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.
Alaska's glaciers are melting at an accelerating pace, losing roughly 60 billion tons of ice each year. About 4,000 kilometers to the south, in California and Nevada, records for heat and dryness are being shattered, creating ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 7, 2026
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The first study from GreenDrill—a project co-led by the University at Buffalo to collect rocks and sediment buried beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet—has found that the Prudhoe Dome ice cap was completely gone approximately ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 5, 2026
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552
Due to its thick, vast ice sheet, Antarctica appears to be a single, continuous landmass centered over the South Pole and spanning both hemispheres of the globe. The Western Hemisphere sector of the ice sheet is shaped like ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 23, 2025
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81
Though ice sheet melting is widely talked of and debated, there is limited knowledge about what happens after the period of melting. Researchers dig into this "after" period and see how it relates to previous patterns.
Earth Sciences
Dec 22, 2025
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52
In an age of rising sea levels, as polar ice sheets melt in a climate warmed by fossil fuel emissions, climate modelers are racing to understand what the future might hold for coastlines around the world. But uncertainties ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 11, 2025
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79
A recent study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters is the first to directly link earthquakes to climate change-induced glacial melt. Scientists analyzed 15 years of seismic activity in the Grandes Jorasses—a ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 2, 2025
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20
Approximately 400,000 years ago, some areas of Greenland that are now covered by a thick layer of ice were exposed to fresh air and sunlight. Today, the Greenland Ice Sheet covers most of the land mass, but the southwestern ...
Environment
Nov 25, 2025
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137
Climate change may seem a uniquely 21st-century concern, but people have been wrestling with the idea for a long time.
Earth Sciences
Nov 19, 2025
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16
Traveling up from the Mars equator toward its north pole, we find Coloe Fossae: a set of intriguing scratches within a region marked by deep valleys, speckled craters, and signs of an ancient ice age.
Planetary Sciences
Nov 12, 2025
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26
A glacier on Antarctica's Eastern Peninsula experienced the fastest retreat recorded in modern history—in just two months, nearly 50% of the glacier disintegrated.
Earth Sciences
Nov 3, 2025
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