As climate change alters temperature and precipitation patterns across the US, it is having especially severe impacts on national parks. These changes could happen faster than many plants and animals can adapt.
Small aircraft carry scientists high above the Southern Alps to survey glacier changes.
Hamish McCormick/NIWA
Andrew Lorrey, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research; Andrew Mackintosh, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington e Brian Anderson, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Forty years of continuous end-of-summer snowline monitoring of New Zealand’s glaciers brings the issue of human-induced climate change into tight focus.
Climate change is transforming the Arctic, with impacts on the rest of the planet. A geographer explains why he once doubted that human actions were causing such shifts, and what changed his mind.
Under the right circumstances, cats’ bodies can behave like liquids.
John Benson/Flickr
Ig Nobels reward research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Investigating the internet meme of fluid felines fits the bill – and adds to the physics field of rheology.
The crack along the Larsen C ice has grown significantly over the past few weeks.
EPA/NASA/John Sonntag
A huge iceberg is set to break free from Antarctica. While the iceberg isn’t hugely concerning, it could herald the breakup of the entire Larsen C ice shelf, which could trigger more sea-level rise.
Best-case scenario, how much are we locked into?
Kletr/Shutterstock.com
Set aside the politics. If by some miracle we turned off carbon emissions immediately, how would the climate respond?
Furious winds keep the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Anarctica free of snow and ice. Calcites found in the valleys have revealed the secrets of ancient subglacial volcanoes.
Stuart Rankin/Flickr
Melting ice from Antartica could feed vast plankton blooms, trapping carbon in the ocean. To understand this complex mechanism, researchers looked at volcanoes deep under glaciers.
A sea otter floats in Kachemak Bay, Alaska.
AP Photo/Laura Rauch
Sea otters had been absent from this Alaskan national park for at least 250 years. By marrying math and statistics, scientists map this animal’s successful comeback.
New mapping shows how Antarctica’s huge Totten Glacier has retreated far inland, raising sea levels by more than a metre. Rising temperatures could trigger it to do so again.
Glacier melt is one of the major contributors to global sea level rise.
Glacier image from www.shutterstock.com
Could sea levels really rise by several metres this century. Probably not, although this century’s greenhouse emissions could potentially set the stage for large rises in centuries to come.
Adélie Penguins struggle to reach their nesting sites if there’s too much ice in the way.
Jane Younger
Scientists have figured out how microbes may have found food when trapped beneath ice for millions of years.
Piton de la Fournaise or “Peak of the Furnace” on Reunion Island is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, shown erupting in August 2015.
AAP/NewZulu/Vincent Dunogué
What happens beneath the surface before a volcano erupts? Can we predict when one will blow? And how can typhoons and melting glaciers contribute to big eruptions?
The Totten Glacier, the largest in East Antarctica, has deep channels running beneath it that may allow relatively warm water into its belly.
Tas van Ommen
Researchers in East Antarctica have surveyed an area the size of New South Wales to study the behaviour of the region’s biggest glacier - and the secrets below the ice that could speed up its melting.
Tasman Lake, which is fed by melt water from the retreating Tasman Glacier, photographed in March this year.
Trevor Chinn
Jim Salinger, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Blair Fitzharris, University of Otago e Trevor Chinn, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
A third of the permanent snow and ice of New Zealand’s Southern Alps has now disappeared, according to our new research based on National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research aerial surveys. Since…
The Thwaites Glacier is among several in West Antarctica that is already retreating.
NASA
Antarctic climate science is having a moment – a worrying moment. Three new studies have all concluded that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun to collapse. This collapse will impact humanity for generations…
The significant retreat of elements of the West Antarctic ice sheet such as the Thwaites glacier recently reported in the journal Science suggests a possible sea level rise of 3 to 3.7m. This is a huge…