Slush – water-soaked snow – makes up more than half of all meltwater on the Antarctic ice shelves during the height of summer, yet is poorly accounted for in regional climate models.
Heavy pooling meltwater can fracture ice, potentially leading to ice shelf collapse
The Fens of eastern England, a low-lying, extremely flat landscape dominated by agricultural fields, was once a vast woodland filled with huge yew trees, according to new research.
The world’s second-largest ice sheet is melting from the bottom up – and generating huge amounts of heat from hydropower.
The Arctic Ocean has been getting warmer since the beginning of the 20th century – decades earlier than records suggest – due to warmer water flowing into the delicate polar ecosystem from the Atlantic Ocean.
Scientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their findings will be used to make more accurate models of the future movement of the world’s second-largest ice sheet, as the effects of climate change continue to accelerate.
Using satellite data to ‘see in the dark’, researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a finding with implications for the speed at which the world’s second-largest ice sheet flows to the ocean.
The world’s second-largest ice sheet, and the single largest contributor to global sea level rise, is potentially becoming unstable because of fractures developing in response to faster ice flow and more meltwater forming on its surface.
Human activity is currently a bigger threat to mangroves, and the natural defences they provide against storm surges and other coastal disasters, than rising sea levels, according to a new study.
© 2024 University of Cambridge