A panel of extraordinary military leaders—16 men and women generals and admirals, including prior commanders, commandants, and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—came to a pretty devastating conclusion recently about climate strategy. The Military Advisory Board of the Center for Naval Analyses, a 70-year-old federally funded think tank, says that current actions by the
New analyses of stored carbon in permafrost presented at last week’s annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting are causing greater concern amongst climate scientists. One of the new analyses (Hugelius et al) of soil carbon in permafrost utilized data from both new field work and archival records, totaling over 400 sites. The analysis estimates that
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
A new report has shown that the Arctic Ocean could be a significant contributor of methane to the atmosphere. The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, looked at airborne observations of methane to determine how much of the greenhouse gas was being expelled from the Arctic Ocean, up to latitudes of 82° north. “We
The massive levels of greenhouse gasses left in the atmosphere as a result of human burning of fossil fuels is liable to disrupt normal patterns of glaciation say scientists in a new study. If humans had not arrived and interrupted things, science tells us that the Earth’s current warm phase would have given way to
Glaciers across the planet are shrinking at a remarkable rate, a rate that is expected to increase as the years continue to pass by. However, conversely, water runoff from glaciers will not continue to increase, and is in fact expected to decrease over the coming decades. The new research is courtesy of research done in
In a release featuring scientific findings concerning the activity of glaciers across the planet during 2008 and 09, the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) released it’s Glacier Mass Balance Bulletin 08/09 which includes confirmation of 2009 news reports that the Bolivian glacier Chacaltaya has indeed melted away. As many global warming skeptics will be pleased
New research has provided evidence to suggest that massive melting of ice sheets like the Greenland ice sheet does not need corresponding record temperature highs, rather, just persistent warm weather over several years. Such results suggest that glaciers and ice sheets could undergo a self-amplifying cycle of melting and warming simply if there is persistently
The NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day for the 24th of February showcases just how much energy is reflected back into space by the planet’s chryosphere, and how much that amount has decreased over the past 30 years. Mark Flanner of the University of Michigan and his colleagues have used satellite data to measure
Cambridge University has released another film in their ‘Cambridge Ideas’ series entitled ‘This Icy World’ shown below. The small film looks at the contribution of Greenland to global sea level change and the mapping of previous unkown basins and mountains beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Video The film showcases the work of glaciologist Professor Julian
2010 was an exceptional year for Greenland’s ice cap. Melting started early and stretched later in the year than usual. Little snow fell to replenish the losses. By the end of the season, much of southern Greenland had set a new record, with melting that lasted 50 days longer than average. This image was assembled
New research which has focused solely on the continental United States of America has found that by 2100, 9 percent of the land within 180 coastal cities could be threatened by rising sea levels. Such a rise means that the Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts would be particularly hard hit, seeing cities like Miami, New
Researchers from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England, have concluded that man-made global warming would probably not greatly change the influence had on the environment by inter-annual climate instances such as El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the Arctic Oscillation/ North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/ NAO). “Even in the warm Cretaceous period, the patterns
Scientists from the University of Sheffield in England have for the first time brought to life through illustrated maps the shrinkage of the last British ice sheet as it shrunk during the last Ice Age, some 20,000 years ago. Led by the University of Sheffield’s Professor Chris Clark from the Department of Geography, the team
Scientists from the University of Sheffield in England have for the first time brought to life through illustrated maps the shrinkage of the last British ice sheet as it shrunk during the last Ice Age, some 20,000 years ago. Led by the University of Sheffield’s Professor Chris Clark from the Department of Geography, the team
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
With warming temperatures worldwide much speculation has been focused on how the Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets will react. Hotter temperatures, in theory, should be bad for ice, but according to new research published in a letter in the 27 January edition of the journal Nature, hotter summers may not be as catastrophic for the Greenland
A new study published online in the journal Nature Geoscience has uncovered data that shows over the past 30 years the decreases in the amount of snow and ice covering the Earth’s surface has decreased the reflective capacity of the Earth and exacerbated global warming much more than previous climate models had estimated. “The cryosphere
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
New research from Victoria University in Australia has revealed new findings pointing to why the Antarctic ice sheets have melted in the past, and how they might be most affected in the future, and how their current-day degradation might affect the ocean levels. In a paper published in the latest edition of the journal Nature
An analysis by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jeffrey Kiehl published in the most recent edition of the journal Science in the ‘Perspectives’ section has concluded that the sheer scale of climate change during Earth’s ancient history points to temperatures rising far more than expected in Earth’s immediate future. Kiehl brought together several
Sea levels are rising worldwide and many coastal communities will soon begin planning — if they haven’t already — for the need to relocate and deal with the encroaching sea waters. However, sea level rise is not just the result of the polar ice caps melting, as Chesapeake Bay is in the midst of finding
The northernmost mummified forest ever discovered in Canada is under the spotlight of researchers who are hoping to gain valuable information as to how plants will manage in a changing climate. The trees are located in Ellesmere Island National Park in Canada and were perfectly preserved by a landslide some 2 to 8 million years
The Bering Sea which finds its borders between Alaska and Russia was ice free during the last warm period in Earth’s climate history, the Pliocene Warm Period. Researchers drilled down 700 metres through rock at the bottom of the Bering Sea to acquire cores that contained sediments deposited during the Pliocene Warm Period which occurred
A new study to come out of the University of British Columbia has shown that sudden changes in the amount of meltwater contributes more to the acceleration, and thus the eventual loss, of the Greenland ice sheet than the gradual increase of temperature, reversing previously thought views on the matter. “The conventional view has been
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
The 2010 Arctic sea ice minimum extent appears to be the third lowest in recorded history, reaching out only 4.76 million square kilometres (1.84 million square miles). While the minimum extent is still greater than the first and second lowest minimum extent’s – 2007 and 2008 – this year’s minimum is still well below the
A University of California LA geographer notes in book that northern countries such as Canada, Scandinavia and Russia are likely to thrive and become formidable economic powers. Laurence C. Smith writes in “The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilizations Northern Future” that northern countries and some northern states of the US will become large
A recent study has shown that a large release of CO2 could in fact speed up the melting following an ice age. Authored by Tom Guilderson from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, the study used radiocarbon dating to trace the pathway of carbon dioxide released from the deep ocean into
Besides posing threats to structures and landscapes on a local scale, melting permafrost emits carbon dioxide and methane, according to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), making permafrost a threat on a global scale.
Over the past few years we have sadly had to watch the Arctic ice concentrations drop significantly. Focus has been primarily centered on the Arctic Circle, but Greenland is also suffering from the increased global temperature. And now, thanks to researchers from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the Center for Space
By now, we’ve been well taught to view the steady decrease of Arctic ice as a bad thing; and for good reason, it is. But by now, I also hope that I have been able to teach you that, when dealing with the climate, nothing is simple. If that lesson has managed to make it
For the first time in recorded human history, the Arctic has become an island to itself, completely separate from the landmasses that the Arctic ice normally stretches out onto. This distressingly historic event has been captured by NASA satellites, depicting both the Northwest and Northeast passages as ice free. For the past few years we
Fears about the Arctic melting away during northern summers are proving to be far from unfounded, with the latest reports rolling in from Alaska and Greenland showing disturbing trends. New shipping lanes are opening up through what were once icy seas near Alaska, and glaciers that have so far withstood much of what the environment
