Scientists have discovered that a river comparable in size to the Rio Grande once dominated West Antarctica, offering a rare glimpse of the continent’s land covered in ice today. It is believed that the 900-mile-long waterway flowed about 44 to 34 million years ago, shortly before the continent’s immensely thick ice sheets began to build … Read more
In 2023, Antarctic sea ice fell to historically low levels, prompting researchers to use CMIP6 climate models to assess the rarity of the event and its link to climate change. The study found that without climate change such a drastic reduction would be extremely rare, but current climate conditions made it more likely. The research … Read more
By means of Washington University in St. Louis May 25, 2024 Research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, about the size of France, is disrupted daily by an ice flow. This movement, caused by a sudden slip in the ice flow, could affect icequakes and ice shelf … Read more
A team led by glaciologists from UC Irvine used satellite radar data to reconstruct the impact of warm ocean water rising in a grounding zone extending several kilometers beneath the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The research, the subject of an article published in PNAS, will help climate modelers derive more accurate projections of sea … Read more
Ocean water is pushing miles beneath Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier,” making it more vulnerable to melting than previously thought, according to new research that used radar data from space to create an X-ray of the crucial glacier. As the salty, relatively warm ocean water meets the ice, it causes a “powerful melt” under the glacier and … Read more
Antarctica’s vast ice fields and the floating sea ice that surrounds the continent are Earth’s largest heat shields, reflecting solar radiation away from the planet. Two studies released today show how global warming is penetrating even the sunlight reflector in the coldest region on Earth. Research by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey focused on … Read more