Past periodic warmth in Arctic may be related to melting Antarctic ice sheets

Contact: Janet Lathrop, 413-545-044421 June 2012 AMHERST, Massachusetts – First analyses of the longest sediment core ever collected on land in the terrestrial Arctic, published this week in Science, provide documentation that intense warm intervals, warmer than scientists thought possible, occurred there over the past 2.8 million years. (“2.8 Million Years of Arctic Climate Change […]

The Economist: The melting north

By James Astill16 June 2012 STANDING ON THE Greenland ice cap, it is obvious why restless modern man so reveres wild places. Everywhere you look, ice draws the eye, squeezed and chiselled by a unique coincidence of forces. Gormenghastian ice ridges, silver and lapis blue, ice mounds and other frozen contortions are minutely observable in […]

Peru needs glacier loss monitoring: UN warning

By Roberto Cortijo 4 June 2012 Peru needs a permanent monitoring system to gauge Andean mountain glacier shrinkage caused by global warming and its effect on people who depend on the ice for water, UN experts warned. “We have spoken with Peruvian government institutions, and there is no sufficient monitoring system to tell us the […]

Fresh water demand driving sea-level rise faster than glacier melt

[But see What makes sea-level rise?] By Damian Carrington, www.guardian.co.uk 20 May 2012 Humanity’s unquenchable thirst for fresh water is driving up sea levels even faster than melting glaciers, according to new research. The massive impact of the global population’s growing need for water on rising sea levels is revealed in a comprehensive assessment of […]

Arctic melt releasing ancient methane – ‘The warming will feed the warming’

By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News20 May 2012 Scientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere. The methane has been trapped by ice, but is able to escape as the ice melts. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the […]

Another Antarctic ice shelf threatened by warming

By Chris Wickham; Editing by Janet Lawrence9 May 2012 LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists are predicting the disappearance of another vast ice shelf in Antarctica by the end of the century that will accelerate rising sea levels. The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf fringing the Weddell Sea on the eastern side of Antarctica has so far not seen […]

Graph of the Day: Outlet Glacier Accelerations in Greenland, 2000-2010

Outlet glacier categories and rates of velocity change (percentage change from beginning of 5-year period). Black-outlined images show 2000 to 2005 results, and red-outlined images are 2005 to 2010 results. The background velocity map for both periods is a 2007 to 2010 composite, with the five ice-sheet regions indicated: north (N), northwest (NW), southwest (SW), […]

Antarctic octopus tells story of ice-sheet collapse

By Tamera Jones4 May 2012 Scientists have long been concerned that the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet could collapse if global temperatures keep climbing. If it did, sea levels are predicted to rise by as much as five metres. Now, genetic evidence from an Antarctic octopus reveals that this may have happened at some point […]

Greenland deglaciation slower than worst-case scenarios, ‘but the glaciers are speeding up and we see no sign of that stopping’

By Damian Carrington, www.guardian.co.uk 3 May 2012 Sea-level rises are unlikely to be as high as worst-case scenarios have forecasted, suggests new research which shows that Greenland‘s glaciers are slipping into the sea more slowly than was previously thought. But the scientists warned that ice loss still sped up by 30% and is driving rises […]

The glaciers are still shrinking rapidly – ‘We are witnessing unprecedented changes to land and sea ice’

By Jonathan Bamber, www.guardian.co.uk 15 April 2012 Glaciers are one of the natural environments most often used to illustrate the impacts of climate change. It is fairly indisputable that in a warming world, glaciers melt faster. Yet two recent studies published in top scientific journals (more here and here) suggest that in the Himalayas the […]

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