All Articles Tagged As: glaciers

Glacial erosion changes internal mountain structure, responses to plate tectonics (11/19/2008)

Intense glacial erosion has not only carved the surface of the highest coastal mountain range on earth, the spectacular St. Elias range in Alaska, but has elicited a structural response from deep within the mountain. This interpretation of structural response is based on real-world data now being reported, which supports decades of model simulations of mountain formation and evolution regarding the impact of climate on the distribution of deformation associated with plate tectonics. ...> Full Article

When it comes to sea level changing glaciers, new NASA technique measures up (11/11/2008)

A NASA-led research team has used satellite data to make the most precise measurements to date of changes in the mass of mountain glaciers in the Gulf of Alaska, a region expected to be a significant contributor to global sea level rise over the next 50-100 years. ...> Full Article

A glacier's life (10/30/2008)

Researchers have developed a numerical model that can re-create the state of Switzerland's Rhône Glacier as it was in 1874 and predict its evolution until the year 2100. This is the longest period of time ever modeled in the life of a glacier, involving complex data analysis and mathematical techniques. The work will serve as a benchmark study for those interested in the state of glaciers and their relation to climate change. ...> Full Article

Preserved by ice: Glacial dams helped prevent erosion of Tibetan plateau (10/9/2008)

New research suggests that a Tibetan plateau edge might have been preserved for thousands of years by ice during glacial advances and by glacial debris deposited at the mouth of many Tsangpo tributaries during warmer times when glaciers retreated. ...> Full Article

Most Alaskan Glaciers Retreating, Thinning, and Stagnating (10/8/2008)

changes began as early as the middle of the 18th century ...> Full Article

Researchers attribute thinning of Greenland glacier to ocean warming preceded by atmospheric changes (10/5/2008)

The sudden thinning in 1997 of Jakobshavn Isbra, one of Greenland's largest glaciers, was caused by subsurface ocean warming ...> Full Article

Small glaciers - not large - account for most of Greenland's recent loss of ice, study shows (9/16/2008)

A new study shows that the dozens of much smaller outflow glaciers dotting Greenland's coast together account for three times more loss from the island's ice sheet than the amount coming from their huge relatives. ...> Full Article

Glaciologist Projects Sea Level Rise (9/8/2008)

Researcher estimates that it would take a 40 fold increase in glacier calving to achieve the amount of sea level rise claimed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ...> Full Article

China's first successful sampling of ice core in Mongolia (9/6/2008)

This is the first successful attempt for Chinese scientists to obtain ice core samples from a foreign site except the polar areas. ...> Full Article

Analysis of past glacial melting shows potential for increased Greenland ice melt and sea level rise (9/2/2008)

Findings show that sea level rise as a result of ice sheet melt can happen very rapidly ...> Full Article

Satellite Images Show Continued Breakup Of Two Of Greenland's Largest Glaciers, Predict Disintegration In Near Future (8/23/2008)

Researchers monitoring daily satellite images here of Greenland's glaciers have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers in the last month. ...> Full Article

Patagonian glacier yields clues for improved understanding of global climate change (8/6/2008)

The Andes are particularly suited for sampling climate data concerning the whole of the Southern Hemisphere owing to their high altitudes and N-S orientation ...> Full Article

Research team draws 150-meter ice core from McCall Glacier (7/12/2008)

A 150-meter ice core pulled from the McCall Glacier in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this summer may offer researchers their first quantitative look at up to two centuries of climate change in the region. ...> Full Article

Landslide buries climate change link (7/1/2008)

New findings could pour cold water on evidence that climate change is happening simultaneously around the world. ...> Full Article

Study hopes to crack the code on how ice flows (6/30/2008)

How ice breaks up may be important factor in climate change prediction models ...> Full Article

$32 Million Contract From NASA To Manage Snow And Ice Data System (6/9/2008)

The University of Colorado at Boulder has been awarded a five-year, $32 million contract from NASA to manage and operate a sophisticated data system charting global phenomena like sea ice, ice shelves, ice sheets, glaciers and snow cover. ...> Full Article

Rock studies help crack questions of glacier thinning in West Antarctica (3/2/2008)

Boulders the size of footballs could help scientists predict the West Antarctic Ice Sheet's (WAIS) contribution to sea-level rise according to new research published this week in the journal Geology. ...> Full Article

Drained lake holds record of ancient Alaska (2/29/2008)

Not too long ago, a lake sprung a leak in the high country of the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains. The lake drained away, as glacier-dammed lakes often do, but this lake was a bit different, and seems to be telling a story about a warmer Alaska. ...> Full Article

Antarctic ice shelf collapse explained (2/8/2008)

