Latest Ice sheet Stories

NASA A new dataset called Bedmap2 gives a clearer picture of Antarctica from the ice surface down to the bedrock below. Bedmap2 is a significant improvement on the previous collection of Antarctic data—known as Bedmap—that was produced more than 10 years ago. The product was a result of work led by the British Antarctic Survey, where researchers compiled decades worth of geophysical measurements, such as surface elevation measurements from NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The public and policymakers alike were caught off guard when Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the US last fall. The majority of the destruction came from the storm surge and flooding that followed the storm, leading researchers to pay attention to how climate change and sea-level rise may have played a role in the disaster, and how those same factors may impact the shoreline in the future. Benjamin P. Horton, an associate...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Researchers publishing a paper in the latest issue of the journal Science have found through Antarctic planktonic ice core examinations that the continental ice cap formed more than 33 million years ago. Scientists from the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences (IACT), a joint collaboration between the University of Granada and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), said the seasonal primary productivity of planktonic...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online For decades, researchers have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today’s largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. High shoreline markings from three million years ago as Earth was going through a warm period were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at the time – an assumption that has led many scientists to believe that if the world’s largest ice sheets collapsed in the...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Our world is shrinking, or at least the icy parts of it are. And new studies only pile on to the growing evidence of how climate change is altering the shape of this planet. Scientists presented findings at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancún, Mexico about how the snow and ice covering Mount Everest is retreating. Glaciers on the mountain have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snow line has shifted upward by 590...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Climate change impacts on the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet have been widely studied. An understanding, however, of the key processes in iceberg production has eluded researchers for a long time. A new study, led by the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, presents a sophisticated computer model that provides fresh insight into the impact of climate change on the production of icebergs by Greenland glaciers. The model also demonstrates...

NASA NASA's newest scientific rover is set for testing May 3 through June 8 in the highest part of Greenland. The robot known as GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, will roam the frigid landscape collecting measurements to help scientists better understand changes in the massive ice sheet. This autonomous, solar-powered robot carries a ground-penetrating radar to study how snow accumulates, adding layer...

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's newest scientific rover is set for testing May 3 through June 8 in the highest part of Greenland. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The robot known as GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, will roam the frigid landscape collecting measurements to help scientists better understand changes in the massive ice sheet. This...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA said its Operation IceBridge team has finished up another successful campaign to continue collecting data of Arctic ice measurements. IceBridge was started in 2009 to help continue and expand a dataset started by NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) in 2003. During this year's campaign, the team measured sea ice, mapped sub-ice bedrock and gathered data on Greenland's glaciers by flying science missions out of...

1000-year Antarctic Peninsula climate reconstruction A new 1000-year Antarctic Peninsula climate reconstruction shows that summer ice melting has intensified almost ten-fold, and mostly since the mid 20th Century. Summer ice melt affects the stability of Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers. The research, published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, adds new knowledge to the international effort that is required to understand the causes of environmental change in Antarctica and...