Glaciation refers to the climatic and geophysical processes leading to the formation, expansion, and persistence of glaciers and ice sheets, and their subsequent sculpting of the Earth’s surface. It encompasses large-scale cooling, snow accumulation exceeding ablation, and dynamic ice flow driven by gravity and basal sliding. Glaciation cycles, governed primarily by orbital forcing (Milankovitch cycles), greenhouse gas concentrations, and feedbacks involving albedo and ocean circulation, produce glacial–interglacial variations in global climate. These events generate diagnostic landforms (e.g., moraines, drumlins, U-shaped valleys) and stratigraphic signatures, and they are central topics in Quaternary science, paleoclimatology, and Earth system modeling.
On the evening of Aug. 9, 2025, passengers on the Hanse Explorer finished taking selfies and videos of the South Sawyer Glacier, and the ship headed back down the fjord. Twelve hours later, a landslide from the adjacent mountain ...
Earth Sciences
May 10, 2026
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163
In a new paper, an international team led by scientists from Charles University, Czechia, has brought evidence linking widespread release of methane (CH₄)—a strong greenhouse gas—from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) to a warmer ...
Earth Sciences
May 5, 2026
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Imagine your favorite sunny beach. Anywhere will do. You look out and see the ocean stretching to the horizon. To a glaciologist, that view is not just water; it's melted ice. Our new study shows that the best case sea-level ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 24, 2026
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A massive ice block on the route just above the Mount Everest base camp has forced hundreds of climbers and their local guides to delay their attempt to scale the world's highest peak, officials said Friday.
Environment
Apr 24, 2026
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Glaciers can reveal vast archives of information about Earth's environmental past, but deciphering the origins of the matter within them can be a challenge. Now, using a novel technique that enables researchers to directly ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 16, 2026
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Where once there was ice, only rock remains. One of the glaciers in a chain of snow-capped mountains in the Colombian Andes has vanished due to high temperatures driven by climate change.
Environment
Apr 16, 2026
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12
Earth and the course of life on Earth have been shaped by impacts. Scientists have uncovered links between massive impacts and changes in climate that altered the planet forever. But the further scientists look into the past ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 15, 2026
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131
Models of glacial flow and retreat rely on estimates of glacial ice viscosity, the measure of the ice's resistance to flow. Ice viscosity is dependent on the stress applied to the glacier. Most ice sheet models use a standard ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 14, 2026
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33
Earth's glaciers are continuing to shrink at alarming rates, with new international research revealing that 2025 was among the worst years on record for global ice loss. Published in the Climate Chronicles collection of Nature ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 10, 2026
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113
Some newly published findings from an Idaho State University professor and his colleagues point out how changes to currents an ocean away can impact climates on the other side of the globe. The new paper published in Nature ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 2, 2026
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