Almost 30 years’ worth of Landsat observations created a comprehensive inventory of catastrophic floods caused by glacial lakes bursting through their rock dams.
glaciers & ice sheets
Posted inScience Updates
Dynamic Ice Sheet and Sea Level Response to Past Climate Change
PALSEA2 Workshop; Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico, 6–9 November 2017
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Evidence of Extensive Ice Deposits Near Mercury’s South Pole
New radar observations and refined illumination maps reveal uneven water ice deposits twice the size of those found around the planet’s north pole, suggesting the source may be a recent comet impact.
Posted inNews
New Maps Highlight Antarctica’s Flowing Ice
The maps focus on surface ice velocity, showing how Antarctica’s frozen surface changed over a 7-year period.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Ocean Tides Affect Ice Loss from Large Polar Ice Sheets
A recent paper in Reviews of Geophysics discusses how ocean tides affect the motion of, and loss of ice from, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
Posted inNews
Fresh Insights into What Protects Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf
Scientists bored 755 meters through Antarctic ice and found that a layer of extremely cold, fresh water insulates part of the Ross Ice Shelf against melting.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A New Model of Drumlin Formation
Observations from the surge-type glacier Múlajökull in Iceland underpin new modeling results that suggest the glacier’s drumlins grow during quiet intervals of normal flow between glacial surges.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Incorporating Physical Processes into Sea Level Projections
Including the effects of physical mechanisms that can quickly increase ice sheet discharge significantly raises sea level rise projections under high-emission scenarios.
Posted inNews
Science at the Border Between Ice and Ocean
A suite of instruments, including drones, remotely operated boats, and multibeam sonar, is helping scientists understand a little-studied area at the front of a calving glacier.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Earth’s Orbit Affected Ice Sheets Millions of Years Ago
A new study of the late Pliocene era could help scientists predict future sea level rise.