Ocean access to a cavity beneath Totten Glacier in East Antarctica http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n4/full/ngeo2388.html Totten Glacier, the primary outlet of the Aurora Subglacial Basin, has the largest thinning rate in East Antarctica1, 2. Thinning may be driven by enhanced basal melting due to ocean processes3, modulated by polynya activity4, 5. Warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water, which has…
Using satellite and field work after an extreme melt event in Greenland, a UCLA-led study finds that melt-prone areas on its ice sheet develop a remarkably efficient drainage system of stunning blue streams and rivers that carry meltwater into moulins (sinkholes) and ultimately the ocean. However, the team’s measurements at the ice’s edge show that…
Arctic and Antarctic sea ice are both affected by climate change, but the two poles of Earth are behaving in intriguingly different ways. Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for more. Why Increasing Antarctic Sea Ice Doesn’t Mean Climate Change Isn’t Happening http://www.businessinsider.com/antarctic-sea-ice-climate-change-2014-12
As climate change continues to hammer Arctic sea ice, pushing back its summertime boundaries to record-high latitudes, NASA is flying an innovative airborne mission to find out how these developments will affect worldwide weather. NASA: Oct 15, 2014: Climate change is a global phenomenon, yet Earth scientists are keeping a wary eye on one place…
Climate State interviewed Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the University College London, one of Britain’s leading volcanologists and contributing author to the 2011 IPCC report. He called for an early tsunami warning system (2004, The Guardian) and warned in his book The Waking Giant, of the Earth response (more earthquakes, tsunamis and…
An animation of daily Arctic sea ice extent in summer 2014, from March 21, 2014 to Sept. 17, 2014 – when the ice appeared to reach it’s minimum extent for the year. It’s the sixth lowest minimum sea ice extent in the satellite era. The data was provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency from…
NASA: One of the most visible signs of climate change in recent years was not even visible at all until a few decades ago. The sea ice cap that covers the Arctic Ocean has been changing dramatically, especially in the last 15 years. Its ice is thinner and more vulnerable – and at its summer minimum…
Recently a mysterious Siberian crater has been discovered, which subsequently raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the crater formation. Theories include Pingo formation and connections to the thawing of permafrost (ClimateState reported). Robert Scribbler, summed it up: One theory on the feature is that it might be a pingo — a melting of a permafrost water pocket…
Wikipedia: A flood basalt is the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that coats large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. Flood basalt provinces are often called traps, which derives from the characteristic stairstep morphology of many associated landscapes. Related Greenland ice sheet collapse, triggered ancient sea…