Snow and Avalanches News

August 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Greenland’s Glacial Runoff Is Powering Explosions of Ocean Life

Aug. 18, 2025 — NASA-backed simulations reveal that meltwater from Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier lifts deep-ocean nutrients to the surface, sparking large summer blooms of phytoplankton that feed the Arctic food ...

NASA’s PREFIRE Satellites Reveal a Secret Glow Escaping from Our Planet

Aug. 18, 2025 — With its two tiny CubeSats, NASA’s PREFIRE mission is capturing invisible heat escaping from Earth, offering clues to how ice, clouds, and storms influence the climate system. The insights could lead to better weather forecasts and a deeper ...

Scientists Just Measured How Fast Glaciers Carve the Earth

Aug. 9, 2025 — Scientists used machine learning to reveal how glaciers erode the land at varying speeds, shaped by climate, geology, and heat. The findings help guide global planning from environmental management to nuclear waste ...

332 Colossal Canyons Just Revealed Beneath Antarctica’s Ice

Aug. 9, 2025 — Deep beneath the Antarctic seas lies a hidden network of 332 colossal submarine canyons, some plunging over 4,000 meters, revealed in unprecedented detail by new high-resolution mapping. These underwater valleys, shaped by glacial forces and ...

Scientists Finally Solve the Mystery of What Triggers Lightning

Aug. 1, 2025 — A Penn State-led research team has unraveled the long-standing mystery of how lightning begins inside thunderclouds. Their findings offer the first quantitative, physics-based explanation for lightning initiation—and a glimpse into the stormy ...

Satellites Just Revealed a Hidden Global Water Crisis—and It’s Worse Than Melting Ice

July 27, 2025 — For over two decades, satellites have quietly documented a major crisis unfolding beneath our feet: Earth's continents are drying out at unprecedented rates. Fueled by climate change, groundwater ...

Snowless Winter? Arctic Field Team Finds Flowers and Meltwater Instead

July 23, 2025 — Scientists in Svalbard were shocked to find rain and greenery instead of snow during Arctic winter fieldwork. The event highlights not just warming—but a full seasonal shift with major consequences for ecosystems, climate feedback, and research ...

What Radar Found Beneath Antarctica Could Slow Ice Melt and Rising Seas

July 22, 2025 — Ancient river landscapes buried beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet have been uncovered by radar, revealing vast, flat surfaces formed over 80 million years ago before Antarctica froze. These hidden features, stretching across 3,500 kilometers, are ...

Frozen for 12,000 Years, This Alpine Ice Core Captures the Rise of Civilization

July 16, 2025 — An ancient glacier high in the French Alps has revealed the oldest known ice in Western Europe—dating back over 12,000 years to the last Ice Age. This frozen archive, meticulously analyzed by ...

Why America’s Still Freezing — Even as the World Heats Up

July 12, 2025 — Even in a warming climate, brutal cold snaps still hammer parts of the U.S., and a new study uncovers why. High above the Arctic, two distinct polar vortex patterns — both distorted and displaced — play a major role in steering icy air toward ...

Melting Glaciers Are Awakening Earth's Most Dangerous Volcanoes

July 8, 2025 — As glaciers melt around the world, long-dormant volcanoes may be waking up beneath the ice. New research reveals that massive ice sheets have suppressed eruptions for thousands of years, building up underground pressure. But as that icy weight ...

Antarctica’s Slow Collapse Caught on Camera—and It’s Accelerating

July 7, 2025 — Long-lost 1960s aerial photos let Copenhagen researchers watch Antarctica’s Wordie Ice Shelf crumble in slow motion. By fusing film with satellites, they discovered warm ocean water, not surface ponds, drives the destruction, and mapped “pinning ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:14pm EDT

Scientists Thought the Arctic Was Sealed in Ice — They Were Wrong

July 5, 2025 — For decades, scientists believed the Arctic Ocean was sealed under a massive slab of ice during the coldest ice ages — but new research proves otherwise. Sediment samples from the seafloor, paired ...

Antarctica’s Ocean Flip: Satellites Catch Sudden Salt Surge Melting Ice from Below

July 2, 2025 — A massive and surprising change is unfolding around Antarctica. Scientists have discovered that the Southern Ocean is getting saltier, and sea ice is ...

Tiny Creatures, Massive Impact: How Zooplankton Store 65 Million Tonnes of Carbon Annually

June 27, 2025 — Zooplankton like copepods aren’t just fish food—they’re carbon-hauling powerhouses. By diving deep into the ocean each winter, they’re ...

123,000-Year-Old Coral Fossils Warn of Sudden, Catastrophic Sea-Level Rise

June 23, 2025 — Ancient coral fossils from the remote Seychelles islands have unveiled a dramatic warning for our future—sea levels can rise in sudden, sharp bursts even when global temperatures stay ...

Hidden Carbon Giants: Satellite Data Reveals a 40-Year Arctic Peatland Surge

June 20, 2025 — Arctic peatlands are expanding with rising temperatures, storing more carbon at least for now. But future warming could reverse this benefit, ...

