by faster | Feb 20, 2017 | Blog
SOURCE: CBC News DATE: February 20, 2017 SNIP: Canada’s glaciers are responding rapidly to a warming Arctic and are a major contributor to sea level rise, a new study suggests. Researchers from the University of California Irvine studied data collected from 1991 to 2015 on glaciers found in the Queen Elizabeth Islands in the Arctic. They found that, from 2005 to 2015, surface melt off of these glaciers rose by 900 per cent — something they say is attributable to warming air temperatures in the region. They have gone from shedding three gigatons of water annually to 30 gigatons — something that has serious...
by faster | Feb 1, 2017 | Blog
SOURCE: Scripps Institution of Oceanography DATE: February 1, 2017 SNIP: In the cold depths along the seafloor, Antarctic Bottom Waters are part of a global circulatory system, supplying waters rich in oxygen, carbon, and nutrients to the world’s oceans. Over the last decade, scientists have been monitoring changes in these waters. But a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego suggests these changes are themselves shifting in unexpected ways with potentially significant consequences for the ocean and climate. In a paper published Jan. 25 in the journal Science Advances, a team led by WHOI oceanographers Viviane Menezes and Alison Macdonald and Scripps researcher Courtney Schatzman report that Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) has freshened (become less saline) at a surprising rate between 2007 and 2016—a shift that could alter ocean circulation and ultimately contribute to rising sea levels. … AABW in the region off East Antarctica’s Adélie Land has grown fresher four times faster in the past decade than it did between 1994 and 2007. … Such a shift, were it global, could significantly disrupt ocean circulation and sea...
by faster | Apr 15, 2016 | Blog
SOURCE: Slate DATE: Eric Holthaus AUTHOR: April 13, 2016 SNIP: On Monday, Greenland began to melt. Parts of Greenland melt every year and the whole thing freezes again each winter, but lately, thanks to global warming, the melting has come earlier and then peaked in the summer at higher levels than usual. Even in light of these trends, Monday’s melt was unlike anything the scientists studying Greenland have ever seen—it was so different, in fact, that they thought the data was wrong. … The implications of this sudden shift are still being worked out, but climate scientist James Hansen’s recent study provides a preview: We can look forward to faster sea level rise, stronger storms, and even a potential destabilization of global governance, should greenhouse gas emissions continue essentially unchecked. Of course, this week’s melt event in Greenland is just a single additional data point in this trove of evidence, but it’s a dramatic...
by faster | Jan 13, 2016 | Blog
SOURCE: Accuweather.com DATE: January 13, 2016 SNIP: New research led by the University of Leuven (Belgium) and assisted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison indicates that cloud cover over the Greenland Ice Sheet is playing a larger role than previously thought by raising the temperature of the ice sheet some 2 to 3 degrees compared to days with no clouds. The above process is likely accounting for as much as 30 percent of the ice sheet melt, according to the University of Wisconsin News. The impact of this could be a global sea level rise of an additional foot over the next 80 years, according to co-author Tristan L’Ecuyer of the University of...
by faster | Jan 6, 2016 | Blog
SOURCE: Daily Kos, with Nature Climate Change reference DATE: Wednesday, January 6, 2016 SNIP: A new scientific study published Monday at Nature Climate Change concludes that more melt water from Greenland may be running off into the ocean than previously calculated. That, of course, means the eventual impact the melting ice sheet of the world’s largest island has on rising sea levels could happen sooner than...
