The study indicates that under the frigid weight of Barents Sea Ice sheet, which covered northern Eurasia some 22 000 years ago, significant amounts of methane may have been stored as hydrates in the ground. As the ice sheet retreated, the methane rich hydrates melted, releasing the climate gas into the ocean and atmosphere for…
Scientific Discipline Cryosphere Speaker Eric Rignot (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Abstract Modern views of ice sheets provided by satellites, airborne surveys, in situ data and paleoclimate records while transformative of glaciology have not fundamentally changed concerns about ice sheet stability and collapse that emerged in the 1970’s. Motivated by the desire to learn more about…
Inside a mammoth glacier in Iceland melting at an alarming rate from warming temperatures. Teaser image via http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/stunning-beauty-icelandic-ice-caves-6909891
Recently, James Hansen the former director of NASA GISS published new study findings about future sea level rise, ice melt, and temperature changes, as well as the possible implications for future climate. Above video highlights a part of a talk Hansen held on December 1, 2015 at the Paris climate change conference (COP21). The take…
Members of NASA’s new interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team discussed recent findings and new agency research efforts during a media teleconference Aug. 26, 2015, at 12:30 p.m. EDT. The panelists for this briefing were: — Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division at the agency’s headquarters in Washington— Steve Nerem, lead for NASA’s Sea…
A new open access study in Science Advances concludes that a warming beyond the 2°C target would potentially lead to rates of sea-level rise dominated by ice loss from Antarctica, and continued CO2 emissions from fossil sources could cause additional tens of meters of sea level rise, over the next millennia and eventually ultimately eliminate the…
According to a new study, sea level rise of several meters might happen faster then previously thought. Based on data from past climate changes, when sea level rose to +5–9 m, including the occurrence of extreme storms – during a time when temperatures were less than 1 ◦C warmer than today, experts warn of similar…
Peering into the thousands of frozen layers inside Greenland’s ice sheet is like looking back in time. Each layer provides a record of not only snowfall and melting events, but what the Earth’s climate was like at the dawn of civilization, or during the last ice age, or during an ancient period of warmth similar…
Eric Rignot from UC Irvine discusses Observing Antarctic Glaciers. This talk was part of The Sleeping Giant: Measuring Ocean Ice Interactions in Antarctica short course at the Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech on September 9, 2013. Related Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica, from…