News Oceans

Large-scale changes in Earth’s climate may originate in the Pacific

Long ago, ‘catastrophic’ purge of North America’s western ice sheet may have kicked off losses to the east

picture of a ship in front of the Blackstone glacier

The Bay of Alaska (Prince William Sound with the Blackstone glacier in the background seen here) holds clues to past climate change. The image was taken from aboard the JOIDES Resolution at the start of a 2013 expedition to drill for sediment cores.

Carlos Alvarez Zarikian, IODP/TAMU

By Gloria Dickie

- More than 2 years ago

The retreat of North America’s ice sheets in the latter years of the last ice age may have begun with “catastrophic” losses of ice into the North Pacific Ocean along the coast of modern-day British Columbia and Alaska, scientists say.