Topic description and stories

Pile of yew trunks at the edge of an agricultural field

The Fens of eastern England once held vast woodlands

24 Nov 2023

The Fens of eastern England, a low-lying, extremely flat landscape dominated by agricultural fields, was once a vast woodland filled with huge yew...

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Accelerating melt rate makes Greenland Ice Sheet world’s largest ‘dam’

21 Feb 2022

The world’s second-largest ice sheet is melting from the bottom up – and generating huge amounts of heat from hydropower.

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Arctic Ocean started getting warmer decades earlier than we thought

24 Nov 2021

The Arctic Ocean has been getting warmer since the beginning of the 20th century – decades earlier than records suggest – due to warmer water flowing...

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Fibre-optics used to take the temperature of Greenland Ice Sheet

14 May 2021

Scientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their...

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Lake on the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Lakes on Greenland Ice Sheet can drain huge amounts of water, even in winter

01 Apr 2021

Using satellite data to ‘see in the dark’, researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a...

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Drone images show Greenland Ice Sheet becoming more unstable as it fractures

03 Dec 2019

The world’s second-largest ice sheet, and the single largest contributor to global sea level rise, is potentially becoming unstable because of...

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Mangrove trees along a coastline, Everglades National Park.

Mangroves could survive sea-level rise if protected

31 Jul 2013

Human activity is currently a bigger threat to mangroves, and the natural defences they provide against storm surges and other coastal disasters...

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