Retreating glaciers created 2,500km of “new” coastline and 35 “new” islands in the Arctic between 2000 and 2020, according to a new study.
The research uses satellite images of more than 1,700 glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Russian Arctic, Iceland and Svalbard.
The findings show that 85% of these glaciers retreated over 2000-20, revealing 123km of new coastline per year on average.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, links the acceleration in glacier melt to warmer ocean and air temperatures.
The authors find that just 101 glaciers – less than 6% of the total – were responsible for more than half of the total additional coastline length.
For example, the retreat of the Zachariae Isstrom glacier in north-east Greenland revealed 81km of new coastline alone.
The study warns that the freshly revealed coastlines are more prone to landslides, which may, in turn, create “dangerous tsunamis” that pose risks to human life and infrastructure.
A scientist not involved in the study tells Carbon Brief that it remains “unclear” what the implications of the new coastlines will be for the people and ecosystems of the Arctic.
He suggests that they “may become home to important ecosystems that play a hitherto unquantified role in the global carbon cycle”.
Glacier melt
Glaciers are slow-moving rivers of ice found on almost every continent in the world. They typically advance downhill by a few centimetres every day, driven by their own weight.
The head of a glacier is always found on land – typically at high altitude, where temperatures are low. Here, precipitation and avalanches cause snow to build up on the surface of the glacier. Over time, the snow compacts into ice, adding mass to the glacier.
Meanwhile, the tail end of the glacier is typically found at lower elevations where the air is warmer. Here, melting ice and evaporating water cause glaciers to lose mass.
As the planet warms, glaciers are melting more rapidly. This often causes the bottom of the glacier – known as the “terminus“, “snout” or “toe” – to recede, reducing the overall length of the glacier. This is known as terminus retreat.
Over 2000-19, glaciers collectively lost around 267bn tonnes (gigatonnes, or Gt) of ice every year. A recent report by the UN warned that many glaciers will “inevitably” disappear entirely over the coming decades.
A separate study estimated that even if the world successfully limits global warming to 1.5C, glaciers could lose a quarter of their total mass by 2100.
Glaciers can be broadly split into categories based on their location. For example, while “land-terminating” glaciers end on land, “marine-terminating” glaciers flow into the ocean, where they often end in a “floating glacier tongue” that sits on the surface of the water.
When marine-terminating glaciers melt and retreat, new areas of coastline are often revealed. Research shows that marine-terminating glaciers in the northern hemisphere have cumulatively lost 10Gt of mass every year over 2000-20 due to terminus retreat.
The northern hemisphere is home to around 1,500 of the world’s roughly 200,000 glaciers.
The new study assesses how much new coastline has been exposed due to terminus retreat in marine-terminating glaciers in the northern hemisphere over 2000-20.
Satellite monitoring
The authors used a pre-existing dataset to identify all the marine-terminating glaciers in the northern hemisphere. They then manually assessed satellite imagery – mainly from Sentinel-2 – to digitise the new coastline that was exposed as a result of glacier retreat around Greenland, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Russian Arctic, Iceland and Svalbard over 2000-20.
Dr Jan Kavan is the lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of South Bohemia’s Centre for Polar Ecology. He tells Carbon Brief that the researchers opted for a manual approach because algorithms trained to identify the position of glaciers “don’t work very well” on coastlines.
This is because Arctic coastlines tend to be highly variable, Kavan explains. For example, glaciers near the coastline may be covered in debris – making it hard for an algorithm to recognise them.
Dr Simon Cook is a senior lecturer in environmental sciences at the University of Dundee, who wrote a “news and views” piece about the study published in Nature climate change. He praises the study, telling Carbon Brief that manually identifying coastlines is “labour-intensive and slow work, but widely regarded to be robust”.
The authors inspected 1,704 marine-terminating glaciers in total. They find that 2,466km of new coastline formed between 2000 and 2020 – an average of 123km of new coastline every year.
The map below shows where the coastline was added (red) and lost (blue) due to changes in glacier terminus positions over 2000-20. The yellow circles the total length of new coastline added in different regions, where larger circles indicate greater additions.
The authors note that the rate of new coastline formation varies highly between regions. Just 101 glaciers were responsible for more than half of the total additional coastline length, they say.
Two-thirds of the new coastline identified in this study were in Greenland, the authors say. The melt of the Zachariae Isstrom glacier in north-east Greenland has resulted in the formation of 81km of new coastline – more than twice as much as any other glacier in the study – according to the paper.
Retreating glaciers also exposed 35 new islands with areas larger than 0.5 square kilometres (km2), according to the study.
