Comprehensive Assessment Maps Sea-level Rise Across Africa

Nature Communications, 15 December 2025 Sea-level rise along Africa’s coasts is now occurring four times faster than observed in the 1990s, with ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland now accounting for approximately 80% of the total rise. Highest rates of sea-level rise were observed in the Red Sea and Guinea Current regions. 2023 was particularly […]

Narrow Channels on Bottom of Antarctic Ice Shelves Amplify Melting

Nature Climate Change, 9 January 2026 Warm water draining and flowing beneath ice shelves carves channels into the ice, where intense localized melting occurs, with peak melt rates 42–50% higher than previously estimated. High-resolution satellite elevation data combined with radar measurements from 2010-2017 make it possible to map these channels as they deepen and shift. […]

Thawing Permafrost Directly Increases Wildfire Risk and Carbon Emissions

Nature Geoscience, 9 January 2026 As frozen permafrost thaws and the seasonally thawed layer deepens, summers become hotter and drier, vegetation and burnable soils increase, and wildfires grow larger and more intense across the Arctic and boreal (sub-Arctic) zones. Field observations paired with satellite data from 1997-2018 show that this thaw is a direct driver […]

Polar and Mountain Microbial Communities Depend on a Stable Cryosphere

Nature Reviews Microbiology, 5 November 2025 This review summarizes the harmful impacts of snow and ice loss on microbial communities uniquely adapted to thrive in these cold environments, posing downstream risks to food and income security, water availability, and human health. In the cryosphere, microbes grow in pools or streams of water across glacial, permafrost […]

COP30 Video of the Week: Educating for the Cryosphere – 5 Years of Lessons Learned and Future Pathways for Impact

Education is a vital lever for climate resilience. This side event presented lessons from five years of implementing the Ocean & Cryosphere manual co-developed by the Office for Climate Eduaction (OCE) with the IPCC, which has trained over 30,000 teachers and reached more than four million students. Experts share how science-based, inclusive education has helped […]

Past Arctic Warming Reveals Greenland Ice Vulnerability at Low Temperature Thresholds

Nature Geoscience, 24 November 2025 The Prudhoe Dome ice cap in northern Greenland completely melted 7,000 years ago and was ice-free until a few thousand years ago, indicating that parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet disappeared when global mean temperatures were actually cooler than today (about 0.3°C cooler than the 2011-19 average, according to IPCC […]

Today’s Emissions Choices Cause Stark Differences in Future Sea-Level Rise from Antarctica

Nature Communications, 5 December 2025 Very high emissions will trigger large-scale Antarctic ice sheet retreat over coming centuries, while net-zero emissions well before 2100 would strongly reduce multi-centennial ice loss. This study combines ice sheet models and accounts for multiple sources of uncertainty, grounding them in historical observations to more accurately estimate future sea-level rise […]

COP30 Video of the Week: Warming of 1.5°C is Too High for Polar Ice Sheets

Ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has quadrupled since the 1990s. This has raised concerns about their future stability and focused attention on the temperature thresholds that might trigger more rapid retreat or even collapse, with renewed calls to meet the more ambitious target of the Paris Climate Agreement and limit warming […]

Limiting Warming to 1.5°C Could Halve Glacier “Extinction” in Coming Decades

Nature Climate Change, 15 December 2025 Glacier loss is projected to rapidly increase this century, peaking between 2040 and 2055, when up to 2,000 glaciers per year could disappear even if warming is limited to 1.5°C. However, up to 4,000 glaciers per year could disappear under 4.0°C warming. This peak rate under high emissions is […]

Reduced Arctic Sea Ice Threatens Polar Cod, Restructuring Food Webs

Nature Communications, 6 November 2025 The amount of sunlight entering the Arctic Ocean will likely increase by 50-77% over coming decades as sea ice cover declines, but a high emissions scenario could push this system even further, past a threshold after 2050 if sea ice levels collapse. With such extreme sea ice loss, increased light […]

COP30 Video of the Week: Super Pollutants, Arctic Shipping, Myths and Realities

Immediately reducing emissions of super pollutants – short-lived climate forcers – is the best option to avoid runaway Arctic warming and remain below 1.5°C. Methane, ozone and black carbon are responsible for a significant proportion of global warming to date, yet black carbon emissions from shipping remain unregulated, and liquified natural gas (methane) is marketed […]

Fastest Glacier Retreat on Record: Hektoria Hints at Potential Scale of Future Antarctic Ice Loss

Nature Geoscience, 3 November 2025 In a stunning two-month period from November to December 2022, nearly 50% of Hektoria Glacier in the Antarctic Peninsula disintegrated, and nearly 10 times faster than any glacier ever observed, a warning sign this could happen to other large Antarctic glaciers. Satellite data showed that the glacier began rapidly thinning […]

60% of Antarctic Ice Shelves Could Disappear Under Very High Emissions

Nature, 29 October 2025 Southern Ocean warming could lead to 60% of Antarctic ice shelves disappearing by 2300 under a very high emissions scenario, but remaining below 2°C would allow nearly all ice shelves to remain stable and whole. This study forecasts the long-term health of the floating margins of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Rising […]

Small Swirling Ocean Eddies Contribute to One-Fifth of Antarctic Ice Shelf Melt Each Year

Nature Geoscience, 18 November 2025 Small underwater eddies contribute to nearly a fifth of total Antarctic ice shelf melting each season, but during extreme events this submarine melting can increase by as much as three-fold within hours as warm water penetrates beneath the ice. Similar to hurricanes and other large storms generated in the open […]

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