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Scientists studying ice cores packing in some 60,000 years of history have found signs of thousands of volcanic eruptions across that time, stretching back to the last Ice Age – with 25 of the eruptions larger than anything Earth has seen in the last 2,500 years. Researchers excavated the cores near both poles: in Antarctica (where 737 eruptions were logged) and Greenland (where 1,113 eruptions were found). A total of 85 eruptions were large enough to leave evidence behind at both poles. That evidence takes the form of sulfuric acid deposits left behind by the eruptions. It gives researchers clues...

The animals painted in ocher in Colombia may include giant ground sloths and other creatures that vanished from the Americas. But some researchers say the art has a more recent origin. At the end of the last ice age, South America was home to strange animals that have since vanished into extinction: giant ground sloths, elephant-like herbivores and an ancient lineage of horses. A new study suggests that we can see these lost creatures in enchanting ocher paintings made by ice age humans on a rocky outcrop in the Colombian Amazon. These dazzling rock art displays at Serranía de la...

An international team of scientists, including Dr. Willie Soon, has produced a solar model which does a skilful job of reproducing past climate shifts such as the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period...The main reasons for the Little Ice Age (LIA) are the long and deep minimum of summer insolation and insolation seasonality (IS) in the Northern Hemisphere...The noted characteristics of insolation, reflecting not only variations in the arrival of solar radiation, but also variations in the mechanisms of heat transfer, are not taken into account in the general astronomical theory of climate. Taking these indicators into account will...

The San Francisco Chronicle reported: On Monday, the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, located northwest of Lake Tahoe at Donner Pass, recorded 38.9 inches of snowfall over the previous 24 hours — bringing the monthly total to 193.7 inches so far for December. The previous December record was in 1970, with 179 inches of snow. … “We smashed the snowfall record for December, which is crazy because it didn’t start snowing until about three weeks ago, and we didn’t have any snow for six weeks prior to that,” [OpenSnow forecaster Brian] Allegretto said. After receiving huge early-season snow dumps...

Aerial outline of Pando. (Lance Oditt/Friends of Pando) RICHARD ELTON WALTON, THE CONVERSATION24 NOVEMBER 2021 In the Wasatch Mountains of the western US on the slopes above a spring-fed lake, there dwells a single giant organism that provides an entire ecosystem on which plants and animals have relied for thousands of years. Found in my home state of Utah, "Pando" is a 106-acre stand of quaking aspen clones. Although it looks like a woodland of individual trees with striking white bark and small leaves that flutter in the slightest breeze, Pando (Latin for "I spread") is actually 47,000 genetically identical...

A new study suggests that a million years ago, glaciers began sticking more persistently to their beds, triggering cycles of longer ice ages. Here, ice discharged from Iceland’s Breiðamerkurjökull glacier on its way to the Atlantic ocean. Credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute Why did glacial cycles intensify a million years ago? Researchers find clues on the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. Something big happened to the planet about a million years ago. There was a major shift in the response of Earth’s climate system to variations in our orbit around the Sun. The shift is called the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Before the...

Here is a bizarre observation: Climate scientists claim they can explain every facet of the climate-weather system, yet they still don’t know why ice-ages occur. Isn’t that peculiar? They will arm-wave about orbital cycles (regular and specific changes in the earth’s orbital relationship to the sun) and CO2, while desperately hoping you won’t ask troubling questions, such as “Why do some orbital cycles produce ice-ages and interglacials (that is, the milder climates between ice ages), while others do nothing at all?” Or “Why should a climate system be selective in its response to orbital cycles?” And that’s not the only...

About 23,000 years ago, a group of children and teenagers left footprints along Lake Otero in what is now southern New Mexico – perhaps they were fetching water for adults hunting a mammoth or the massive ground sloth that roamed the area in those days. This week, a team of researchers from White Sands National Park, the National Parks Service and others published an article in the journal Science, which concludes that those children’s footprints were the oldest known human tracks ever found in North America. Imprints of the tiny toes were found along outcrops of the since-dried-up lake, which...

The footprints at White Sands were dated by examining the seeds of an aquatic plant that once thrived along the shores of the dried-up lake, Ruppia cirrhosa, commonly known as ditchgrass. According to research published Thursday in the journal Science and co-authored by Bustos, the ancient ditchgrass seeds were found in layers of hard earth both above and below the many human footprints at the site, and they were radiocarbon-dated to determine their age. The tracks at one location have been revealed as both the earliest known footprints and the oldest firm evidence of humans anywhere in the Americas, showing...

