Large numbers of icebergs that drifted unusually far from Antarctica before melting into ocean waters have been key to initiating ice ages of the past, says a new study.

A new effort to analyze the ocean’s ability to take up CO2 will be important for predicting the effectiveness of climate change mitigation efforts.

A new study of the closest ancient analog to modern carbon emissions finds that massive volcanism was the main cause of high carbon at the time. But nature did not come close to matching what humans are doing today.

In a talk last week, celebrated conservationist and photographer Cristina Mittermeier shared her quest to save the sea.

Climate models predict that as a result of human-induced climate change, the surface of the Pacific Ocean should be warming. But one key part is not.

Starting this month, scientists aim to study the Antarctic Circumpolar Current’s past dynamics by drilling into the seabed in some of the planet’s remotest marine regions.

A million years ago, a longtime pattern of alternating glaciations and warm periods dramatically changed, when ice ages suddenly became longer and more intense. Scientists have long suspected that this was connected to the slowdown of a key Atlantic Ocean current system that today once again is slowing. A new study of sediments from the Atlantic bottom directly links this slowdown with a massive buildup of carbon dragged from the air into the abyss.

Tiny microbes called phytoplankton live beneath the ocean’s surface, producing oxygen that is essential to human survival. A new study sheds light on how these all-important diatoms survive and thrive under difficult conditions.

Columbia scientists recently visited the Caribbean island of Barbados, whose fossilized coral reefs contain an exquisite record of how the ocean has risen and fallen in the past.

To help predict the future of sea level rise, scientists are studying ancient corals on the island of Barbados.