Science Bulletins: Shrinking Glaciers—A Chronology of Climate Change

Analysis of Earth's geologic record can reveal how the climate has changed over time. Scientists in New Zealand are examining samples from the rocky landscape once dominated by glaciers. They are employing a new technique called surface exposure dating, which uses chemical analysis to determine how long minerals within rocks have been exposed to the air since the glaciers around them melted. Comparisons of this data with other climate records have revealed a link between glacial retreat and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air, findings that are informing scientists' understanding of global climate change today.

Science Bulletins is a production of the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology (NCSLET), part of the Department of Education at the American Museum of Natural History. Find out more about Science Bulletins at http://www.amnh.org/sciencebulletins/.

Related Links

Glacier advance in southern middle-latitudes during the Antarctic Cold Reversal
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3...

Glacier retreat in New Zealand during the Younger Dryas stadial
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20...

The Last Glacial Termination
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328...

GNS Science
http://www.gns.cri.nz/

University of Maine: Department of Earth Sciences
http://umaine.edu/earthsciences/resea...

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/

Columbia University: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
http://eesc.columbia.edu/

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Ovidiu Bucur]

Nope, we're due for one in about 80 000 years, if the CO2 output doesn't change that. Anyway, research the Milankovici cycle, it relates to ice ages kind of :)

[zargnot]

When will humans learn to change their ways, I fear they will not until there is significant blood. Mother nature will continue to change and shift as it always has. It just might not have a place for us in the future. I am certain that conditions will worsen severely before humanity truly learns to live in harmony with the planet if we ever do at all.

[greenman3610]

no, we are not due for another ice age for tens of thousands of years. the causative factor is changes in the orbital cycle and axial tilt, which have been well measured, and are currently exerting a very slight cooling effect - which can be seen in paleoclimate measurements, up till the last 200 years, when we started to warm dramatically

[XOTheCrystalStarrOX]

Soo, we're going to have a way bigger ice age than ever before when we finally go through another one of Earth's naturally occurring events (an ice age) due to the fact we are putting out way more CO2 than ever before? Aren't we due for another ice age like now?