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Glaciology

Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal, Jan. 15, 2020.

Climate change deeply affects the entire planet — including Mount Everest

Environment

Human activity is impacting the planet, from the deepest parts of the ocean to the tallest peaks. The highest point in the Himalayas is no exception.

A vast, white sheet of ice

Rapid ice melt and sea-level rise will be part of our global future — no matter what

Climate Change
a wooden bit in a palm

This once-frozen pass is a trove of Viking artifacts. Now, there’s a race to preserve them.

History
Joee Patterson is shown with her arms outstretched while wearing sunglasses and a red safety vest.

For this marine tech, Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier drives home threat of climate change

Into the Thaw: Decoding Thwaites Glacier
Two yellow tents and a larger dome tent are staked into the snow. At the top of the image is a wing of a tiny prop plane.

These scientists used small explosions to ‘see’ under Antarctica and measure how fast a key glacier will melt

Into the Thaw: Decoding Thwaites Glacier
Grease ice dampens ripples in the water near a golden orange sunset.

Antarctica dispatch 8: Behold grease, shuga and pancake ice

Into the Thaw: Decoding Thwaites Glacier

The research team aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer is starting to wrap up their work studying Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. As the Amundsen Sea starts to freeze up, the captain of the ship will be constantly on the lookout for gaps in the ice that will carry the ship home.

The eastern ice tongue of Thwaites Glacier is shown rising out of deep blue ocean waters.

Antarctica Dispatch 6: First sight of Thwaites — mapping uncharted seafloor

Into the Thaw: Decoding Thwaites Glacier

The Nathaniel B. Palmer arrived at Thwaites Glacier on Feb. 26, roughly a month after leaving Punta Arenas, Chile. During its first day in front of the glacier, the Palmer traced a roughly 100-mile path around the edge of Thwaites mapping portions of the sea floor that were previously uncharted.

Three people walk across ground covered in ice and snow as the horizon stretches behind them.

As Greenland’s ice sheet melts, scientists push to learn ‘how fast’

The Big Melt

The Greenland ice sheet has long helped cool the world and keep sea levels stable. But now it’s melting, and scientists are trying to learn as much as they can, as fast as they can.

Two men stand on rocky land as mountains and snow stretch out behind them. One holds a drill of some kind and is drilling into the rock.

If the Greenland ice sheet melts, what happens to New York City? This reporter went to find out.

A New York-based reporter follows scientists to Greenland to try to get a fix on what the future of the world’s second-largest ice sheet could mean for sea level rise and the fate of her home town.

Snow is blown off of the calving front off of Thurston Island in western Antarctica in this photo, taken in November 2014. New findings show the western side of Antarctica to be more vulnerable to warming oceans — and increased ice loss — than first thoug

A scientist’s response to Antarctic ice loss: ‘We can act.’

When it came to figuring how much ice loss was taking place over the last five years in Antarctica, they knew it was a bad situation — but they did not realize it was this bad.