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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Lead authors from the Nature paper covered in last week’s Capsules described how changes in Antarctica can trigger fast and cascading impacts, often with global consequences. Multiple abrupt changes in the Antarctic environment are now unfolding – spanning Antarctica’s ice, ocean and ecosystems – and the interconnections between these systems amplify the risks of exceeding […]

Dear Capsule Readers- After a several-week break during the COP30 and pre-COP preparations, the Cryosphere Capsules are back! In addition to recent policy-relevant cryosphere science summaries, we’ll be catching up with articles missed in October-November especially. In addition, look for Cryosphere Pavilion summaries and links to recordings of side events that could not be livestreamed […]

Nature Communications, 21 October 2025 Berry Glacier in West Antarctica has undergone dramatic retreat and thinning over the past three decades, driven by seawater intrusion beneath its ice shelf. This glacier feeds into the Getz Ice Shelf, which governs roughly 10% of the region’s ice discharge. Between 1996 and 2021, Berry Glacier retreated 18 kilometers […]

Nature, 20 August 2025 Rapid changes unfolding across the Antarctic Ice Sheet and Southern Ocean are more interconnected than previously understood, with shrinking sea ice, fast-melting glaciers, slowing ocean currents, and habitat loss increasingly pushing each other out of balance. This study draws connections between multiple abrupt changes that began to occur in Antarctica over […]

Dear Friends of the Cryosphere Pavilion and Cryosphere Capsule Readers- As many of you no doubt saw on media, a fire interrupted COP30 on Thursday afternoon, Nov. 20, including the opening remarks of Iceland Minister for the Environment, Energy and Climate Jóhann Páll Jóhannsson at the Cryosphere Pavilion, in a side event focused on latest […]

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 August 2025) A 6-week period of record-high air temperatures during summer 2024 left a serious dent on Svalbard’s glaciers, resulting in 1% of this region’s total ice volume lost. This rapid melt from Svalbard actually exceeded that of the Greenland Ice Sheet – which is 50 times […]

Nature Communications, 21 July 2025 Winter air temperatures exceeded 0°C for 14 days during February 2025 in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, setting a new record and triggering widespread snow and ice loss. When winter warming exceeds 0°C, it marks more than just a warm anomaly – it signals a fundamental shift in Arctic winter dynamics with long-term […]

Svalbard is warming six to seven times faster than the global average and strongly responds to every increment of temperature rise. Two early career scientists who assisted at the COP298 Cryosphere Pavilion led a side event on their research in Ny-Ålesund and offered a closer look at this changing Arctic landscape. Dr. Ugo Nanni from […]

Dear Friends of the Cryosphere Pavilion and Cryosphere Capsule Readers, We are happy to announce that COP30 Cryosphere Pavilion side event application process is now open! We plan to carry forward the cryosphere’s message towards urgent ambition with another strong array of policy-relevant side events at COP30 in Belém this fall. Side event applications are […]

Dear Friends of the Cryosphere Pavilion and Cryosphere Capsule Readers! The COP30 Cryosphere Pavilion side event application portal will open on August 1! In this first COP to take place in Amazonía — like Cryosphere, threatened by critical thresholds or “tipping points” — we plan to again carry forward the cryosphere’s message towards urgent ambition […]

Nature Geoscience, 11 July 2025 New radar measurements identify remarkably flat surfaces and deep troughs in the ground buried beneath a 3,500 km stretch of the East Antarctic coastline, showing how this topography influences the speed of present-day glaciers. This previously unmapped landscape formed over 80 million years ago when rivers carved across the continent, […]

Communications Earth & Environment, 15 July 2025 North American glaciers have rapidly retreated over the last decade, with increasing black carbon accumulation driving 31% of glacier melting in western North America and 41% in the Canadian Arctic. The study measured the influence of snow and ice darkening on 25 of the largest and most heavily […]