Communications Earth & Environment, 21 February 2022 New evidence suggests the presence of warm, deep water delayed the expansion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet as it formed 35 million years ago; and similar conditions today may cause its destabilization. The Pine Island Trough is a deep channel in the Amundsen Sea, sending ocean water […]

On March 3, Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United States issued the following joint statement: Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United States condemn Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and note the grave impediments to international cooperation, including in the Arctic, that Russia’s actions […]

Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 18 February 2022 The Fram Strait is the main waterway connecting the central Arctic Ocean to the Nordic Seas. Currents flowing along the Strait’s western side carry nearly 90% of all sea ice export out of the Arctic Ocean. As global temperatures rise, they accelerate the loss of ice, triggering […]

Nature, 23 February 2022 Climate change, in part by causing an increase of meltwater flowing off ice sheets into the ocean, has intensified the “global water cycle” by roughly 7%. This has worsened droughts and extreme rainfall events across the world. The global water cycle involves the constant movement of freshwater between the clouds, land […]

Nature Climate Change, 10 February 2022 This study offers the first comprehensive assessment of the exposure of African cultural and natural heritage sites to the combination of rising sea levels, extreme weather events and erosion associated with accelerating global warming. At present, 20% of Africa’s heritage sites are at risk from a once-in-a-century extreme sea-level […]

NASA Earth Observatory, 2 February 2022 Rising air temperatures and increasingly wet weather caused a large region of sea ice off the Antarctic Peninsula, that had persisted even through the summer since 2011, to break up completely during a few days in January. Strong winds and the formation of meltwater ponds on the surface from […]

Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences, 8 March 2022 Surface meltwater heats up as it passes down through cracks and fractures in the Greenland Ice Sheet – which means that some areas at the base of the ice sheet are melting up to 100 times faster than previously estimated. Falling meltwater carries an immense […]

Geophysical Research Letters, 24 January 2022 A patch of unusually cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean – nicknamed the “Blue Blob” – has temporarily slowed the melting of Iceland’s glaciers since 2011. This regional cooling was caused by meltwater pouring off the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic glaciers, as well as the slowing of […]

For a look at ice sheet behavior over the past several million years, in response to CO2 and warming levels at or only slightly above today’s levels, watch this stellar COP-26 presentation by two giants of the paleo ice sheet field: Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette, University of Massachusetts Amherst and former chair of the U.S. Polar […]

Current Biology, 14 February 2022 Antarctica’s two native flowering plants – pearlwort and hairgrass – have experienced unprecedented growth over the past decade as a result of rising air temperatures, with longer and wetter summers. These warm summer months also reduce the amount of ice covering the soil. In the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica, […]

The Cryosphere, 8 February 2022 New modeling suggests that warm seawater can slip underneath grounded ice sheets — ice resting on land or bedrock — and travel tens of kilometers inland beneath the grounded ice. When the ground below the ice is flat or slopes downward and is impermeable, such as bedrock; seawater can mix […]

Geology, 11 February 2022 New research resolves a long-standing discrepancy between marine records from the Ross Sea, which indicate complete ice sheet loss in that region during interglacials (warmer periods, with CO2 around 280ppm); versus land records that show persistent cold, sub-freezing conditions which should have maintained the ice sheet. This study resolved this discrepancy […]

This fascinating COP-26 session delves into the factors causing glacier loss and downstream impacts, as well as discussing the similarities and differences in behavior between very large glaciers (often near the margins of ice sheets) and the ice sheets themselves. It includes keynote presentations by Dr. Matthias Huss, ETH-Zurich, Switzerland and Dr. John Pomeroy, Global […]

NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science, 3 February 2022 The South Col Glacier next to the peak of Mount Everest has lost 55 meters of thickness in the last 25 years. The layers of snow and ice covering the surface of this glacier took more than 2,000 years to accumulate, but they are now melting and […]

Remote Sensing of Environment, 7 January 2022 The compounding effects of climate change are particularly evident in Western Canada, where this detailed study of glaciers in Alberta and British Columbia found that ice loss was seven times faster between 2011-2020 than between 1984-2010. This extreme loss was even more pronounced for small and low-altitude glaciers […]