How Life Endured the Snowball Earth: Evidence from Antarctic Meltwater Ponds

June 19, 2025 — During Earth's ancient Snowball periods, when the entire planet was wrapped in ice, life may have endured in tiny meltwater ponds on the surface of ...

Winter Sea Ice Supercharges Southern Ocean’s CO2 Uptake

June 18, 2025 — A breakthrough study has uncovered that the Southern Ocean's power to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere fluctuates dramatically depending on winter sea ice. When sea ice lingers longer into ...

Toxic Tides: Centuries-Old Mercury Is Flooding the Arctic Food Chain

June 13, 2025 — Despite falling global mercury emissions, mercury levels in Arctic wildlife continue to rise. A new study reveals that ocean currents are delivering legacy mercury pollution from distant regions like ...

Atmospheric Chemistry Keeps Pollutants in the Air

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

Scientists Say Next Few Years Vital to Securing the Future of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

June 3, 2025 — Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be triggered with very little ocean warming above present-day, leading to a devastating four meters of ...

Human-Caused Dust Events Are Linked to Fallow Farmland

June 2, 2025 — California Central Valley, which is known for the agriculture that produces much of the nation's fruits, vegetables and nuts, is a major contributor to a growing dust problem that has profound ...

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 ...

Birds Nested in Arctic Alongside Dinosaurs

May 29, 2025 — Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a new article. The ...

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 ...

Climate Change Poses Severe Threat to Bowhead Whale Habitat

May 22, 2025 — New research examining 11,700 years of bowhead whale persistence throughout the Arctic projects that sea ice loss due to climate change will cause their habitat to severely contract by up to 75 per ...

Clouding the Forecast: Study Reveals Why So Many Climate Models Are Wrong About the Rate of Arctic Warming

May 20, 2025 — The Arctic is one of the coldest places on Earth, but in recent decades, the region has been rapidly warming, at a rate three to four times faster than the global average. However, current climate ...

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 ...

A Vicious Cycle: How Methane Emissions from Warming Wetlands Could Exacerbate Climate Change

May 15, 2025 — The latest study finds that emissions of the potent greenhouse gas might be higher than previously ...

Sharp Depletion in Soil Moisture Drives Land Water to Flow Into Oceans, Contributing to Sea Level Rise

May 14, 2025 — The increasing frequency of once-in-a-decade agricultural and ecological drought has underscored the urgency of studying hydrological changes. A research team has analyzed the estimated changes in ...

Submarine Robot Catches an Underwater Wave

May 12, 2025 — Engineers have taught a simple submarine robot to take advantage of turbulent forces to propel itself through ...

Internal Clocks Determine the Ups and Downs of Antarctic Krill

May 9, 2025 — Antarctic krill do not only react to external environmental influences such as light or food. They also use their internal clock to adapt to the extreme conditions of the polar ...

Waxing and Waning Prairie: New Study Unravels Causes of Ancient Climate Changes

May 8, 2025 — A long period of drought in North America has been recognized by scientists for decades. A new study links the severe climate to a change in Earth's ...

Satellites Observe Glacier Committing 'Ice Piracy'

May 8, 2025 — A glacier in Antarctica is committing 'ice piracy' -- stealing ice from a neighbor -- in a phenomenon that has never been observed in such a short time frame, say ...

Western US Spring Runoff Is Older Than You Think

May 5, 2025 — Hydrologists show most streamflow out of the West's mountains is old snowmelt on a multi-year underground journey. New study finds that spring runoff is on average 5 years ...

Loss of Sea Ice Alters the Colors of Light in the Ocean

May 2, 2025 — The disappearance of sea ice in polar regions due to global warming not only increases the amount of light entering the ocean, but also changes its color. These changes have far-reaching consequences ...

'Cryosphere Meltdown' Will Impact Arctic Marine Carbon Cycles and Ecosystems, New Study Warns

Apr. 25, 2025 — A new study has found worrying signs that climate change may be undermining the capacity of Arctic fjords to serve as effective carbon sinks. The findings suggest that the capacity of polar oceans to ...

Why Are Patagonian Glaciers Rapidly Losing Mass?

Apr. 23, 2025 — Over the past two decades, satellite-based planetary observations have recorded rapid mass loss of Patagonian glaciers, contributing approximately 0.07 mm per year to global sea-level rise. A study ...

Melting Glaciers at the End of the Ice Age May Have Sped Up Continental Drift, Fueled Volcanic Eruptions

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists believe that the motion of Earth's continents through plate tectonics has been largely steady over millions of years. New research, however, suggests this drift can speed up or slow ...

Major Dust-Up for Water in the Colorado River

Apr. 22, 2025 — Dust-on-snow is a major threat to water in the Colorado River, yet no snowmelt forecasts integrate dust-accelerated melt. Using pioneering remote sensing techniques, new research is the first to ...

First Confirmed Footage of a Colossal Squid -- And It's a Baby!

Apr. 16, 2025 — An international team of scientists and crew on board Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too) was the first to film the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural ...