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QUELCCAYA ICE CAP, PERU--As he neared the 5670-meter summit of Quelccaya ice cap in the high Andes, Lonnie Thompson appeared to be suffering. The 54-year-old glaciologist was sinking calf-high in [...]

Ice discharge from north and northeast Greenland calculated from satellite radar interferometry data of 14 outlet glaciers is 3.5 times that estimated from iceberg production. The satellite estimates, obtained at the grounding line of the outlet glaciers, differ from those obtained at the glacier front, because basal melting is extensive at the underside of the floating glacier sections. The results suggest that the north and northeast parts of the Greenland ice sheet may be thinning and contributing positively to sea-level rise., The traditional view on the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet is that accumulation of mass (mostly snow) in the interior regions is released to the ocean through surface [...]

The Pine Island Glacier (PIG) transports 69 cubic kilometers of ice each year from ~10% of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). It is possible that a retreat of the PIG may accelerate ice discharge from the WAIS interior. Satellite altimetry and interferometry show that the grounded PIG thinned by up to 1.6 meters per year between 1992 and 1999, affecting 150 kilometers of the inland glacier. The thinning cannot be explained by short-term variability in accumulation and must result from glacier dynamics., The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) contains enough water to raise global sea level by ~5 m (1) if the ice were to melt into the ocean. The Pine Island [...]

The amount of water stored as ice in the major ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere and Antarctica during the Last Glacial Maximum has been uncertain. More ice means higher [...]

The big ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are key elements of the global climate system. By storing large volumes of water as ice or ice-contact lakes and sometimes releasing [...]

By most accounts, the North Atlantic called all the shots as the world staggered out of the depths of the previous ice age 20,000 years ago. When warm water surged [...]

Comparing sedimentological data from lakes in the tropical Andes with records from high northern latitudes, Seltzer et al. (Reports, 31 May 2002, p. 1685) argued that deglaciation in the tropical [...]