ice

Climate change messing with giant ice buildings

A century ago, winters in Bavaria were so brutal that one Christmas, villagers in Mitterfirmiansreut were unable to hike to the nearest church, and they were forced to build one out of snow. For the 101st anniversary of the snow church this year, the town enlisted architect Alfons Doeringer to rebuild the snowthedral, nicknamed “God’s […]

How climate change shows up in ancient, Tolkien-esque myths

The Vernagtferner glacier in the portion of the Alps falling within the borders of Austria is said to be cursed. In ancient legend, it buried the cities Onanä and Dananä, whose ruins lie beneath its implacable mass of ice to this day. Which is all a way, way cooler story than the purely factual “climate […]

‘Mountain tsunamis’ are a thing; threaten Himalayas

The kingdom of Bhutan, famous for maximizing "Gross National Happiness" rather than GDP, is sitting under a gigantic time bomb of water that could burst at any moment, flooding its villages and putting a major damper on all that good cheer. Bhutan has 2,674 glacial lakes, 24 of which are considered unstable. When the ice […]

Mongolia plans to combat warming with giant ice cube

Scientists in Ulan Bator, Mongolia are planning to save energy in summer by cryogenically preserving winter. They want to encourage extremely thick ice to form on the local river, thus storing up cold temperatures that can later be used to cool the city. The scientists are artificially creating "naleds," which are slabs of ice up […]

Reenact global warming in your cocktail

This Japanese site sells ice cube molds depicting penguins and polar bears sitting on ice floes. As the ice melts, both the floes and the critters are destroyed, making this a pretty good simulation of the effects of global warming. Finally, a product that combines climate education with all the drinking you need to do […]

Canada probably didn’t NEED that ice sheet, right?

If you thought you were melting over the summer, just be glad you're not an ice sheet that's been chilling out since before Europeans settled in Canada. Over the summer, two huge Canadian ice shelves in the Arctic shrunk down precipitously, report scientists from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. One sheet had already split into two sections and just kept getting smaller; the other broke in half this year. Icebergs are breaking away and "pose a risk to offshore oil facilities and potentially to shipping lanes," reports the Associated Press. "Since the end of July, pieces equaling one and a half times to the size of Manhattan Island have broken off."

This is not normal behavior for an ice shelf this large and old, says the AP:

Atlas error overstates Greenland's (still significant!) ice loss

Here's the good news: Greenland did not lose 15 percent of its ice cover in the last 10 years, as the Times [Usually] Comprehensive Atlas of the World said it did. This is, in fact, really good news, since this amount of melting would raise sea levels three to five feet. The publisher, HarperCollins subsidiary Collins Geo, has retracted the 15 percent figure but says it's "reviewing" the map -- but in the meantime, a whole bunch of scientists went "whoa whoa whoa there." 

Climate change already killing baby polar bears

Climate change isn't just killing polar bears, it's killing baby polar bears. YOU MONSTER.

A study that tracked polar bears swimming long distances found cubs that swam more than 30 miles at a time were more likely to die than cubs that didn't. Baby polars have a hard time making those swims because:

Digging for permafrost in the Last Frontier

How much carbon is being released by the thawing of the Arctic's so-called permafrost? Ecologist Ted Schuur braves Alaska to find out.