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.
How meltwater from the ice sheets disturbed the climate 10,000 years ago
By the end of the most recent ice age 10,000 years ago, a huge ice sheet melted in North America, in the same way that the ice in Greenland is melting today. Its meltwater had a massive impact on the climate in northwest Europe and northwest Africa.
Weathering of rocks by mosses may explain climate effects during the Late Ordovician
During the Ordovician period, the concentration of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere was about eight times higher than today. It has been hard to explain why the climate cooled and why the Ordovician glaciations took place. A new study, published in Nature Communications, shows that the weathering of rock caused by early non-vascular plants had the potential to cause such a global cooling effect.
Archaeology suggests no direct link between climate change and early human innovation
Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites suggest climate may not have been directly linked to cultural and technological innovations of Middle Stone Age humans in southern Africa.
94-million-year-old climate change event holds clues for future
A major climate event millions of years ago that caused substantial change to the ocean's ecological systems may hold clues as to how the Earth will respond to future climate change, a Florida State University researcher said.
Ancient DNA shows perfect storm felled Ice Age giants
Giant Ice Age species including elephant-sized sloths and powerful sabre-toothed cats that once roamed the windswept plains of Patagonia, southern South America, were finally felled by a perfect storm of a rapidly warming climate and humans, a new study has shown.
A history of snowfall on Greenland, hidden in ancient leaf waxes
The history of Greenland's snowfall is chronicled in an unlikely place: the remains of aquatic plants that died long ago, collecting at the bottom of lakes in horizontal layers that document the passing years.
Lead pollution reveals the ancient history of Naples
During the construction of a new underground line, archaeological excavations were carried out in the ancient, long-buried port of Naples.
Rice-led study offers new answer to why Earth’s atmosphere became oxygenated
Earth scientists from Rice University, Yale University and the University of Tokyo are offering a new answer to the long-standing question of how our planet acquired its oxygenated atmosphere.
New ice age knowledge
An international team of researchers headed by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute has gained new insights into the carbon dioxide exchange between ocean and atmosphere, thus making a significant contribution to solving one of the great scientific mysteries of the ice ages.
Early Earth’s air weighed less than half of today’s atmosphere
The idea that the young Earth had a thicker atmosphere turns out to be wrong. New research from the University of Washington uses bubbles trapped in 2.7 billion-year-old rocks to show that air at that time exerted at most half the pressure of today's atmosphere.
Climate-exodus expected in the Middle East and North Africa
Part of the Middle East and North Africa may become uninhabitable due to climate change
Six to 10 million years ago: Ice-free summers at the North Pole
An international team of scientists led by the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have managed to open a new window into the climate history of the Arctic Ocean. Using unique sediment samples from the Lomonosov Ridge, the researchers found that six to ten million years ago the central Arctic was completely ice-free during summer and sea-surface temperature reached values of 4 to 9 degrees Celsius.
North Atlantic played pivotal role in last great climate tipping point
North Atlantic played pivotal role in last great climate tipping point, research shows.
Ice Age Antarctic Ocean gives clue to ‘missing’ atmospheric carbon dioxide
Climate is not constant on Earth. Consider ice ages coming and going as an example. Parallel to ice age cycles, atmospheric carbon dioxide reduces during glacial periods and increases during warmer times, although modern fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emission broke this natural cyclicity. With the proper proxy measurements, scientists can look into these past cycles to determine how exactly climate systems were naturally governed.
Increase in volcanic eruptions at the end of the ice age caused by melting ice caps and glacial erosion
The combination of erosion and melting ice caps led to a massive increase in volcanic activity at the end of the last ice age, according to new research.