Hundreds of huge craters discovered in floor of the Arctic Ocean

By Sarah Zhang 1 June 2017 (The Atlantic) – When Karin Andreassen set out for the Barents Sea, she knew she would find a lot of methane. The cold, shallow body of water just north of Norway meets Russia is home to oil and gas fields, and methane—the main component of natural gas—naturally seeps out […]

Receding glacier causes immense Canadian river to vanish in four days – “Day by day we could see the water level dropping”

By Hannah Devlin 17 April 2017 (The Guardian) – An immense river that flowed from one of Canada’s largest glaciers vanished over the course of four days last year, scientists have reported, in an unsettling illustration of how global warming dramatically changes the world’s geography. The abrupt and unexpected disappearance of the Slims river, which […]

Faced with global warming, Canadian Arctic residents fear their way of life is melting away

By Carrie Swiggum 15 May 2017 (PRI) – The territory of Nunavut lies in the northernmost reaches of the globe. Iqaluit, the capital, is just 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle. And it’s warming at twice the global rate. There are now shrubs where once there was only ice. The town’s buildings were designed […]

Graph of the Day: Ice breakup dates on the Tanana River in Alaska, 1916-2017

By Gavin Schmidt2 May 2017 (RealClimate) – As I’ve done for a few years, here is the updated graph for the Nenana Ice Classic competition, which tracks the break up of ice on the Tanana River near Nenana in Alaska. It is now a 101-year time series tracking the winter/spring conditions in that part of […]

Arctic stronghold of world’s seeds flooded after permafrost melts – “This is supposed to last for eternity”

By Damian Carrington19 May 2017 (The Guardian) – It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures […]

Record-breaking weather in 2016 pushes world into “truly uncharted territory” – World Meteorological Organization

21 March 2017 (United Nations) – Global temperatures set yet another record last year and the world witnessed exceptionally low sea ice, and unabated sea level rise and ocean heat, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said today, warning that the extreme weather and climate conditions have continued into 2017. According to the agency’s […]

China’s severe winter haze tied to climate change – “The very rapid change in polar warming is really having a large impact on China”

By John Toon15 March 2017 ATLANTA, GA (Geirgia Tech) – China’s severe winter air pollution problems may be worsened by changes in atmospheric circulation prompted by Arctic sea ice loss and increased Eurasian snowfall – both caused by global climate change. Modeling and data analysis done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggest […]

Thawing Alaska permafrost sends autumn CO2 emissions surging – “Tundra soils appear to be acting as an amplifier of climate change”

By Bob Berwin8 May 2017 (InsideClimate News) – Soaring temperatures in the Arctic have triggered a huge seasonal surge in carbon dioxide emissions from thawing permafrost and may be tipping the region toward becoming a net source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, a new study shows. Even into early winter, when the ground would have been […]

Decades of data on world’s oceans reveal a troubling oxygen decline

ATLANTA, Georgia, 3 May 2017 (Georgia Tech) – A new analysis of decades of data on oceans across the globe has revealed that the amount of dissolved oxygen contained in the water – an important measure of ocean health – has been declining for more than 20 years. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology looked […]

Researchers show connection between extreme weather and global warming

By Ellie Bowen25 April 2017 (Stanford Daily) – Using a four-pronged framework, Professor of Earth System Science Noah Diffenbaugh ’96 M.S. ’97 and his research team have found a direct connection between extreme weather events and human impact. The team’s study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences magazine, outlines an objective […]

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