Understanding Earth’s natural climate rhythms is critical—not just for predicting future ice ages, but for gauging the true impact of human activity on the planet.

Natural cycles in Earth's rotational axis and its orbit around the sun drive climatic changes, and now researchers have matched up specific points in those cycles to the timing of ice ages.

To make matters worse, NASA scientists also discovered that, this year, summer ice in the Antarctic retreated to 764,000 square miles (1.98 million square kilometers) as of March 1, tying for "the ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Regular changes in Earth's orbit and axial tilt may have triggered the start and end of ice ...

We learned last year that many of the effects of climate change are irreversible. Sea levels have been rising at a greater rate year after year, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ...

As National Geographic showed us in 2013, sea levels would rise by 216 feet if all the land ice on the planet were to melt. This would dramatically reshape the continents and drown many of the ...

Past ice sheets have retreated rapidly, raising global sea level at rates >1 cm per year, with marine ice sheets collapsing and terrestrial ice sheets retreating in a more gradual fashion.

Changes in Earth's tilt relative to the sun have governed the movements of giant ice sheets over the past 800,000 years, triggering the start and end of eight ice ages, new research suggests.

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Ice cover ebbs and flows through the seasons in the Arctic (left) and the Antarctic (right).