ice ages
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Why Did Glacial Cycles Intensify a Million Years Ago?
A new study suggests that a million years ago, glaciers began sticking more persistently to their beds, triggering cycles of longer ice ages.
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Tackling a 40 Million-Year-Old Conundrum
A new study bolsters the idea that the uplifts of the Himalayas and Andes that began tens of millions years ago helped trigger the many ice ages that followed.
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The ‘Zealandia Switch’: Missing Link in Big Natural Climate Shifts?
Movements of winds in the Southern Hemisphere may be the key to waxing and waning of ice ages, says a new study.
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Maureen Raymo Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Maureen Raymo, a marine geologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory whose name is connected with key theories about how ice ages wax and wane and how sea levels change, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors awarded to scientists in the United States.
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Study Tracks an Abrupt Climate Shift as Ice Age Glaciers Began to Retreat
That change would have affected the monsoons, today relied on to feed over half the world’s population, and could have helped tip the climate system over the threshold for deglaciation.
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Ancient Ocean Currents May Have Changed Pacing and Intensity of Ice Ages
Slowing of Currents May Have Flipped Switch, Says Study
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Did New Zealand Dust Influence the Last Ice Age?
Bess Koffman, a postdoctoral researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, recently traveled to New Zealand to collect dust ground-up by glaciers during the last ice age. In this photo essay, she explains how she collected the dust, what analysis looks like in the lab and what she hopes to learn.
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Climate Scientist Is First Woman to Win Geology’s Storied Wollaston Medal
A climate scientist who has suggested how mountain building can lower Earth’s thermostat and why ice ages sometimes wax and wane at different speeds has been awarded one of geology’s oldest and most coveted prizes: the British Wollaston Medal. The first woman to win a Wollaston in the prize’s 183-year history, Maureen Raymo, a researcher…
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Earth’s Climate History, Written in Dust
Dust blowing onto the oceans can help algae grow and pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. It influences the radiative balance of the planet by reflecting sunlight away. Scientists want to know what role this plays in the coming and going of the ice ages, and how it affects our climate.
