Remember the difference between weather and climate? We know what happens when the weather changes—it’s obvious. Climate is another story. Read on. When it rains, you put on a raincoat or take your umbrella when you go out. It snows: time for high boots, a heavier coat, scarf, and warm gloves. And sunny days, well,
Research has found that approximately 99% of our planet’s land-locked ice is held up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The remainder, however, is out in the open, located primarily in the glaciers dotted throughout the appropriate latitudes across the planet. And according to new research, those glaciers contributed approximately the same amount of
New research into the continued decline of glaciers around the planet is not new, yet nevertheless these studies remain critically important to understanding our impact upon the environment and the sort of world we will be living in ten years from now. The most comprehensive review of Andean glacier observations to date was conducted by
The spectacular Columbia Glacier in Alaska is expected to halt its retreat in 2020 when it reaches a new stable position approximately 15 miles upstream from the stable position it had held prior the 1980s. Currently 425 square miles, the multi-branched Columbia Glacier will halt at a new stable position in 2020, and measuring in
It’s too late! We’re all going to die! So says the latest research to be published in the respected journal Environmental Research Letters. OK. I might be jumping to a bit of a dramatic conclusion there. In fact, the study in question has shown that the levels of greenhouse gasses we have already pumped into the
The consequences for the Himalayan water supply depend heavily on the region’s thousands of glaciers, that in the east and central areas of the region are retreating at accelerating rates similar to those seen in other glacier-clusters around the world, but that in the western Himalayas are more stable and could in fact be growing.
The snowball Earth hypothesis suggests that at some point approximately 715 million years ago our planet’s surface was totally – or as close as can be – covered in ice. Scientists had assumed that the glaciers covering the surface of the planet were stable, acting as a like for greenhouse gases that built up from
Considering that we didn’t start getting satellites up into the atmosphere until the 1970s, it comes as no surprise that recently discovered photographs from the 1930s depicting Greenland’s glaciers are viewed as a precious scientific resource. Rediscovered in a castle just outside of Copenhagen, Denmark, the photographs below spawn from 1930s aerial surveys of
The Columbia Glacier in Alaska descends from an ice field 3,050 metres above sea level down the flanks of the Chugach Mountains and into a narrow inlet that eventually leads into Prince William Sound in the southeast of the state. And it is one of the most rapidly changing glaciers in the world. The NASA
Understanding the contribution outlet glaciers have on the global sea level rise is tricky business, and as a new study shows, we are seriously lacking in long-term information. A lack of long-term data often results in faulty assumptions and hypotheses Previous studies looking at the contribution outlet glaciers have on the global sea level rise
Information regarding the health and fate of glaciers across the planet is rare and often misunderstood, causing some experts to make claims that bear no weight in fact. Now, an international team of scientists is planning a long-term campaign to monitor 25 glaciers in Tibet. The region contains some 46,000 glaciers and has been dubbed
Despite glaciers across the planet melting at an accelerated and unprecedented rate, one mountain range along the rim of the Tibetan plateau is home to a series of glaciers that have actually been posting measurable gains over the past decade. The Karakoram mountain range straddles China’s border with India and Pakistan, and was the focus
New research led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology, Caltech, have discovered new details that support the idea that the mass extinction that took place approximately 450 million years ago, known as the Late Ordovician mass extinction, was linked to a cooling climate. During the Late Ordovician mass extinction more than 75 percent
I was sitting in my doctors waiting area this morning for a good hour – my doctor likes to be thorough, and slow – and I picked up one of the many un-current magazines that littered the coffee table in the middle of the room. It was the National Geographic special on Water published in
Since we had plenty of news last Friday and I was heading out of town, I decided to leave our weekly roundup of global weirding and environmental news (that we didn’t already cover) to Monday. Here’s the global weirding portion. Climate: Student Reporters Take on Climate Change and Security Coincidences abound—just after posting an item
A new study published in the most recent edition of the journal Nature Geoscience has shown that meltwater from small mountain glaciers and ice caps will contribute anywhere between seven and eighteen centimetres to world sea level rise by the year 2100. The largest of these contributors will be the glaciers in Arctic Canada, Alaska,
Lester R. Brown We are entering a new era, one of rapid and often unpredictable climate change. In fact, the new climate norm is change. The 25 warmest years on record have come since 1980. And the 10 warmest years since global record keeping began in 1880 have come since 1998. The effects of rising temperature
Much has been made about emerging economies like India and China refusing to take a leading role in minimizing the increase in climate change as climate change itself is effectively a result of western industrialized nations. However Asia is still going to have to make changes, regardless of who is backing the endeavour, and a
This post is part of our participation in Blog Action Day 2010, which is on the topic of Water. As R. Buckminster Fuller reminded us, we are all traveling aboard “spaceship Earth”…all 6+ billion of us. What makes our spaceship so unique (as far as we know), and vital, is the presence of a great deal
Stunning then & now photos of the Himalayan Glaciers show the clear results of climate change in the “Third Pole.” Mountaineer, photographer, and filmmaker, David Breashears, has climbed the Himalayan Mountains 5 times in the last 3 years. Working on a documentary for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Breashears climbed the mountains and also brought
According to a recently published paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (Khan et al), Greenland’s ice mass loss has been accelerating and is now spreading up along its northwest coast, with data indicating the start of this acceleration to be late 2005.
The Nature Conservancy announced this week that they have purchased ranchland in Shasta, California and hope to return Big Springs Creek to its former glory as a major salmon run. [social_buttons] The organization noticed the creek’s consistent, glacier-fed flowing water supply should make it the perfect spawning area for the embattled Pacific salmon, but it