Changing coastlines
Rising ocean and air temperatures are the main reason that marine-terminating glaciers are rapidly losing mass, the study says. However, many other factors may affect how quickly new coastline forms due to glacier melt.
According to the authors, 85% of the glaciers in the study retreated between 2000 and 2020.
However, not all of these led to the development of new stretches of coastline.
For example, glaciers that stretch out far into the sea could experience “extensive retreat” without any new coastline forming, according to the paper.
Conversely, glaciers in “deep and narrow fjords” can expose long new areas of coast by losing only a small volume of ice.
The authors note that the most “dramatic” glacier retreats are due to ice shelves or floating tongues breaking off the main glacier and collapsing into the water.
Meanwhile, glacier advances – when glaciers gain mass more quickly then they lose it, or temporarily “surge” forwards – can cause a loss of coastline. (Surges are short-lived periods when the glacier moves faster than its normal rate, often due to meltwater which builds at the base of the glacier and acts as a lubricant.)
The paper finds that more than 50 metres of coastline was lost due to glacier advances. Two-thirds of this gain was in Svalbard due to a “surge” of the Nathorstbreen glacier system, according to the paper.
Lead author Kavan tells Carbon Brief that other studies have assessed coastline gain from “individual glaciers” or “small regions”, but says this is the first paper to quantify coastline gain across the entire northern hemisphere for a uniform time period.
Dr Robert McNabb, a lecturer at Ulster University who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief the study “highlights the importance and immense value of having long-term, freely available satellite archives for research”.
Tsunami risk
Glacier melt is often discussed in the context of water security, as the world’s 200,000 glaciers store around 70% of the Earth’s fresh water. However, Kavan tells Carbon Brief that the impact of retreating glaciers on the bedrock is often “neglected”.
Using a map of rock types across the Arctic, the authors analyse the changing conditions of the new coastlines. They find that most of the new coastline is formed of metamorphic bedrock – a type of rock formed from intense heat and pressure. Meanwhile, softer sedimentary rocks, which are more susceptible to erosion, dominate the newly formed coastlines in eastern Svalbard.
In his news and views piece, Cook – the University of Dundee environmental sciences lecturer – explains that the newly revealed coastlines are known as “paraglacial”. He writes:
“Paraglacial coasts differ from other established areas of Arctic coastline because permafrost will not yet have had time to develop in these freshly revealed areas, meaning that they are more easily eroded by wave action, mass wasting and other processes because of a lack of icy cement. They are, therefore, expected to be highly dynamic.”
Cook says it is “currently unclear” what the implications of the new paraglacial coastlines will be for the people and ecosystems of the Arctic. He suggests that the new coastlines “may become home to important ecosystems that play a hitherto unquantified role in the global carbon cycle”.
Freshly revealed paraglacial coastlines can be more prone to landslides, which may, in turn, cause “dangerous tsunamis”, the paper notes. As an example, it points to a tsunami on 17 June 2017 in Greenland, which caused “substantial infrastructure damage and loss of life”.
Dr Anna Irrgang is a coastal geomorphologist at the Alfred Wegner Institute and was not involved in the study. She tells Carbon Brief that the study “may help in detecting potential risk-zones” for such tsunamis.
She adds that the dataset provided in this study can be used as a “first estimation of the hazard potential”, but adds that “a more in-depth risk analysis needs to be undertaken at the local scale, where communities might be exposed to these arising dangers”.
Meanwhile, Kavan tells Carbon Brief that marine-terminating glaciers are considered “biodiversity hotspots”. Meltwater from the glacier causes upwellings at the terminus of the glacier, creating “nutrient-rich water” that is vital for many polar species, he says.
As a result, ongoing glacier retreat may result in many of these habitats being lost, putting species like bearded seals and Arctic-dwelling birds at risk, he adds.
The post Global warming is ‘exposing’ new coastlines and islands as Arctic glaciers shrink appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Global warming is ‘exposing’ new coastlines and islands as Arctic glaciers shrink
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.
Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”
The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.
The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.
Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.
Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.
Green reconstruction of Gaza
Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.
While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.
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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.
But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.
With occupation, targets conditional
In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.
Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.
That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.
To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.
In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.
To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.
The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.
The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.
The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.
This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.
Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.
June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.
It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.
In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.
Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.
June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.
As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.
The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.
In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.
(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)
According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.
This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.
In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.
Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.
Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:
“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.
Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.
* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.
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The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.
Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.
This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.
Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.
In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.
French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.
The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.
Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.
Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.
This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:
“In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.
Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.
The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.
Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.
The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.
The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.
ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.
Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.
Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.
Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.
ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.
Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.
Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.
The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.
The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.
This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.
Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.
6. Declines in EU grains since 2025
Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.
Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.
Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.
Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.
The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts
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