Permafrost carbon: Catalyst for deglaciation

By Andrew H. MacDougall22 August 2016 (Nature Geoscience) – Between 17,500 and 14,500 years ago, a period sometimes referred to as the Mystery Interval1, atmospheric CO2 concentrations began their post-glacial rise from about 190 ppm in glacial times to approximately 270 ppm by the beginning of the Holocene. The rise in CO2 during the Mystery […]

Dazzling blue lakes are forming in Antarctica, and scientists are worried

[Jim Hansen’s supralinear sea level rise scenario looks increasingly likely. –Des] By Chris Mooney 17 August 2016 (Washington Post) – In a new study, scientists who study the largest ice mass on Earth — East Antarctica — have found that it is showing a surprising feature reminiscent of the fastest melting one: Greenland. More specifically, […]

Graph of the Day: Melt at the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet

By Maria-José Viñas, adapted by Kathryn Hansen4 August 2016 (NASA) – Though it seems counter-intuitive, Greenland’s thick ice sheet actually insulates the bedrock below from the cold air temperatures at the surface. As a result, the bottom of the ice—slowly warmed by heat coming from Earth’s depths—can be tens of degrees warmer than at the […]

Global warming already accelerating sea level rise, study finds – ‘Accelerated sea level rise is real, and it’s ongoing’

By Laura Snider10 August 2016 BOULDER, Colorado (NCAR) – Greenhouse gases are already having an accelerating effect on sea level rise, but the impact has so far been masked by the cataclysmic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Satellite […]

Crisis on high: In the Himalayas, a climate disaster is unfolding that will impact the lives of more than 1 billion people

By Matthew Carney; photography by Wayne McAllister25 July 2016 (ABC News) – Deep in the Himalayas sits a remote research station that is tracking an alarming trend in climate change, with implications that could disrupt the lives of more than one billion people and pitch the most populated region of the world into chaos. The […]

Global warming may shrink Adélie penguin range by end of century – ‘Penguin colonies near Palmer Station on the West Antarctic Peninsula have declined by at least 80 percent since the 1970s’

By Karen B. Roberts and Maria-Jose Viñas; editing by Karl Hille8 July 2016 (NASA) – Climate has influenced the distribution patterns of Adélie penguins across Antarctica for millions of years. The geologic record tells us that as glaciers expanded and covered Adélie breeding habitats with ice, penguins in the region abandoned their colonies. When the […]

This chart shows what’s at stake in the quest to stop global warming

By Chris Mooney 23 June 2016 (Washington Post) – Here at the Energy and Environment blog, we cover, regularly, the tipping points of climate change — how, for instance, the glaciers of West Antarctica may already have passed a key threshold that leads to unstoppable melt. We cover the history of the Earth’s climate — […]

Pianist Ludovico Einaudi performs amid Arctic sea ice to support legal protection for the Arctic ocean

  By Elvira Jiménez and Erlend Tellnes20 June 2016 (Greenpeace) – The beauty of the Arctic is overwhelming. The cold, the silence and extraordinary sounds as the ice creaks, rumbles and falls. The pristine environment, with life popping out to welcome you when you least expect it. A unique place that people across the world […]

Antarctic coastline images reveal four decades of ice loss to ocean – ‘Now we know this has been occurring pervasively along the coastline for almost half a century’

WASHINGTON, DC, 1 June 2016 (AGU) – Part of Antarctica has been losing ice to the ocean for far longer than had been expected, satellite pictures reveal. A study of images along 2000 kilometers (1,240 miles) of West Antarctica’s coastline has shown the loss of about 1000 square kilometers (about 390 square miles) of ice […]

Greenland witnessed its highest June temperature ever recorded on Thursday – ‘We had to check that our models were still working properly’

By Jason Samenow and Angela Fritz 10 June 2016 (Washington Post) – Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, soared to 75 degrees (24 Celsius) Thursday, marking the warmest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic country during June. Nuuk sits on Greenland’s southwest coast, where the country’s warmest weather typically occurs. It was warmer in Nuuk than it was […]

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