Published on YouTube Jul 26, 2013: Thomas Painter of NASA JPL speaks at TEDxISU on fascinating new data and perspectives on the causes and impact of Climate Change. The Weekend Wonk: Tom Painter on Dark Snow Tom Painter was originally going to come with us on the Dark Snow mission. We were disappointed to hear he…
Published on YouTube Nov 21, 2012: Ice shelves that have lived for more than 10,000 years are disintegrating rapidly — in 6 weeks or less. U-M professor Jeremy Bassis is exploring how global warming is effecting glacial calving, and what impact these events will have on the rise of sea level. Related Greenland And Antarctica…
Published on YouTube Jul 29, 2013: Research scientists provide insights on recent ‘unprecedented’ melting of Greenland’s interior ice sheet. Latest video for The Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, the first since returning from Greenland – includes interviews with Ice expert Alun Hubbard, who I met in Kangerlussuaq, as well as a snip from…
Source: Polar science news in brief “Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1813–1821 DOI 10.1007/s12665-012-2185-y by David Carlson Summary Antarctica Satellite radar altimetry since 2002 shows accelerated thinning (Amundsen Sea, Pine Island and Thwaites glacial ice streams) Laser altimetry shows thinning on 20 of 54 Antarctic ice shelves Ice shelves buttress their tributary glaciers, melt-induced thinning of…
Recently Doug asked: “…my question is, how far could this phenomenon go? What is the “end” state? Is it possible for example that we could find the jet stream staying in place for months at a time, years, decades? How wavy could this waviness become?” A main theme of Sea ice loss seems to be…
By Joe Romm / Climate Progress: New research finds that “unusual changes in atmospheric jet stream circulation caused the exceptional surface melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) in summer 2012.” Prof. Jennifer Francis tells me these changes are consistent with those caused by warming-driven “Arctic Amplification.” And that means GrIS may melt faster than…
Release of 14C-depleted methane to the atmosphere from abundant gas seeps concentrated along boundaries of permafrost thaw and receding glaciers in Alaska and Greenland Nature Geoscience (2012) Abstract Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, accumulates in subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs, such as coal beds and natural gas deposits. In the Arctic, permafrost and glaciers form a ‘cryosphere…
ClimateCrocks.com: Ok, let me apologize for the sound of my questions – I’m getting a second lavalier so that won’t happen again. That plus altitude induced hoarseness. I was interviewing Richard Alley at a conference in Colorado last week. This is part of what he said. More later.
A breakthrough study of fluctuations in sea levels the last time Earth was between ice ages, as it is now, shows that oceans rose some three meters in only decades due to collapsing ice sheets. The findings suggest that such an scenario — which would redraw coastlines worldwide and unleash colossal human misery — is…
By John Mahoney / Popsci: The skies do strange things at the NEEM camp, a remote ice-drilling and research facility on the northern Greenland ice sheet. Midnight sunshine. Low clouds of sparkling ice crystals known as “diamond dust.” But when rain fell instead of snow last summer, complete with a rainbow arcing over the camp,…
John Mason / Skeptical Science: Here is a must-see 2012 presentation by Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, covering the research her team has been doing into Lake El’gygytgyn (pronouned El-Guh-Git-Kin), a water-filled meteor crater in Arctic Russia that came into being after the impact of a ~1km diameter space-rock, 3.6 million years ago.…
