Buried beneath kilometres-thick slabs of ice are rivers and huge lakes - some of which are teeming with microbes that thrive in a world without light or oxygen.
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Articles on Ice sheets
Displaying 41 - 58 of 58 articles
Polar ice isn’t all the same - it can be divided roughly into “land ice” and “sea ice”. What matters most for sea levels is how much ice slides off the land and melts in the sea.
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.
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.
As the world warms, Antarctica’s melting ice will likely reach the point of no return.
Ice cores tell us vital information about how the world’s climate has changed - and how it will change in the future.
The way ice sheets respond to global warming may be more predictable than previously thought
Despite their image as cold-loving creatures, Adélie penguins could be winners from climate change.
Why should we care if the polar ice sheets melt hundreds of years in the future? Because they are vital for maintaining our current climate.
If we burned all fossil fuels, the loss of ice in Antarctica would raise sea levels 160 to 200 feet, but even our current trajectory could lead to dramatic sea level rise.
NASA’s former climate chief, James Hansen, is lead author on a paper that predicts rapidly rising seas this century, but not all climate scientists believe the study’s models are convincing.
Researchers find that ice around Antarctica shrank quickly last decade, raising concerns over this buttress against melting land-based ice and future sea-level rise.
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…
Climate change is causing the North Pole to shift, owing to subtle changes in Earth’s rotation that result from the melting…
Antarctic ice shelves are losing ice by melting from their undersides, as well as by calving icebergs. A study compiled by…
A previously unknown canyon has been discovered in Greenland, hidden beneath the ice. It is at least 750 kilometres long. To put that in perspective, imagine a ten kilometre wide gorge, up to 800 metres…
Findings from a large-scale ice drilling study on the Greenland ice sheet may revise the models used to predict how ice sheets…
The cause of dramatic losses in glaciers and ice sheets in the West Antarctic is still unclear. A recent research team has…
Top contributors
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Glaciologist, Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, University of Tasmania
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Associate Professor of Geoscience, University of Arizona
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Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
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Senior lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, Monash University
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Research Professor of Geography and Director, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado Boulder
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PhD Candidate in Cryospheric Remote Sensing, Durham University
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Director of the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, University of Tasmania
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Professor of Glaciology and Earth Observation, University of Bristol
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Adjunct professor, UNSW Sydney
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Professor in the Department of Geography, Durham University
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Chair Professor, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Assistant Professor of Geophysics and Hydrologic Science and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
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Postdoctoral Scholar, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
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Professor of Earth Observation, University of Leeds
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Professor of Glaciology, Fulbright Scholar, University of Tromsø
