Tundra News

November 15, 2025

Top Headlines

Space Dust Reveals How Fast the Arctic Is Changing

Nov. 13, 2025 Arctic sea ice is disappearing fast, and scientists have turned to an unexpected cosmic clue—space dust—to uncover how ice has changed over tens of thousands of years. By tracking helium-3–bearing dust trapped (or blocked) by ancient ice, ...

Laser Satellites Expose a Secret Antarctic Carbon Burst

Nov. 8, 2025 A new study shows that the Southern Ocean releases far more carbon dioxide in winter than once thought. By combining laser satellite data with AI analysis, scientists managed to “see” through the polar darkness for the first time. The results ...

Scientists Just Found Hidden Life Thriving Beneath the Arctic Ice

Oct. 21, 2025 Melting Arctic ice is revealing a hidden world of nitrogen-fixing bacteria beneath the surface. These microbes, not the usual cyanobacteria, enrich the ocean with nitrogen, fueling algae growth that supports the entire marine food chain. As ice ...

Earth’s Climate Just Crossed a Line We Can’t Ignore

Oct. 13, 2025 Humanity has reached the first Earth system tipping point, the widespread death of warm-water coral reefs, marking the beginning of irreversible planetary shifts. As global temperatures move beyond 1.5°C, the world risks cascading crises such as ...

Scientists Just Recreated a Wildfire That Made Its Own Weather

Oct. 2, 2025 In 2020, California’s Creek Fire became so intense that it generated its own thunderstorm, a phenomenon called a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. For years, scientists struggled to replicate these explosive fire-born storms in climate models, leaving major ...

1,000 Swiss Glaciers Already Gone, and the Melting Is Speeding Up

Oct. 2, 2025 Swiss glaciers lost nearly 3% of their volume in 2025, following a snow-poor winter and scorching summer heatwaves. The melt has been so extreme that some glaciers lost more than two meters of ice thickness in a single season. Scientists caution ...

The Shocking Reason Arctic Rivers Are Turning Rusty Orange

Sep. 22, 2025 Researchers found that ice can trigger stronger chemical reactions than liquid water, dissolving iron minerals in extreme cold. Freeze-thaw cycles amplify the effect, releasing iron into rivers and soils. With climate change accelerating these ...

Strange New Hybrid Bird Spotted in Texas Backyard

Sep. 20, 2025 In Texas, biologists have documented an extraordinary bird — the natural hybrid offspring of a green jay and a blue jay. Once separated by millions of years of evolution and distinct ranges, the two species were brought together as climate change ...

Why Alaska’s Salmon Streams Are Suddenly Bleeding Orange

Sep. 18, 2025 Warming Arctic permafrost is unlocking toxic metals, turning Alaska’s once-clear rivers into orange, acid-laced streams. The shift, eerily similar to mine pollution but entirely natural, threatens fish, ecosystems, and communities that depend on ...

Tiny Skaters Beneath the Arctic Ice Rewrite the Limits of Life

Sep. 12, 2025 Hidden within Arctic ice, diatoms are proving to be anything but dormant. New Stanford research shows these glass-walled algae glide through frozen channels at record-breaking subzero temperatures, powered by mucus-like ropes and molecular motors. ...

Central Asia’s Last Stable Glaciers Just Started to Collapse

Sep. 3, 2025 Snowfall shortages are now destabilizing some of the world’s last resilient glaciers, as shown by a new study in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains. Using a monitoring station on Kyzylsu Glacier, researchers discovered that stability ended around ...

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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:00pm EST

Scientists Shocked by Reversed Electric Field Around Earth

Oct. 31, 2025 Earth’s magnetosphere, once thought to have a simple electric polarity pattern, has revealed a surprising twist. New satellite data and advanced simulations show that the morning side of the ...

A Clue to Ancient Life? What Scientists Found Inside Mars’ Frozen Vortex

Oct. 19, 2025 Mars’ north polar vortex locks its atmosphere in extreme cold and darkness, freezing out water vapor and triggering a dramatic rise in ozone. Scientists found that the lack of sunlight and moisture ...

Earthquakes Release Blistering Heat That Can Melt Rock in an Instant

Sep. 19, 2025 MIT scientists have unraveled the hidden energy balance of earthquakes by recreating them in the lab. Their findings show that while only a sliver of energy goes into the shaking we feel on the ...

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 ...

Digital Twins Are Reinventing Clean Energy — but There’s a Catch

July 29, 2025 Researchers are exploring AI-powered digital twins as a game-changing tool to accelerate the clean energy transition. These digital models simulate and optimize real-world energy systems like wind, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 melting at record speed, enough to match the size ...

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, releasing massive ...

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 equatorial glaciers. MIT researchers ...

Only 3 Years Left: The Carbon Budget for 1.5°C Is Almost Gone

June 27, 2025 At current emission rates, we're just over three years away from blowing through the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5°C. This new international study paints a stark picture: the ...

Plants’ Secret Second Roots Rewrite the Climate Playbook

June 20, 2025 Beneath the forest floor lies an overlooked secret: many plants grow a second set of roots far deeper than expected sometimes over three feet down tapping into hidden nutrient stores and potentially ...

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 ...

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 ...

Collaboration Can Unlock Australia's Energy Transition Without Sacrificing Natural Capital

June 3, 2025 Australia can reach net-zero emissions and still protect its natural treasures but only if everyone works together. New research from Princeton and The University of Queensland shows that the country ...

Atmospheric Chemistry Keeps Pollutants in the Air

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

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 ...

How Does Digestion Affect Molecular Analysis of Owl Pellets?

May 27, 2025 Researchers found that digestion in hawks and owls can alter the results of isotopic analysis in pellets and ...

Managing Surrogate Species, Providing a Conservation Umbrella for More Species

May 23, 2025 A new study shows that monitoring and managing select bird species can provide benefits for other species within specific ...

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 ...

Rising Temperatures Lead to Unexpectedly Rapid Carbon Release from Soils

May 16, 2025 How sensitively does organic carbon stored in soils react to changes in temperature and ...

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 ...

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 ...

How to Reduce Global CO2 Emissions from Industry

May 8, 2025 Global emissions of carbon dioxide from industry can be reduced by five per cent. But that requires companies and policy makers to take a holistic approach to energy efficiency and energy management ...