New studies show how algae grows on ice and snow, creating “dark zones” that exacerbate melting in the consequential region.

When glacier algae flourish, promoted by the dust, they effectively paint the ice a darker colour, reducing its capacity to reflect sunlight and increasing the amount of heat absorbed from it.

Even with air temperatures below freezing, snow and ice can still melt. Here’s why warm sun, ground heat and humidity matter ...

Coffee grounds: Grab your used coffee grounds on the way out the door and sprinkle them over the ice. The heat from the once-boiling water that went through the grounds will melt the ice, and the tiny ...

When materials become just one atom thick, melting no longer follows the familiar rules. Instead of jumping straight from solid to liquid, an unusual in-between state emerges, where atomic positions ...

A thin, watery layer coating the surface of ice is what makes it slick. Despite a great deal of theorizing over the centuries, though, it isn't entirely clear why that layer forms.

A dual cross-linked magnetic polymer solves the fundamental trade-off limiting soft artificial muscles, achieving ...

At the heart of Boron Carbide Plate exists a material with a résumé that reads like a superhero origin tale. Boron carbide ...

To monitor glacial melt due to climate change, scientists assess the amount of ice accumulated upstream and the melting downstream: this is called mass balance. This balance is negative in all regions ...

Scientists who use satellite data to track Arctic sea-ice estimate that we’ve lost around 12 per cent of summer ice coverage for each decade since measuring began in 1985. And this trend is set to ...

Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X The Times declares in 1924. In 2025 we are living at a time when about 15 percent of the U.S.