Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, June 18 When an ice sheet loses mass, the pressure it exerts on the underlying Earth surface decreases, leading to a gradual bedrock uplift and an elevation gain that could potentially help stabilize the Antarctic ice sheet, slowing loss and related sea-level rise. In particular, the fast uplift rates […]

Frontiers Earth Science, July 6 The ice resting on top of unfrozen river water – known as “floating” or “serpentine” ice – tends to form in the deeper sections of river channels with thawed riverbed sediment. Conversely, when river water freezes all the way down to the river bottom, the ice stretches out and covers […]

Geophysical Research Letters, June 16 Winter sea ice loss in the Barents-Kara seas, north of Norway and western Siberia, causes local warming in the Arctic and also produces accompanying changes in atmospheric circulation. When ice loss is moderate, this leads to lower temperatures over Eurasia. However, once sea ice loss is sufficiently large and surpasses […]

Nature Communications, July 5 This satellite study confirms that the rate of glacier ice loss has substantially increased in seven climatically different regions, spread across the entirety of Central Asia, since the 1960s. Ice loss rates have more than doubled in the Northern Tien Shan during this time period, and have accelerated nearly as much […]

The Cryosphere, June 29 Across the entire Greenland Ice Sheet, the extent of meltwater reservoirs hidden underneath layers of packed snow and ice increased by 56% from 2018 to 2019. This increase in “buried” lakes was caused by prolonged summer surface melt in conjunction with unusually high temperatures during the autumn. In the southwest region […]

Nature Geoscience, June 24 Icebergs originating from the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica may cause hazards thousands of kilometers away from their original source by triggering underwater landslides. Four years ago, the bottom edge of an Arctic iceberg scraped against the seafloor, tipped sideways, and broke into two pieces in the Southwind Fjord of Baffin Island. […]

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 22 The thawing of permafrost has destabilized bacterial and fungal networks in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, reducing their connectedness and complexity by exposing them to harsh high-altitude environmental conditions. While higher temperatures normally stimulate microbial growth, temperature increases that induce permafrost degradation reduce water, oxygen, and nutrient availability […]

Nature Communications, July 1 Record low sea ice was observed in summer 2020 in the Wandel Sea, just north of Greenland. This region is the easternmost sector of the so-called “Last Ice Area,” known for its old, thick, multi-year sea ice. Climate model simulations did not predict low sea ice concentration in this area until […]

Science, June 18 The Thwaites Glacier of West Antarctica, draining an area the size of France is one of the most vulnerable glaciers to marine ice cliff collapse because it rests nearly entirely on deep seabed. As upstream regions of the glacier rapidly increase in thickness, the edge of the glacier can collapse under its […]

The Cryosphere Discussions, June 18 New analyses of satellite images reveal that in the past 50 years, the majority of marine-terminating glaciers in northwestern and central-west Greenland retreated and lost area, with a clear acceleration of loss beginning in 1996. Between 2000 and 2020, 86% of the glaciers studied retreated. The retreat and acceleration of […]

PNAS, May 17 Today, carbon emissions (both CO2 and methane) from abrupt permafrost thaw and Arctic wildfires still are not fully included within global emissions budgets and modelling. Ignoring such feedbacks, which both directly result from rapid warming of the Arctic region, and intensify that warming further, causes governments to overestimate the remaining carbon budget. […]

Science, June 10 In February 2021, a catastrophic flood caused widespread loss and damage in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, India. A new study, co-authored by more than 50 scientists, shows that 27 million m3 of material – 11X the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza – consisting of rocks and ice avalanched down the valley, 1800 […]

The Cryosphere, June 15 This study used the new climate models prepared for IPCC AR6 to compare Alps glacier ice loss at 1°C, 1.5°C and 2°C of warming above pre-industrial, and found stark differences with each half a degree increase. By 2100, at 2°C glaciers in the European Alps are projected to lose more than […]

Earth System Dynamics, June 3 The Greenland Ice Sheet, West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Amazon rainforest, and the largest ocean circulation systems can undergo large and potentially irreversible changes once human-caused or natural factors cause certain critical temperatures to be exceeded. These so-called tipping points risk affecting the stability of the entire climate system, and that […]

The Cryosphere, June 4 Between 2002 and 2018, sea ice in the Arctic thinned 60 percent more than previously estimated. In particular, the coastal area of the Chukchi Seas, just above Alaska and the Kamchatka Peninsula, thinned over twice as much as past calculations have shown. Sea ice extent, or area can easily be measured […]