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,
Southern Greenland experienced nearly complete deglaciation during a warm period over 400,000 years ago, according to new research. The warming was apparently enough to tip the massive ice-sheet of southern Greenland past its stability threshold — eventually resulting in 4-6 meters of global sea level rise. This new research represents some of the first to
Low-level clouds usually reflect solar energy back into space, as does the white coverage of snow. The albedo of cloud and snow — it’s ability to reflect sunlight back into space — is vitally important for minimising the level of solar energy wandering around inside our atmosphere, heating up our planet. One of the fears
Here’s a scientific dilemma for you to put your mind to for a moment: what do you do when you need specific readings from locations all-but impossible to reach by any traditional human means? Turns out, if you are David Holland, a professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, you recruit
Understanding the specifics of how global climate change will affect any one specific region is tricky, but two researchers have tackled the issue of what will happen to Greenland over the next century, and the news is not encouraging. “We put Greenland under a microscope to see what accounts for melting and for ice mass
A study conducted by researchers at MIT found that increased levels of carbon dioxide cause ice to weaken and make it more likely to split and fracture, regardless of the temperature. With the increase in global temperatures and CO2, the polar ice caps could melt at a faster rate than experts previously projected. The study was published
Most years would see us waiting until early September before we received notification of any record of Greenlandic melting being broken or not, but this year we get the news early! Four weeks early, in fact, according to Marco Tedesco, assistant professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at The City College of New York, who has
The Greenland Ice Sheet is of major concern to scientists the world over in a world that is warming rapidly and causing massive ice melt to occur. However, recent research has shown that the Greenland Ice Sheet may in fact be more robust and dynamic than previously thought. The research was conducted by the University of
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
Sea levels have risen approximately 20 centimetres in the South West Pacific Ocean since the end of the 19th century, a dramatic increase according to a new study released this week. Scientists found that sea levels in Tasmania remained relatively stable for most of the previous 6,000 years but that around 1880 they started to
According to a new study the Greenland ice sheet is possibly more vulnerable to the temperature increase of global warming than previously estimated. According to the study, conducted by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the temperature
The year 2010 saw an unusually high melting season in Greenland which subsequently impacted the amount of ice weighing down the bedrock of the island causing it to lose 100 billion tonnes of ice and uplift by as much as 20 millimetres. These findings come courtesy of nearly 50 GPS stations that have been planted
The water that flows north into the Arctic Ocean from the North Atlantic Ocean is the warmest it has been in 2,000 years and is likely related to the amplification of global warming in the Arctic, says a new study published in the most recent edition of the journal Science. The study showed that the
Much has been made about the possibility of tipping points in Earth’s environment; points of change which will not allow for any turning back no matter the effort put in. One of the most hyped of these was the Arctic and the possibility of a total loss of ice during summer. A new study led
A NASA analysis has for the first time measured the amount of multiyear ice that is lost from the Arctic each year as a result of melting. Multiyear ice is ice which makes it through more than one summer, making it ever more resistant to melting as the year’s progress. Or that used to be
A new study to be published in the journal Nature shows just why the Atlantic Ocean reversed its circulation some 20,000 years ago. Led by two researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona the research demonstrates the impact climate change can have on such a large body of water as the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic
New research has shown that ice free Arctic waters will not necessarily be a boon to carbon sequestration. In what must be one of the best examples of looking for a silver lining in a storm cloud, scientists had been hoping that the unfortunate melting of Arctic ice would have opened up more of the
One of Greenland’s largest glaciers has suffered an abrupt breakup and retreat, losing a chunk approximately one-eighth the size of Manhattan Island. This is an extended article following up on a previous summary provided on Planetsave. The Jakobshavn Isbrae, also known as the Jakobshavn Glacier, lost a 7 square kilometre (2.7 square mile) section of
The Pine Island Glacier has been identified as a major contributor to Earth’s sea level rise. [social_buttons] New results from an investigation by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the National Oceanography Centre published in the journal Nature Geoscience show that West Antarctica is currently contributing nearly 10% of global sea
Scientists are surprised at the speed with which Greenland’s ice is melting and the corresponding surge of the land mass beneath. [social_buttons]Findings published in an upcoming edition of Nature Geoscience show that the rapidly melting ice in Greenland is causing the land mass beneath to rise as the weight is lifted off the rock. According
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Following a record rate of ice loss through the month of August, Arctic sea ice extent already stands as the second-lowest on record, further reinforcing conclusions that the Arctic sea ice cover is in a long-term state of decline. With approximately two weeks left in
