BOSTON — The Arctic is melting. The first ice-free summer is coming. The whole melting process is speeding up the warming of the entire Earth. And every autumn, a layer of extra clouds are forming over the ice-thinning Arctic that — researchers now believe — are speeding that melting up. In a talk here March 4 at the March meeting of the American Physical Society, Ariel Morrison, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, presented research that for the first time offered a clear answer as to how the melting Arctic is changing its clouds, and how those clouds in turn are changing the Arctic. "Right now, there's about a 20-year estimate: Between the 2040s and the 2060s, we're expecting to see the first ice-free summer," Morrison told Live Science. "This moves that toward the earlier end of the estimates." [On Ice: Stunning Images of Canadian Arctic] Modeling how clouds impact the Arctic is complicated because they have two … [Read more...] about The Melting Arctic Is Covering Itself in a Warm Layer of Clouds
Arctic melting
No equal to recent Greenland melt in centuries-long ice core
The Greenland Ice Sheet’s unhealthy and rapid weight loss—and contribution to sea level rise—occurs by a handful of mechanisms. In short, ice at the edge of the glacier can melt or break off into icebergs, and surface snow farther inland can melt. That snow melt is a bit like rainfall, in that it can either soak into the snow or runoff in streams. Where it trickles down into the denser snow beneath, it refreezes and forms a stubborn layer that will continue to be visible when that snow is compressed into glacial ice. That means that drilling an ice core can give you a record of past surface melting events. Further ReadingGreenland hit by dramatic ice thaw Greenland has experienced a remarkable amount of surface melting over the past couple decades, including the record-setting summer of 2012 that saw virtually the entire ice sheet melting at the surface. Because surface melting had historically been an unusual event akin to newsworthy heat wave, glaciologists wanted … [Read more...] about No equal to recent Greenland melt in centuries-long ice core
Climate change in ‘OVERDRIVE’ as experts warn Greenland ice melt now ‘off the charts’
CLIMATE change has forced the melting of Greenland's mile-thick ice sheet into 'overdrive', threatening to boost global sea levels to dangerous levels. The enormous sheet, which covers an area two and a half times that of the United Kingdom, is dumping more melted ice into the oceans than at any point during the past 400 years, according to a new study. Rising sea levels pose a host of catastrophic risks to the planet, and the new study serves as a stark warning that without action against climate change, humanity is headed for a future 'where food shortages, floods and fires are part of our everyday reality', scientists warned. They added that Greenland's dramatic melting was directly linked to the greenhouse gases belched into Earth's atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. "From a historical perspective, today's melt rates are off the charts, and this study provides the evidence to prove it" said Sarah Das, a glaciologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic … [Read more...] about Climate change in ‘OVERDRIVE’ as experts warn Greenland ice melt now ‘off the charts’
Greenland Is Melting Faster Than Ever
Greenland is melting faster today than it has at any time in the last 350 years, and probably much longer, new research finds. Surface melt from the icy island has increased 50 percent in the last 20 years compared with the early 1800s, before the industrial era, researchers report today (Dec. 5) in the journal Nature. The runoff alone is now contributing about a millimeter to the global average sea level per year, said study co-author Sarah Das, a glaciologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. "Climate change has hit Greenland very hard recently, and the ice sheet is responding quickly," Das told Live Science. [Stunning Photos of Greenland's Supraglacial Lakes] Dire straits Scientiststracking Greenland's ice by satellite and on the ground have seenincreasingly dire ice loss. Greenland loses ice both when icebergs calve off glaciers and when ice on the surface melts and flows to the sea as water. The meltwater flow is how themajority of the ice vanishes, and that's what Das … [Read more...] about Greenland Is Melting Faster Than Ever
‘Rewilding’ landscapes with rhinos and reindeer could prevent fires and keep Arctic cool
By Elizabeth PennisiOct. 23, 2018 , 4:20 PM Restoring reindeer, rhinoceroses, and other large mammals could help protect grasslands, forests, and tundra from catastrophic wildfires and other threats associated with global warming, new studies suggest. The findings give advocates of so-called trophic rewilding—reintroducing lost species to reestablish healthy food webs—a new rationale for bringing back the big grazers. Rewilding offers “solutions to some of the important problems arising from climate change,” says ecologist Jens-Christian Svenning of Aarhus University in Denmark, an editor of a special issue on the topic published this week in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. “The scope for … beneficial spin-offs for human society is tremendous,” adds co-editor Elisabeth Bakker, an ecologist at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Wageningen. Rewilding is often associated with an ambitious proposal to restore large … [Read more...] about ‘Rewilding’ landscapes with rhinos and reindeer could prevent fires and keep Arctic cool