World's largest ice sheet melting faster than expected

East Antarctic sheet shedding 57bn tonnes of ice a year and contributing to sea level rises, according to NASA aerial survey By Ian Sample, science correspondentwww.guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 November 2009 18.00 GMT  The world’s largest ice sheet has started to melt along its coastal fringes, raising fears that global sea levels will rise faster than […]

Rising CO2 will cause catastrophic sea level rise finds Antarctic study

Sea levels could rise by up to six metres if the world fails to get pollution under control according to the latest study in the Antarctic.   By Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentPublished: 1:56PM GMT 18 Nov 2009 The British Antarctic Survey found that during past periods of high carbon dioxide, temperatures in Antarctica were up […]

Graph of the Day: Changes in Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Distribution, 2003-2008

Distribution of 2003–2008 mass changes across the ice sheet. The period (2003–2008) was chosen to coincide with the GRACE and IceSAT epochs. Numbers indicate basin-integrated mass loss rates due to SMB and D (in Gt year–1). Numbers in the lower right corner represent the values for the whole ice sheet, indicating the dominant surface contribution […]

Graph of the Day: Greenland Ice sheet Cumulative Mass Anomaly, 2003-2008

Cumulative SMB-D anomaly (2003–2008) and comparison with GRACE data (18). Short horizontal lines indicate GRACE uncertainty, dashed lines the linear trends. GRACE values are not absolute numbers, and the curve has been vertically shifted for clarity. The scatter plot in the inset shows a direct linear regression between the monthly GRACE values as a function […]

Glorious vision in Kenya's sky melts away

Mt. Kenya’s ice cap was so stunning that some began revering it as God’s home. But most of the shining glacier has now disappeared, robbing communities of water and leading to a crisis of faith. By Edmund Sanders, November 10, 2009 Reporting from Muranga, Kenya – From a tree-shaded plateau facing Mt. Kenya, the worshipers […]

Greenland ice cap melting faster than ever

Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is loosing mass at an accelerating rate, reports a new study in Science. This mass loss is equally distributed between increased iceberg production, driven by acceleration of Greenland’s fast-flowing outlet glaciers, and increased meltwater production at the ice […]

Graph of the Day: Total Ice Area on Kilimanjaro, 1912-2007

Outlines of the Kibo (Kilimanjaro) ice fields 1912, 1953, 1976, and 1989 (1), 2000 (2) and updated with Ohio State University aerial photographs taken October 15, 2007. (Inset) Areal extent (km2) versus time with a linear fit (R2 = 0.98). An ice cover map was produced by using the 2007 photos and combined with four […]

Graph of the Day: Seasonal Melt Departure and Maximum Temperature Anomaly in Greenland, 1973-2007

(a) Seasonal Melt Departure (SMD) for June-August and (b) seasonal maximum daily temperature anomalies at three coastal meteorological stations in Greenland for June-August from 1973 to 2007 (Mote 2007). The recent marked retreat, thinning, and acceleration of most of Greenland’s outlet glaciers south of 70° N has increased concerns over contributions from the Greenland Ice […]

Goodbye, snows of Kilimanjaro

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com, November 02, 2009 The most recent survey among the ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro found that the ice atop Africa’s most famous mountain could be gone in twenty years—and maybe even sooner. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science the study [pdf] was conducted by a team of […]

Arctic sediments show 20th-century warming is an unnatural variation

By Staff Writers, Buffalo NY (SPX) Oct 29, 2009 The possibility that climate change might simply be a natural variation like others that have occurred throughout geologic time is dimming, according to evidence in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper. The research reveals that sediments retrieved by University at Buffalo geologists from […]

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