South pole has warmest year on record

By Brett IsraelLiveScience Staff Writer The South Pole experienced its warmest year on record in 2009, according to newly released data from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The average temperature at the South Pole last year was still a bone-chilling minus 54.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 47.9 degrees Celsius) in 2009, making it the warmest year […]

Global sea ice in ‘constant retreat’

LONDONWed Apr 28, 2010 1:38pm EDT (Reuters) – The world’s floating ice is in “constant retreat,” showing an instability which will increase global sea levels, according to a report published in Geophysical Research Letters on Wednesday. Floating ice had disappeared at a steady rate over the past 10 years, according to the first measurement of […]

Antarctica ice sheets: ‘Our models may be dramatically underestimating how much worse it's going to get’

By Clay Farris Naff   April 19, 2010 ERICE, Italy—If you think of Earth’s poles as fraternal twins, the Arctic has been the wild one in recent years, while the Antarctic has been a steady plodder. Withered by summer heat, Arctic sea ice has shrunk to record low coverage several times since 2005, only to rebound […]

Dramatic glacial retreat caught by NASA satellite

In January through April of 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed in the Antarctic. This was a huge sheet of ice, about 3250 square kilometers (1250 square miles) in area, roughly equal to a square 57 km (34 miles) on a side. There had been a series of warm summers that weakened the shelf, […]

Graph of the Day: Sea Level Rise and City Flooding

What does a metre sea level rise actually mean? This is how we visualised some of the data confusion Posted by David McCandless, Monday 22 February 2010 14.33 GMT, guardian.co.uk Another day, another set of bewildering climate figures. Today, key climate scientists withdrew their predictions. of a metre sea-level rise by 2100. Other scientists meanwhile […]

Graph of the Day: Ice-shelf Retreat in the Southern Antarctic Peninsula, 1947-2009

This image shows ice-front retreat in part of the southern Antarctic Peninsula from 1947 to 2009. USGS scientists are studying coastal and glacier change along the entire Antarctic coastline. The southern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula is one area studied as part of this project, and is summarized in the USGS report, Coastal-Change and Glaciological […]

Ice shelves disappearing on Antarctic Peninsula

Glacier Retreat and Sea Level Rise are Possible Consequences Ice shelves are retreating in the southern section of the Antarctic Peninsula due to climate change. This could result in glacier retreat and sea-level rise if warming continues, threatening coastal communities and low-lying islands worldwide. Research by the U.S. Geological Survey is the first to document […]

Penguins in Antarctica to be replaced by jellyfish due to global warming

Rising temperatures in the oceans around Antarctica could lead to the continent’s penguins being replaced by jellyfish, scientists have warned. The results of the largest ever survey of Antarctic marine life reveal melting sea ice is decimating krill populations, which form an integral part of penguins’ diets. The six-inch-long invertebrates, also eaten by other higher […]

Antarctic ice shelf collapse possibly triggered by ocean waves

ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Depicting a cause-and-effect scenario that spans thousands of miles, a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and his collaborators discovered that ocean waves originating along the Pacific coasts of North and South America impact Antarctic ice shelves and could play a role in their catastrophic collapse. […]

Drought in SW Australia linked to snowfall in Antarctica

By Staff WritersParis (AFP) Feb 7, 2010 A drought that has gripped the southwestern corner of Australia since the 1970s is linked with higher snowfall in East Antarctica, a phenomenon that may be rooted in global warming, scientists reported on Sunday. Researchers Tas van Ommen and Vin Morgan of the Australian Antarctic Division said that […]

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