Snow and Avalanches News

April 26, 2024

Top Headlines

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 ...

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 ...

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 disappearing from the ice sheet surface due to global ...

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 sheets. An international research team has now used ...

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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 ...

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 ...

Self-Heating Concrete Is One Step Closer to Putting Snow Shovels and Salt out of Business

Mar. 18, 2024 — Researchers recently reported on the science behind its special concrete, that can warm itself up when it snows, or as temperatures approach ...

Oregon State Researchers Take Deep Dive Into How Much Water Is Stored in Snow

Mar. 15, 2024 — There's a new metric that provides a more holistic look at how much water is stored in snowpack, and for how ...

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 ...

The Future Is Likely Less Skiable, Thanks to Climate Change

Mar. 13, 2024 — Annual snow cover days in all major skiing regions are projected to decrease dramatically as a result of climate change, with 1 in 8 ski areas losing all natural snow cover this century under high ...

India's Water Problems Set to Get Worse as the World Warms

Mar. 11, 2024 — Winter storms known as western disturbances that provide crucial snow and rainfall to northern India are arriving significantly later in the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

80 Mph Speed Record for Glacier Fracture Helps Reveal the Physics of Ice Sheet Collapse

Feb. 28, 2024 — New research documents the fastest-known large-scale breakage along an Antarctic ice shelf. A 6.5-mile crack formed in 2012 over 5-and-a-half minutes, showing that ice shelves can effectively shatter ...

Significant Glacial Retreat in West Antarctica Began in 1940s

Feb. 26, 2024 — Among the vast expanse of Antarctica lies the Thwaites Glacier, the world's widest glacier measuring about 80 miles on the western edge of the continent. Despite its size, the massive landform ...

Barriers Against Antarctic Ice Melt Disappearing at the Double

Feb. 23, 2024 — Undersea anchors of ice that help prevent Antarctica's land ice from slipping into the ocean are shrinking at more than twice the rate compared with 50 years ago, research shows. More than a ...

Giant Antarctic Sea Spiders Reproductive Mystery Solved

Feb. 18, 2024 — Instead of carrying the babies until they hatched, as in most species of sea spiders, one parent (likely the father) spent two days attaching the eggs to the rocky bottom where they developed for ...

Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Melting -- And Being Replaced by Vegetation

Feb. 13, 2024 — An estimated 11,000 sq miles or 28,707 sq kilometers of Greenland's ice sheet and glaciers have melted over the last three decades, according to a major analysis of historic satellite ...

Ice Cores Provide First Documentation of Rapid Antarctic Ice Loss in the Past

Feb. 8, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered the first direct evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet shrunk suddenly and dramatically at the end of the Last Ice Age, around eight thousand years ago. The evidence, ...

Study Challenges the Classical View of the Origin of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and Warns of Its Vulnerability

Feb. 5, 2024 — The Circumpolar Current works as a regulator of the planet's climate. Its origins were thought to have caused the formation of the permanent ice in Antarctica about 34 million years ago. Now, a ...

Geoengineering May Slow Greenland Ice Sheet Loss

Jan. 30, 2024 — Modeling shows that stratospheric aerosol injection has the potential to reduce ice sheet loss due to climate ...

Links Discovered Between Weather Patterns and Power Outages Could Help UK Protect Itself from Disruptive Weather

Jan. 23, 2024 — The behavior of specific weather patterns and their impact on power faults could be used to develop a weather pattern - conditioned fault forecasting system for power system ...

Chasing the Light: Study Finds New Clues About Warming in the Arctic

Jan. 15, 2024 — The Arctic, Earth's icy crown, is experiencing a climate crisis like no other. It's heating up at a furious pace -- four times faster than the rest of our planet. Researchers are pulling ...

The First Assessment of Toxic Heavy Metal Pollution in the Southern Hemisphere Over the Last 2,000 Years

Jan. 11, 2024 — Human activity, from burning fossil fuels and fireplaces to the contaminated dust produced by mining, alters Earth's atmosphere in countless ways. Records of these impacts over time are ...

Climate Change Behind Sharp Drop in Snowpack Since 1980s

Jan. 10, 2024 — A new study confirms that spring snowpacks across the Northern Hemisphere have shrunk significantly over the past 40 years due to human-driven climate change, putting hundreds of millions of people ...

Reduced Air Pollution During Pandemic Points to Way to Preserve Himalayan Glaciers

Dec. 21, 2023 — Reducing air pollution to levels similar to those during the coronavirus pandemic could protect the glaciers in the Himalayas and prevent them from disappearing by the end of the century. This is the ...

Snowflakes Swirling in Turbulent Air as They Fall Through a Laser Light Sheet

Dec. 19, 2023 — A winter wonderland calls to mind piles of fluffy, glistening snow. But to reach the ground, snowflakes are swept into the turbulent atmosphere, swirling through the air instead of plummeting ...

Pacific Northwest Snowpack Endangered by Increasing Spring Heatwaves

Dec. 13, 2023 — Even in the precipitation-heavy Pacific Northwest, more frequent heatwaves are threatening a key source of water supply. A Washington State University study that intended to look at snow melting ...

Antarctica's Ancient Ice Sheets Foreshadow Dynamic Changes in Earth's Future

Nov. 30, 2023 — Identifying how and why Antarctica's major ice sheets behaved the way they did in the early Miocene could help inform understanding of the sheets' behavior under a warming climate. ...

Antarctic Glacier Retreating Rapidly

Nov. 28, 2023 — Scientists are warning that apparently stable glaciers in the Antarctic can 'switch very rapidly' and lose large quantities of ice as a result of warmer oceans. Their finding ...

Protect Delicate Polar Ecosystems by Mapping Biodiversity

Nov. 20, 2023 — Concerted action is required to mitigate the impact of warming on polar ecosystems and sustainably manage these unique habitats. ...

Deep Dive on Sea Level Rise: New Modelling Gives Better Predictions on Antarctic Ice Sheet Melt

Nov. 17, 2023 — Using historical records from around Australia, an international team of researchers have put forward the most accurate prediction to date of past Antarctic ice sheet melt, providing a more realistic ...

Ice Cores from Earth's Highest Tropical Peak Provide Insight Into Climate Variability

Nov. 15, 2023 — A new study examines ice cores from the summit of the highest tropical mountain in the world, and finds unique insight into the climate record of the Amazon Basin over the last six ...