Human footprints found in New Mexico are about 23,000 years old, a study reported, suggesting that people may have arrived long before the Ice Age’s glaciers melted. Ancient human footprints preserved in the ground across the White Sands National Park in New Mexico are astonishingly old, scientists reported on Thursday, dating back about 23,000 years to the Ice Age.The results, if they hold up to scrutiny, would rejuvenate the scientific debate about how humans first spread across the Americas, implying that they did so at a time when massive glaciers covered much of their path.Researchers who have argued for such...

Can you find Gambia on a globe? Either way, it is the only nation on Earth that is successfully living up to its commitments under the Paris accord on climate change. That's how serious the Paris Agreement is — no one is living up to their commitments except for Gambia. Aren't you glad President Joe Biden's first act in office was to rejoin the accord? ...Usually, the most astounding thing about government actions on climate change is the way Western leaders live in denial. They pretend their own nations' emissions mean something when China continues to build coal-fired power plants...

The mummified remains of two cave lion cubs were discovered in Russia, and the recently unveiled specimens may be the best examples of cave lion mummies in the world. Boris, the male cub, was found in 2017 when Boris Berezhnev, a local resident and licensed mammoth tusk collector, was searching for mammoth tusks along the Semyuelyakh River in Siberia. The cub is around 43,448 years old. Just a year later in 2018, a female cub was found about 15 meters away. Researchers named her Sparta, and she is roughly 27,962 years old. Both cubs were discovered around 10 to 12...

Three days, three records. For the third consecutive day, the high-temperature page of Portland's record book will need a rewrite. Portland has been at the epicenter of a record-shattering heat wave that has been sending temperatures soaring to previously unimaginable levels across the northwestern United States and western Canada. Among the victims left in the heat wave's wrath have been stricken residents, buckled streets and melted power cables. Little relief has been offered even at night, and the city continued its streak of searing heat Monday, setting a new all-time record high temperature in the process. The day's highest mark...

An Ice Age cavern in Devon which could hold vital untapped clues about the history of man is being used for barbecues and parties. Ashhole Cavern in Brixham, where ancient elephant and rhinoceros bones have been found, is listed as a scheduled monument by Historic England.

Last month the Earth had its coldest February in seven years, thanks to the effect of La Niña. The irregular weather pattern causes abnormally strong winds that make the ocean colder than normal. During February, the average temperature in the contiguous US was 30.6 F, or 3.2°F below the 20th century average.... ...The US was particularly hard hit: The average temperature in the continental U.S. last month was 30.6 degrees F, or 3.2 degrees below the 20th century average. That's the 19th coldest February in the 127 years the agency has kept records, and the coldest February since 1989....

Iceland eruption could mark the beginning of a volcanic period lasting a few centuries David Hartley Interesting article in the Iceland Monitor about eruptive phases on Iceland. What caught my eye was the fact it settled round about 1300 which Wiki has as round about the beginnings of the Little Ice Age. “If an eruption occurs, it would likely mark the beginning of such a [volcanic] period – lasting a few centuries (emphasis added), I believe,” states Magnús Á. Sigurgeirsson, geologist at ÍSOR Iceland GeoSurvey – a consulting and research institute in the field of geothermal sciences and utilization. Research...

You probably heard that a snowstorm is approaching the major cities of the northeastern U.S. and the mid-Atlantic states. Some forecasting models have outcomes as high as 24-36 inches of snow for some areas. Most at risk appears to be eastern PA, NJ, and MD. NYC and LI could also get hit with 18-24 inch amounts. So far it looks a bit less extreme for most of New England, with forecast models saying 6-12 inches for most areas. That is also the case for western PA, central NY state, and some parts of the Midwest where the storm has already...

Antarctic Sea Ice on November 22, 2020 was the Third Highest on Record (since 1979).

Findings also suggest exoplanets lying within habitable zones may be susceptible to ice ages. ============================================================================= At least twice in Earth’s history, nearly the entire planet was encased in a sheet of snow and ice. These dramatic “Snowball Earth” events occurred in quick succession, somewhere around 700 million years ago, and evidence suggests that the consecutive global ice ages set the stage for the subsequent explosion of complex, multicellular life on Earth. Scientists have considered multiple scenarios for what may have tipped the planet into each ice age. While no single driving process has been identified, it’s assumed that whatever triggered...

As our planet's permafrosts continue to melt in record-breaking heat, we can expect to find astonishing things from the ancient past. Like this huge wolf head, preserved since the last ice age and unearthed in incredible condition in Siberia in 2018, an estimated 40,000 years since being entombed in frozen wilderness. The giant head, discovered by a local man in 2018 along the shores of the Tirekhtyakh River in the Russian Republic of Sakha (aka Yakutia), measures a whole 40 centimetres in length (about 16 inches), making it unlike any existing wolf specimen scientists have studied from so long ago....