When the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica collapsed in 2002, the event appeared to be a sudden response to climate change, and this long, fringing ice shelf in the north west part of the Weddell Sea was assumed to be the latest in a long line of victims of Antarctic summer heat waves linked to Global Warming. ...> Full Article

Baffin Island Ice Caps Shrink By 50 Percent Since 1950s (2/3/2008)

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study has shown that ice caps on the northern plateau of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic have shrunk by more than 50 percent in the last half century as a result of warming, and are expected to disappear by the middle of the century. ...> Full Article

35-year glacier study reveals looming crisis (1/30/2008)

A 35-year University of Salford study into river flow from glaciers in the Swiss Alps has revealed that lack of winter snow as well as warming air temperatures are causing glaciers to melt at an alarming rate - with some smaller glaciers likely to disappear in the next decade. ...> Full Article

Natural Gas Formation By Bacteria Linked To Climate Change And Renewable Energy (1/27/2008)

Natural gas reservoirs in Michigan's Antrim Shale are providing new information about global warming and the Earth's climate history, according to a recent study by Steven Petsch, a geoscientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The study is also good news for energy companies hoping to make natural gas a renewable resource. ...> Full Article

Antarctic ice loss speeds up, nearly matches Greenland loss (1/27/2008)

Ice loss in Antarctica increased by 75 percent in the last 10 years due to a speed-up in the flow of its glaciers and is now nearly as great as that observed in Greenland, according to a new, comprehensive study by UC Irvine and NASA scientists. ...> Full Article

First evidence of under-ice volcanic eruption in Antarctica (1/25/2008)

The first evidence of a volcanic eruption from beneath Antarctica's most rapidly changing ice sheet ...> Full Article

Alaska Glacier Speed-up Tied To Internal Plumbing Issues, Says Study (1/19/2008)

A University of Colorado at Boulder study indicates meltwater periodically overwhelms the interior drainpipes of Alaska's Kennicott Glacier and causes it to lurch forward, similar to processes that may help explain the acceleration of glaciers observed recently on the Greenland ice sheet that are contributing to global sea rise. ...> Full Article

Evidence of glaciation in 'super greenhouse' world (1/12/2008)

Large ice-sheets existed on Earth about 91 million years ago, during one of the warmest periods since life began, an international team of scientists, including members from Newcastle University, has found. ...> Full Article

A Warming Climate Can Support Glacial Ice (1/11/2008)

New research indicates glacial ice existed on earth during intense period of global warming ...> Full Article

Greenland Melt Accelerating (12/17/2007)

The 2007 melt extent on the Greenland ice sheet broke the 2005 summer melt record by 10 percent, making it the largest ever recorded there since satellite measurements began in 1979, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder climate scientist. ...> Full Article

Researcher part of critical team studying glaciers and climate change (12/15/2007)

University of Ottawa geography professor Luke Copland is among researchers from 17 countries studying 19 Arctic tidewater glaciers to better understand how they react to climate change. ...> Full Article

New Tibetan Ice Cores Missing A-Bomb Blast Markers; Suggest Himalayan Ice Fields Haven't Grown In Last 50 Years (12/14/2007)

Ice cores drilled last year from the summit of a Himalayan ice field lack the distinctive radioactive signals that mark virtually every other ice core retrieved worldwide. ...> Full Article

Western Canada's Glaciers Hit 7000-Year Low (11/2/2007)

Tree stumps at the feet of Western Canadian glaciers are providing new insights into the accelerated rates at which the rivers of ice have been shrinking due to human-aided global warming. ...> Full Article

Researchers monitor glaciers for long-haul study (10/15/2007)

Researcher describes 'day at the office' ...> Full Article

Climate research gives clues to human expansion out of tropical Africa (10/10/2007)

New research has shed light on an important, but previously little-understood period in Africa's climate history that has implications for understanding human evolution and the expansion of Homo sapiens out of tropical Africa. ...> Full Article

Scientist tracks greenland meltwater (9/22/2007)

World oceans would rise 23 feet and flood many coastal areas if climate change melted the entire Greenland ice cap. And satellite images from 1980 onward reveal the surface of this vast ice sheet is warming, getting soggy and staying wet for longer periods every year. ...> Full Article

Glaciologist Looks To Ice For Clues About Global Warming (7/23/2007)

Once or twice a year Keith Mountain, chair of the Department of Geography and Geosciences at the University of Louisville, and colleagues from the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University spend months hunting for a disappearing treasure: ice. ...> Full Article

Glaciers and Ice Caps to Dominate Sea Level Rise Through 21st Century (7/19/2007)

Ice loss from glaciers and ice caps is expected to cause more global sea rise during this century than the massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study. ...> Full Article