Latest Glacial period Stories

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study from the University of Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences has successfully reconstructed temperature from the deep sea to reveal how global ice volume has varied over the glacial-interglacial cycles of the past 1.5 million years. The study, "Evolution of ocean temperature and ice volume through the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition," reported in the journal Science, announces a major breakthrough in understanding...

First analyses of the longest sediment core ever collected on land in the terrestrial Arctic provide documentation that intense warm intervals, warmer than scientists thought possible, occurred there over the past 2.8 million years First analyses of the longest sediment core ever collected on land in the terrestrial Arctic, published this week in Science, provide documentation that intense warm intervals, warmer than scientists thought possible, occurred there over the past 2.8 million...

The Eemian interglacial period that began some 125,000 years ago is often used as a model for contemporary climate change. In the international journal “Geophysical Research Letters” scientists from Mainz, Kiel and Potsdam (Germany) now present evidence that the Eemian differed in essential details from modern climatic conditions. Joint press release of the Academy of the Sciences and the Literature Mainz and the GEOMAR | Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. To address the...

There is an old trick for remembering the difference between stalactites and stalagmites in a cave: Stalactites hold tight to the ceiling while stalagmites might one day grow to reach the ceiling. Now, it seems, stalagmites might also fill a hole in our understanding of Earth's climate system and how that system is likely to respond to the rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since preindustrial times. Many existing historical climate records are biased to the high latitudes—...

Scientists at the University of York, using an 'amino acid time capsule', have led the largest ever program to date the British Quaternary period, stretching back nearly three million years. It is the first widespread application of refinements of the 40-year-old technique of amino acid geochronology. The refined method, developed at York's BioArCh laboratories, measures the breakdown of a closed system of protein in fossil snail shells, and provides a method of dating archaeological and...

Cooling trend could be on the way unless thwarted by greenhouse gassesThere's an old saying that if you don't like the weather in New Mexico, wait five minutes. Maybe it should be amended to 10,000 years, according to new research.In a letter published recently in the journal Nature, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers and an international team of scientists report that the Southwest region of the United States undergoes "megadroughts""”warmer, more arid periods lasting...

An international science team involving the University of Colorado at Boulder that is working on the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project hit bedrock July 27 after two summers of work, drilling down more than 1.5 miles in an effort to help assess the risks of abrupt future climate change on Earth.Led by Denmark and the United States, the team recovered ice from the Eemian interglacial period from about 115,000 to 130,000 years ago, a time when temperatures were 3.6 to 5.4 degrees...

Researchers evaluate climate fluctuations from 115,000 years agoAt the end of the last interglacial epoch, around 115,000 years ago, there were significant climate fluctuations. In Central and Eastern Europe, the slow transition from the Eemian Interglacial to the Weichselian Glacial was marked by a growing instability in vegetation trends with possibly at least two warming events. This is the finding of German and Russian climate researchers who have evaluated geochemical and pollen analyses...

The notion that scientists understand how changes in Earth's orbit affect climate well enough for estimating long-term natural climate trends that underlie any anthropogenic climate change is challenged by findings published this week. The new research was conducted by a team led by Professor Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton."Understanding how climate has responded to past change...

A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages may have been higher than previously thoughtA new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.The findings, reported this week by...