Ice Ages News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Atmospheric Chemistry Keeps Pollutants in the Air

June 3, 2025 — A new study details processes that keep pollutants aloft despite a drop in ...

Geological Time Capsule Highlights Great Barrier Reef's Resilience

June 2, 2025 — New research adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand rising sea levels in isolation but is vulnerable to ...

Anthropologists Spotlight Human Toll of Glacier Loss

May 29, 2025 — Anthropologists have examined the societal consequences of global glacier loss. This article appears alongside new research that estimates that more than three-quarters of the world's glacier mass could disappear by the end of the century under ...

Save Twice the Ice by Limiting Global Warming

May 29, 2025 — A new study finds that if global warming exceeds the Paris Climate Agreement targets, the non-polar glacier mass will diminish significantly. However, if warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, at least 54 per cent could be preserved -- more than ...

Ancient DNA Used to Map Evolution of Fever-Causing Bacteria

May 22, 2025 — Researchers have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained and lost genes in the ...

Glaciers Will Take Centuries to Recover Even If Global Warming Is Reversed, Scientists Warn

May 19, 2025 — New research reveals mountain glaciers across the globe will not recover for centuries -- even if human intervention cools the planet back to the 1.5 C limit, having exceeded ...

Global Patterns in Seed Plant Distribution Over Millions of Years

Mar. 28, 2025 — Why do some plants thrive in specific regions but not in others? A study explores the factors shaping plant distributions and how these patterns have changed over millions of years. Analyzing nearly 270,000 seed plant species worldwide, the research ...

Shrinking Andean Glaciers Threaten Water Supply of 90 Million People, Global Policy Makers Warn

Mar. 20, 2025 — Scientists will warn policymakers that the shrinking glaciers of the Andes threaten the water supply of 90 million people on the South American continent at the first-ever World Day for Glaciers ...

World's Oldest Impact Crater Found, Rewriting Earth's Ancient History

Mar. 6, 2025 — Researchers have discovered the world's oldest known meteorite impact crater, which could significantly redefine our understanding of the origins of life and how our planet was shaped. The team found evidence of a major meteorite impact 3.5 billion ...

Giant Ice Bulldozers: How Ancient Glaciers Helped Life Evolve

Feb. 25, 2025 — New research has revealed how massive ancient glaciers acted like giant bulldozers, reshaping Earth's surface and paving the way for complex life to flourish. By chemically analyzing crystals in ancient rocks, the researchers discovered that as ...

'Glacial Fracking': A Hidden Source of Arctic Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Feb. 19, 2025 — Arctic glaciers are leaking significant amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Glacial melt rivers and groundwater springs are transporting large volumes of methane from beneath the ice to the atmosphere. This previously unrecognized process ...

Temperature, Rainfall and Tides Speed Glacier Flow on a Daily Basis

Feb. 3, 2025 — Detailed study of a Greenland glacier's flow rate reveals the impact of environmental ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:19pm EDT

Near-Complete Skull Discovery Reveals 'Top Apex', Leopard-Sized 'Fearsome' Carnivore

Feb. 17, 2025 — A rare discovery of a nearly complete skull in the Egyptian desert has led scientists to the 'dream' revelation of a new 30-million-year-old species ...

Lead Contamination in Ancient Greece Points to Societal Change

Jan. 30, 2025 — Studies of sediment cores from the sea floor and the coastal regions surrounding the Aegean Sea show that humans contaminated the environment with lead early on in antiquity. Geoscientists conducted ...

How Animal Poop Helps Ecosystems Adapt to Climate Change

Jan. 27, 2025 — Relatives of the llama are dropping dung as they venture into higher elevations in the Andes Mountains, providing a nutrient-rich environment for life to thrive despite glacier ...

Volcanic Eruption Caused Neolithic People to Sacrifice Unique 'Sun Stones'

Jan. 16, 2025 — 4,900 years ago, a Neolithic people on the Danish island Bornholm sacrificed hundreds of stones engraved with sun and field motifs. Archaeologists and climate scientists can now show that these ...

Speleothem and Ice Cores: Natural Climate Archives Offer New Insights Into the Climate History of Central Europe

Jan. 16, 2025 — The synchronization of data from two natural climate archives -- a speleothem from the Herbstlabyrinth Cave in Hesse (Germany) and ice cores from ...

Pioneering Research Exposes Huge Loss of Glaciers in One of the Fastest-Warming Places on Earth

Jan. 16, 2025 — A new study has revealed the alarming extent glaciers have shrunk over the past 40 years in a global warming hotspot -- and the biggest retreat has ...

Ice Patches on Beartooth Plateau Reveal How Ancient Landscape Differed from Today's

Jan. 6, 2025 — Scientists say the frozen remnants of an ancient forest discovered 600 feet above the modern tree line on the Beartooth Plateau may portend possible ...

Lead Pollution Likely Caused Widespread IQ Declines in Ancient Rome, New Study Finds

Jan. 6, 2025 — Lead exposure is responsible for a range of human health impacts, with even relatively low levels impacting the cognitive development of children. ...

Increased Wildfire Activity May Be a Feature of Past Periods of Abrupt Climate Change

Jan. 2, 2025 — A new study investigating ancient methane trapped in Antarctic ice suggests that global increases in wildfire activity likely occurred during periods ...

Chart of Life Extended by Nearly 1.5 Billion Years

Dec. 19, 2024 — Fossilized skeletons and shells clearly show how evolution and extinction unfolded over the past half a billion years, but a new analysis extends the chart of life to nearly 2 billion years ago. The ...

