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Antarctic ice sheet
The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million square km and contains 30 million cubic km of ice. Around 90 percent of the fresh water on the Earth's surface is held in the ice sheet, an amount equivalent to 70 m of water in the world's oceans. In East Antarctica, the ice sheet rests on a major land mass, but in West Antarctica the bed can extend to more than 2500m below sea level. The land would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there.
Ice enters the sheet through snow and frost and leaves by calving of icebergs and melting, usually at the base but also sometimes at the surface at warm sites.
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Earth & Climate News
October 21, 2025
Oct. 21, 2025 — Scientists are taking the once-radical concept of dimming the sun through stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) seriously, but a Columbia University team warns that reality is far messier than models suggest. Their study reveals how physical, ...
Oct. 21, 2025 — Melting Arctic ice is revealing a hidden world of nitrogen-fixing bacteria beneath the surface. These microbes, not the usual cyanobacteria, enrich the ocean with nitrogen, fueling algae growth that supports the entire marine food chain. As ice ...
Oct. 19, 2025 — Researchers have developed a light-emitting sugar probe that exposes how marine microbes break down complex carbohydrates. The innovative fluorescent tool allows scientists to visualize when and where sugars are degraded in the ocean. This ...
Oct. 13, 2025 — Humanity has reached the first Earth system tipping point, the widespread death of warm-water coral reefs, marking the beginning of irreversible planetary shifts. As global temperatures move beyond 1.5°C, the world risks cascading crises such as ...
Oct. 12, 2025 — Researchers are finding extraordinary new uses for what we throw away. Beet pulp may help crops resist disease, while composted coconut fibers could replace peat moss. Discarded radish and beet greens are rich in bioactive compounds that boost gut ...
Oct. 10, 2025 — Coccolithophores, tiny planktonic architects of Earth’s climate, capture carbon, produce oxygen, and leave behind geological records that chronicle our planet’s history. European scientists are uniting to honor them with International ...
Oct. 10, 2025 — China’s Guangdong Province is battling its worst-ever chikungunya outbreak, with thousands of infections spreading across major cities and nearby regions. Transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, the disease underscores how climate change, urbanization, ...
Oct. 9, 2025 — Tree swallows in polluted U.S. regions are accumulating high levels of “forever chemicals.” These durable pollutants, used in firefighting foams and consumer products, are found everywhere from soil to human blood. Surprisingly, researchers ...
Oct. 8, 2025 — The Amazon has suffered its most destructive fire season in more than two decades, releasing a staggering 791 million tons of carbon dioxide—on par with Germany’s annual emissions. Scientists found that for the first time, fire-driven ...
Oct. 8, 2025 — Researchers at KAUST have confirmed that the Red Sea once vanished entirely, turning into a barren salt desert before being suddenly flooded by waters from the Indian Ocean. The flood carved deep channels and restored marine life in less than ...
Oct. 7, 2025 — Marine heatwaves can jam the ocean’s natural carbon conveyor belt, preventing carbon from reaching the deep sea. Researchers studying two major heatwaves in the Gulf of Alaska found that plankton shifts caused carbon to build up near the surface ...
Oct. 7, 2025 — Solar energy is now the cheapest source of power worldwide, driving a massive shift toward renewables. Falling battery prices and innovations in solar materials are making clean energy more reliable than ever. Yet, grid congestion and integration ...
Latest Headlines
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Oct. 19, 2025 — Mars’ north polar vortex locks its atmosphere in extreme cold and darkness, freezing out water vapor and triggering a dramatic rise in ozone. Scientists found that the lack of sunlight and moisture ...
Oct. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered chemical fingerprints of Earth's earliest incarnation, preserved in ancient mantle rocks. A unique imbalance in potassium isotopes points to remnants of “proto Earth” ...
Oct. 16, 2025 — Ryugu’s samples reveal that water activity on asteroids lasted far longer than scientists thought, possibly reshaping theories of how Earth gained its oceans. A billion-year-old impact may have ...
Oct. 16, 2025 — Researchers discovered a new field of ancient tektites in South Australia, revealing a long-forgotten asteroid impact. These 11-million-year-old glass fragments differ chemically and geographically ...
Oct. 16, 2025 — New research reveals that Earth’s continents owe their stability to searing heat deep in the planet’s crust. At more than 900°C, radioactive elements shifted upward, cooling and strengthening ...
Oct. 12, 2025 — Supershear earthquakes, moving faster than seismic waves, could cause catastrophic shaking across California. USC researchers warn that many faults capable of magnitude 7 quakes might produce these ...
Oct. 12, 2025 — Geophysicists have modeled how Earth’s magnetic field could form even when its core was fully liquid. By removing the effects of viscosity in their simulation, they revealed a self-sustaining ...
Oct. 5, 2025 — New research reveals that deep-sea mining could dramatically threaten 30 species of sharks, rays, and ghost sharks whose habitats overlap with proposed mining zones. Many of these species, already at ...
Oct. 3, 2025 — Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot ...
Oct. 2, 2025 — A massive quake struck Calama, Chile, in 2024, surprising scientists with its unusual depth and destructive power. Unlike typical deep quakes, it broke past thermal limits and triggered an intense ...