Collaborative research by archaeologists, environmental scientists and tribal elders combines science and Indigenous knowledge to tell the story of centuries of life at a glacier’s edge.
Freshly exposed bedrock at the terminus of Brewster Glacier in March 2023.
Andrew Lorrey
Andrew Lorrey, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research; George Hook, Canterbury Museum; Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington, and Shaun Eaves, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
An estimated 13 trillion litres of ice has already been lost from glaciers in New Zealand’s Southern Alps since 1978. Several are now approaching extinction.
Nima Sarikhani’s winning photograph of a polar bear off of Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.
Nima Sarikhani
Timothy Naish, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
The world is on track to exceed 2°C warming within the next five years, with dire consequences for polar ice, mountain glaciers and permafrost – and human society.
Saúl Luciano Lliuya in front of the district court building in Hamm, Germany, November 2017.
DPA Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo
If this case succeeds, it could set a precedent to hold major polluters responsible for the effects of climate change – even on the other side of the world.
Alaska has at least 120 glacier-dammed lakes, and almost all have drained at least once since 1985, a new study shows. Small ones have been producing larger floods in recent years.
Like icy thermometers, glaciers overlying volcanoes shift according to temperature changes below.
The 10km wide Petermann Fjord in northern Greenland. The author’s icebreaker ship is a small dot in the middle. The cliffs on either side are a kilometre high. In the distance is the ‘ice tongue’ of the glacier flowing into the fjord.
Martin Jakobsson
At the pilgrimage site of Kedarnath in northern India, disastrous flooding has led many to ask whether the gods are getting angry about human behavior.
A volcanic eruption at the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland in May 2021.
Thorir Ingvarsson/Shutterstock
Climate change is causing increasingly severe weather – but it’s not just hazards at the Earth’s surface we should be concerned about.
Richard Bates and Alun Hubbard kayak a meltwater stream on Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, towing an ice radar that reveals it’s riddled with fractures.
Nick Cobbing.
Glaciologists are discovering new ways surface meltwater alters the internal structure of ice sheets, and raising an alarm that sea level rise could be much more abrupt than current models forecast.
Icebergs in Disko Bay, western Greenland.
Chris Christophersen/Shutterstock
To fully understand the extent of climate-related dangers the Arctic – and our planet – is facing, we must focus on organisms too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Warming of more than 1°C risks unsafe and harmful outcomes for humanity.
Ink Drop/Shutterstock