It is difficult to obtain fossil data from the 10% of Earth's terrestrial surface that is covered by thick glaciers and ice sheets, and hence, knowledge of the paleoenvironments of these regions has remained limited. We show that DNA and amino acids from buried organisms can be recovered from the basal sections of deep ice cores, enabling reconstructions of past flora and fauna.

Climate scientists are used to skeptics taking potshots at their favorite line of evidence for global warming. It comes with the territory. But now a group of mainstream atmospheric scientists is disputing a rising icon of global warming, and researchers are giving some ground.

Climate models and satellite observations both indicate that the total amount of water in the atmosphere will increase at a rate of 7% per kelvin of surface warming. However, the climate models predict that global precipitation will increase at a much slower rate of 1 to 3% per kelvin. A recent analysis of satellite observations does not support this prediction of a muted response of precipitation to global warming. Rather, the observations suggest that precipitation and total atmospheric water have increased at about the same rate over the past two decades.

On December 13, 2006, scientists warned that the Arctic ice is melting at a rate faster than was estimated. The ice has been shrinking steadily over the past 30 years, but now scientists say there's a possibility of an ice-free Arctic in the next few decades.