Mar. 27, 2024 — Researchers warn that today's hunting quotas of about 3,000 animals pose a risk to the long-term survival of the grey seal in the Baltic Sea. The conclusions of this new study are based on ...

Looking to the Past to Prevent Future Extinction

Mar. 27, 2024 — Anthropologists created a computational model to predict the likelihood of animal extinctions based on the complex interaction of hunting and environmental ...

Evolution of the Most Powerful Ocean Current on Earth

Mar. 27, 2024 — The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica's ice ...

Enormous Ice Loss from Greenland Glacier

Mar. 22, 2024 — Ground-based measuring devices and aircraft radar operated in the far northeast of Greenland show how much ice the 79 N-Glacier is losing. According to recent measurements, the thickness of the ...

Researchers Investigate How Freshwater Diatoms Stay in the Light

Mar. 20, 2024 — Researchers sought to understand how diatoms -- microscopic, photosynthetic algae that make up an estimated 20 percent of global carbon sequestration and oxygen production -- are able to bloom in an ...

A Wetter World Recorded in Australian Coral Colony

Mar. 18, 2024 — When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a ...

The Atlas of Unburnable Oil in the World

Mar. 15, 2024 — In order to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 C, it is essential to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. This would mean not exploiting most of the ...

Surprising Insights About Debris Flows on Mars

Mar. 14, 2024 — The period that liquid water was present on the surface of Mars may have been shorter than previously thought. Channel landforms called gullies, previously thought to be formed exclusively by liquid ...

High Resolution Imagery Advances the Ability to Monitor Decadal Changes in Emperor Penguin Populations

Mar. 13, 2024 — Emperor penguin populations have been exceedingly difficult to monitor because of their remote locations, and because individuals form breeding colonies on seasonal sea ice fastened to land (known as ...

Grounding Zone Discovery Explains Accelerated Melting Under Greenland's Glaciers

Mar. 13, 2024 — Researchers have conducted the first large-scale observation and modeling study of northwest Greenland's Petermann Glacier. Their findings reveal the intrusion of warm ocean water beneath the ...

Exploring Arctic Plants and Lichens: An Important Conservation Baseline for Nunavut's Newest and Largest Territorial Park

Mar. 13, 2024 — A comprehensive study of the floristic diversity of Agguttinni Territorial Park, Nunavut's newest and largest Territorial Park, has documented 141 vascular plant, 69 bryophyte, and 93 lichen ...

Study Explores Impacts of Arctic Warming on Daily Weather Patterns in the U.S.

Mar. 11, 2024 — Arctic sea ice is shrinking as the world continues to warm, and a new study may provide a better understanding of how the loss of this ice may impact daily weather in the middle latitudes, like the ...

After Decades of Arctic Sea Ice Getting Faster and More Hazardous for Transport, Models Suggest a Dramatic Reversal Is Coming

Mar. 5, 2024 — Will ice floating in the Arctic Ocean move faster or slower over the coming decades? The answer to this question will tell us whether marine transportation can be expected to get more or less ...

We Know the Arctic Is Warming -- What Will Changing River Flows Do to Its Environment?

Mar. 5, 2024 — Scientists recently combined satellite data, field observations and sophisticated numerical modeling to paint a picture of how 22.45 million square kilometers of the Arctic will change over the next ...

Arctic Could Become 'Ice-Free' Within a Decade

Mar. 5, 2024 — While summer sea ice loss in the Arctic is inevitable, it can be reversed if the planet cools down, researchers ...

Less Ice in the Arctic Ocean Has Complex Effects on Marine Ecosystems and Ocean Productivity

Mar. 4, 2024 — Most of the sunlight reaching the Arctic Ocean is reflected to space by sea ice, effectively shielding ocean ecosystems from sunlight. As the Arctic sea ice continues its downward trend, larger areas ...

Antarctica's Coasts Are Becoming Less Icy

Mar. 4, 2024 — Scientists found unexpected evidence the area of polynyas around Antarctica is increasing dramatically, and it follows an intriguing cycle, growing and shrinking roughly every 16 ...

Researchers Use GPS-Tracked Icebergs in Novel Study to Improve Climate Models

Mar. 1, 2024 — Research unearthed new information to help scientists better understand circulation patterns of ocean water around glaciers. In the summers of 2014 and 2019, a group of pioneers in glacial research ...

Glacier Shrinkage Is Causing a 'Green Transition'

Mar. 1, 2024 — Glacier-fed streams are undergoing a process of profound change, according to scientists. This conclusion is based on the expeditions to the world's major mountain ranges by members of the ...