Latest Glacier Stories

U.S. geoscientists say they've found evidence that northern hemisphere climate swings during the past 12,000 years are linked to changes in the tropics. University of New Hampshire and Columbia University scientists said their finding suggests a prolonged cold spell caused European and North American glaciers to creep forward several hundred years ago, possibly affecting climate patterns as far south as Peru and causing tropical glaciers to also expand. Glaciers in both the tropics and North...

A new study that reports precise ages for glacial moraines in southern Peru links climate swings in the tropics to those of Europe and North America during the Little Ice Age approximately 150 to 350 years ago. The study, published this week in the journal Science, "brings us one step closer to understanding global-scale patterns of glacier activity and climate during the Little Ice Age," says lead author Joe Licciardi, associate professor of Earth sciences at the University of New...

According to a study that might help predict rising sea levels linked to climate change, scientists are surprised at how fast coastal ice in Antarctica and Greenland is thinning. Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Bristol University said that glaciers speeding up when they flowed into the sea caused the biggest loss of ice, which was seen by analysis of missions of NASA satellite laser images."We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across...

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spent last month trying to determine if warmer oceanic waters were seeping into the regions surrounding Greenland.Ruth Curry and a team of researchers based their study on the observation that glaciers have started to flow faster than normal throughout the past decade.This observation led them to believe that warmer, subtropical waters were to blame.In 2005, scientists noticed that Greenland's Helheim Glacier had nearly doubled in...

British scientists say they have created a model of the British and Irish ice sheets that shows they moved in unexpected ways. Durham University researchers said their model reveals for the first time how the glaciers reversed their flows and retreated back into upland regions from where they originated. During the last glacial maximum, around 21,500 years ago, the ice sheets built up on the high land of the Lake District, north Pennines and Scottish Southern Uplands, the researchers said....

The ice sheets that sculpted the landscape of northern Britain moved in unexpected ways and left distinctive egg-shaped features according to new research.Scientists from Durham University have deciphered the landforms and created a model of the British and Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) which reveals for the first time how glaciers reversed their flows and retreated back into upland regions from where they originated.These ice sheet flow patterns created a unique 'overprinting' of British glacial...

Scientists are trying to determine what occurred in Greenland's history to cause its glaciers to rapidly melt, and what implications it might have for the earth's future in light of looming global warming.In 2005, scientists noticed that Greenland's Helheim Glacier had nearly doubled in speed as it moved through a river at a pace of 100 feet per day.The rapid movement caught researchers by surprise and sparked concerns that it could be a sign of a massive melting of the Greenland's ice sheet...

Greenland's glaciers are dumping ice into the Atlantic Ocean at an alarming rate, according to a statement by the environmental group Greenpeace on Wednesday.Increasingly warm temperatures have caused glaciers to melt over time and shed masses of ice that eventually slip into fjords and the sea.Greenland's Helheim glacier, which is four miles wide and almost one mile thick, moves approximately 25 yards a day, Greenpeace said in a statement.The group said that is double the speed as when its...

Back in 2002, NASA created a film using satellite data that took viewers on a tour of Earth's frozen regions. This year, NASA visualizers are taking viewers on a return trip to see how things have changed over the years."The Tour of the Cryosphere 2009" combines satellite imagery and state-of-the-art computer animation software to create a fact-filled and visually stunning tour that shows viewers the icy reaches of Antarctica, the glacier-pocked regions along the Andes Mountains,...

 The U.S. Geological Survey has released the results of a long-term study of key glaciers in western North America, reporting this month that glacial shrinkage is rapid and accelerating and a result of climate change. University of Illinois geologist William Shilts spent nearly two decades studying glaciers on Bylot Island, an uninhabited island about 300 miles southwest of Thule, Greenland. He, his students and other geologists who followed in his footsteps have chronicled the decline of...