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By observing the night sky, medieval monks unwittingly recorded some of history’s largest volcanic eruptions, according to a new analysis of 12th and 13th century European and Middle Eastern chronicles.

Researchers have found that the movement of glaciers in Greenland is more complex than previously thought, with deformation in regions of warmer ice containing small amounts of water accounting for motion that had often been assumed to be caused by sliding where the ice meets the bedrock beneath.

̽��ֱ��world’s second-largest ice sheet is melting from the bottom up – and generating huge amounts of heat from hydropower. 

Scientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their findings will be used to make more accurate models of the future movement of the world’s second-largest ice sheet, as the effects of climate change continue to accelerate.

Using satellite data to ‘see in the dark’, researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a finding with implications for the speed at which the world’s second-largest ice sheet flows to the ocean.

Medieval Greenlanders may have chased dwindling walrus herds ever farther north in an effort to maintain their economy, when the value of walrus ivory tanked after the introduction of elephant tusks into European markets in the 1200s.   

̽��ֱ��world’s second-largest ice sheet, and the single largest contributor to global sea level rise, is potentially becoming unstable because of fractures developing in response to faster ice flow and more meltwater forming on its surface.

Substantial variations in past sea ice cover in the Norwegian Sea were instrumental for several abrupt climate changes in large parts of the world, researchers have found. 

New DNA analysis reveals that, before their mysterious disappearance, the Norse colonies of Greenland had a “near monopoly” on Europe’s walrus ivory supply. An overreliance on this trade may have contributed to Norse Greenland’s collapse when the medieval market declined.

A growing network of lakes on the Greenland ice sheet has been found to drain in a chain reaction that speeds up the flow of the ice sheet, threatening its stability.