Recent summers on the vast, white expanse of the Greenland Ice Sheet have featured some spectacular ice melt, including an alarming period in 2012 when nearly the whole surface showed signs of melt. But this summer has instead seen several bouts of snow, staving off a big summer melt. So what gives? While it may seem contradictory, those snows are
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New estimates of Greenland's melting ice sheet have come out this week along with NOAA's analysis of August's heat. Catch up on both in this week's Shum Show with Climate Central's Research Analyst/Multimedia Journalist, Greta Shum.
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Bad news keeps flowing for the icy landscapes of the world. Rising temperatures are melting ice and sending it to the ocean, a process that is pushing sea levels higher and altering the landscape at both poles. The latest news comes from Greenland, where researchers have used high-tech satellite and GPS measurements to see how much mass the ice
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To say the 2016 Greenland melt season is off to the races is an understatement. Warm, wet conditions rapidly kicked off the melt season this weekend, more than a month-and-a-half ahead of schedule. It has easily set a record for earliest melt season onset, and marks the first time it’s begun in April. Little to no melt through winter is the norm
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On the Great Lakes, the maximum ice cover this year is down substantially from 2014 and 2015, which were the 2nd and 4th highest percentages on record, respectively. Despite its large season-to-season variability, the maximum winter ice cover has been trending downward in recent decades. In addition to curtailing recreational activities such as
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At Climate Central, we love climate research (but really, who doesn’t?). We cover it relentlessly and a lot of findings have come through our inboxes this year. All those studies are crucial to shaping both what we know about the world we currently live in as well as what we’re in store for in the future depending on how we respond to climate
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Glaciers all over the world are melting, which could lead to severe consequences for global temperature and for our water supply. Here's Bernadette Woods Placky with the reasons for the ice melt.
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It appears that Greenland’s melt season is making up for lost time. After a cool spring kept Greenland’s massive ice sheet mostly solid, a (comparatively) warm late June and early July have turned half the ice sheet’s surface into liquid, well outside the range of normal for this time of year. Despite the ice sheet’s remote location, its slushy
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The ice that tumbles into the ocean along Alaska’s coastline often makes for dramatic images that show one of the ravages of climate change – melting tidewater glaciers that contribute to sea level rise. But a new study finds that far more meltwater is flowing into the sea from a similar, if less frequently photographed source – inland glaciers.
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The Dudh Koshi basin spans 1 million acres and includes some of world’s tallest peaks including Mount Everest. Glaciers tumble down from the highest reaches to the valleys below, shaping the landscape and culture of the region. But climate change has the jagged tongues of ice that define the region primed for a major meltdown. A new study
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The massive shelves of ice that ring Antarctica have been shrinking over the past couple of decades, and that could have grave implications for sea level rise. It’s not the ice shelves themselves that pose a problem: they’re mostly afloat, so when they melt or dump massive icebergs, it doesn’t affect water levels any more than melting ice cubes
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January 1995 marked a seminal moment in modern Antarctic history, with the crumbling of the Larsen A ice shelf, a floating plain of ice fed by glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula. Less than a decade later, its southern neighbor, the Larsen B ice shelf, disintegrated, stunning polar scientists. After the spectacular collapses of Larsen A and B
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