Climate Change
Welcome to the Climate Change News section, where we explore how past climates have shaped human history and the natural world. This section delves into the latest research on ancient climate patterns, their impact on early civilizations, and the lessons we can learn from historical climate shifts.
Climate Change
Lost world discovered beneath Antarctic ice
A large-scale transcontinental river system from the Eocene era, dating back 44 to 34 million years ago, has been discovered beneath the Antarctic ice.
Archaeology
Study suggests Seahenge was built to control climate change
A recent study published in GeoJournal proposes that Seahenge was built to conduct rituals aimed at prolonging the summer during the extreme climatic changes of the 3rd millennium BC.
Archaeology
Study uncovers new evidence supporting Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis
The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) proposes that a cometary or meteoric body exploded over the North American area sometime around 12,900-years-ago.
Archaeology
Pleistocene hunter-gatherers settled in Cyprus thousands of years earlier than previously thought
Archaeologists have found that Pleistocene hunter-gatherers settled in Cyprus thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
Archaeology
Underwater scans reveal lost submerged landscape
Researchers from the Life on the Edge project, a collaboration between the University of Bradford and the University of Split, has revealed a lost submerged landscape off the coast of Croatia using underwater scans.
Last remnant of North American ice sheet on track to vanish
The last piece of the ice sheet that once blanketed much of North America is doomed to disappear in the next several centuries, says a new study by researchers at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and the University of Colorado Boulder.
Shifting monsoon altered early cultures in China, study says
The annual summer monsoon that drops rain onto East Asia, an area with about a billion people, has shifted dramatically in the distant past, at times moving northward by as much as 400 kilometers and doubling rainfall in that northern reach. The monsoon's changes over the past 10,000 years likely altered the course of early human cultures in China, say the authors of a new study.
Low level of oxygen in Earth’s middle ages delayed evolution for 2 billion years
A low level of atmospheric oxygen in Earth's middle ages held back evolution for 2 billion years, raising fresh questions about the origins of life on this planet.
Green Sahara’s ancient rainfall regime revealed
Rainfall patterns in the Sahara during the 6,000-year "Green Sahara" period have been pinpointed by analyzing marine sediments, according to new research.
Climate change could trigger strong sea level rise
About 15,000 years ago, the ocean around Antarctica has seen an abrupt sea level rise of several meters. It could happen again. An international team of scientists with the participation of the University of Bonn is now reporting its findings in the magazine Nature Scientific Reports.
Fossil fuel formation: Key to atmosphere’s oxygen?
For the development of animals, nothing -- with the exception of DNA -- may be more important than oxygen in the atmosphere.
Antarctic Ice Sheet study reveals 8,000-year record of climate change
An international team of researchers has found that the Antarctic Ice Sheet plays a major role in regional and global climate variability - a discovery that may also help explain why sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere has been increasing despite the warming of the rest of the Earth.
During last warming period, Antarctica heated up 2 to 3 times more than planet average
Following Earth's last ice age, which peaked 20,000 years ago, the Antarctic warmed between two and three times the average temperature increase worldwide, according to a new study by a team of American geophysicists.
The coldest decade of the millennium? How the cold 1430s led to famine and disease
While searching through historical archives to find out more about the 15th-century climate of what is now Belgium, northern France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, Chantal Camenisch noticed something odd. "I realised that there was something extraordinary going on regarding the climate during the 1430s," says the historian from the University of Bern in Switzerland.
Climate, human influence conspired in Lake Urmia’s decline
The dramatic decline of Iran's Lake Urmia--once the second-largest hypersaline lake in the world--has both direct human and climatic causes, according to a new study published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research. The study was the first to compare the relative impact of climate and water management on the water flowing into the lake.
Discovery of “lost” early satellite data to aid understanding of the Earth’s climate
Serendipity, expertise, foresight and the equivalent of an Earth observation data archaeological dig have led to recovery of almost-40-year-old satellite imagery - thought lost forever - which will significantly add to understanding of our planet’s climate.
Why does our planet experience an ice age every 100,000 years?
Experts from Cardiff University have offered up an explanation as to why our planet began to move in and out of ice ages every 100,000 years.
Patterns of Greenland ice loss similar to 20 thousand years ago
A new study based on GPS measurements of the Earth’s crust suggests that previous calculations of past and present-day mass loss in the Greenland...
Climate change was less important for technological innovation among Stone Age humans
This is the news of a ground-breaking study recently published in the open access journal PLOS ONE. Professor Christopher S. Henshilwood and Postdoctoral Fellow Karen L. van Niekerk from the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen (UiB) are among the co-authors of the paper. The lead author is Patrick Roberts, from the University of Oxford.
Sea ice strongly linked to climate change in past 90 000 years
"The Arctic sea ice responded very rapidly to past climate changes. During the coldest periods of the past 90,000 years the sea ice edge spread relatively quickly to the Greenland-Scotland Ridge, and probably far into the Atlantic Ocean." says first author Ulrike Hoff, a researcher at Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate (CAGE).