Buried Landforms Reveal North Sea's Ancient Glacial Past

Dec. 13, 2024 — Glaciologists used sound waves to reveal Ice Age landforms buried beneath almost 1 km of mud in the North Sea. The results suggest that the landforms were produced about 1 million years ago, when an ...

Antarctica's Irregular Heartbeat Shows Signs of Rapid Melting

Dec. 10, 2024 — Geoscientists have created a new climate record for early Antarctic ice ages. It reveals that the early Antarctic ice sheet melted more rapidly than previously ...

Swelling Streams -- Climate Change Causes More Sediment in High-Mountain Rivers

Dec. 4, 2024 — Many high-mountain rivers in Asia transport more sediment downstream compared to a few years ago. Changes in sediment levels have a particularly strong impact on agriculture, water quality, flood ...

In Patagonia, More Snow Could Protect Glaciers from Melt -- But Only If We Curb Greenhouse Gas Emissions Soon

Nov. 22, 2024 — In an era of dwindling glaciers, Southern Patagonia has managed to hold on to a surprising amount of its ice. But, a new study suggests that this protective effect might be pushed up against its ...

Faster Flowing Glaciers Could Help Predict Nearby Volcanic Activity

Nov. 14, 2024 — Glaciers that are within three miles of a volcano move nearly 50% quicker than average, a new study has found, which could help create early warning of future ...

Was 'Snowball Earth' a Global Event? Study Delivers Best Proof Yet

Nov. 11, 2024 — A series of rocks hiding around Colorado's Rocky Mountains may hold clues to a frigid period in Earth's past when glaciers several miles thick covered the entire ...

Deep Ocean Clues to a Million-Year-Old Ice Age Puzzle Revealed in New Study

Nov. 8, 2024 — A new study challenges theories regarding the origins of a significant transition through the Earth's ice ages. The research provides fresh insights into the ocean's role in climate during ...

Indigenous Cultural Burning Has Protected Australia's Landscape for Millennia, Study Finds

Nov. 1, 2024 — Ancient cultural burning practices carried out by Indigenous Australians limited fuel availability and prevented high intensity fires in southeastern Australia for thousands of years, according to ...

Buried Alive: Carbon Dioxide Release from Magma Deep Beneath Ancient Volcanoes Was a Hidden Driver of Earth's Past Climate

Oct. 30, 2024 — A team discovered that, contrary to present scientific understanding, ancient volcanoes continued to spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from deep within the Earth long past their period of ...

Melting Arctic Sea-Ice Could Affect Global Ocean Circulation

Oct. 27, 2024 — The warming climate in polar regions may significantly disrupt ocean circulation patterns, a new study indicates. Scientists discovered that in the distant past, growing inflows of freshwater from ...

'Paleo-Robots' to Help Scientists Understand How Fish Started to Walk on Land

Oct. 23, 2024 — The transition from water to land is one of the most significant events in the history of life on Earth. Now, a team of roboticists, palaeontologists and biologists is using robots to study how the ...

New Ice Core Data Provides Insight Into Climate 'Tipping Points' During the Last Ice Age

Oct. 21, 2024 — New research from multiple ice cores collected across Greenland with data spanning up to 120,000 years provides new understanding of abrupt Dansgaard-Oeschger events, how they unfold and what that ...

Iron Nuggets in the Pinnacles Unlock Secrets of Ancient and Future Climates

Oct. 2, 2024 — Small iron-rich formations found within Western Australia's Pinnacles, which are part of the world's largest wind-blown limestone belt spanning more than 1000km, have provided new insights ...

Ancient Reef-Builders Dodged Extinction -- At Least Temporarily

Sep. 25, 2024 — Scientists discovered that ancient reef-building stromatoporoids survived the Late Devonian extinction, contrary to previous beliefs, and continued to thrive. The findings reveal how these organisms ...

Ice Age Clues Point to More Extreme Weather Patterns in Our Future

Sep. 25, 2024 — A new study combines data from ancient shells with advanced climate modeling to shed light on how El Ni o weather patterns might change in a warming ...

Harvests, Wildfires, Epidemics: How the Jet Stream Has Shaped Extreme Weather in Europe for Centuries

Sep. 25, 2024 — Tree-ring data reveal that periodic shifts in strong winds high above the Earth's surface have driven opposite climates in different parts of Europe for the past 700 years and likely much ...

Rapid Loss of Antarctic Ice After 2100 Likely Under Current Emissions

Sep. 20, 2024 — A new study by more than 50 climate scientists worldwide provides the clearest projection that Antarctica's ice sheet will retreat rapidly after 2100 under current carbon emissions, with global ...

Over Nearly Half a Billion Years, Earth's Global Temperature Has Changed Drastically, Driven by Carbon Dioxide

Sep. 19, 2024 — A new study offers the most detailed glimpse yet into how Earth's surface temperature has changed over the past 485 million years. The data show that Earth has been and can be warmer than today ...

Explaining Dramatic Planet-Wide Changes After World's Last 'Snowball Earth' Event

Sep. 18, 2024 — Some of the most dramatic climatic events in our planet's history are 'Snowball Earth' events that happened hundreds of millions of years ago, when almost the entire planet was encased ...

New Population Model Identifies Phases of Human Dispersal Across Europe

Sep. 4, 2024 — Researchers have developed a model that captures the dynamics of human dispersal across the continent during the last Ice Age in unprecedented ...