Topic description and stories

Tents at Skytrain Ice Rice in Antarctica

Ice cores provide first documentation of rapid Antarctic ice loss in the past

08 Feb 2024

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey have uncovered the first direct evidence that the West Antarctic Ice...

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glacier cave on Svalbard

Shrinking Arctic glaciers are unearthing a new source of methane

06 Jul 2023

As the Arctic warms, shrinking glaciers are exposing bubbling groundwater springs which could provide an underestimated source of the potent...

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Sentinel-1 image composite depicting the highly fractured and fast-flowing frontal margin of the Thwaites and Crosson ice shelves

Ice sheets can collapse faster than previously thought possible

05 Apr 2023

Ice sheets can retreat up to 600 metres a day during periods of climate warming, 20 times faster than the highest rate of retreat previously measured...

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Full moon over the Greenland Ice Sheet

Researchers build more detailed picture of the movement of Greenland Ice Sheet

10 Feb 2023

Researchers have found that the movement of glaciers in Greenland is more complex than previously thought, with deformation in regions of warmer ice...

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Runaway West Antarctic ice retreat can be slowed by climate-driven changes in ocean temperature

16 Jan 2023

New research finds that ice-sheet-wide collapse in West Antarctica isn’t inevitable: the pace of ice loss varies according to regional differences in...

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Seasonal change in Antarctic ice sheet movement observed for first time

06 Oct 2022

Some estimates of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise may be over- or underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown...

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Sea ice can control Antarctic ice sheet stability, new research finds

13 May 2022

Despite the rapid melting of ice in many parts of Antarctica during the second half of the 20th century, researchers have found that the floating ice...

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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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View from Agulhas II

Antarctic ice sheets capable of retreating up to 50 metres per day

28 May 2020

The ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic coastline retreated at speeds of up to 50 metres per day at the end of the last Ice Age, far more rapid...

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