Oceanography
Hank |
Some people believe the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a small, unified body composed of the best scientists who make proclamations on lots of things.
That isn't really true. The actual IPCC is a tiny UN group, around a dozen people, but the bulk of the data is compiled by unpaid (well, unpaid by the UN) scientists who participate in working groups that argue over the science - it is not without some flaws. They use geographical and gender parameters for participation so a working group may not have the best scientists in the world, some will have been chosen because they…
The climate just got a little more complex.
Researchers have found that sunlit snow is a major source of atmospheric bromine in the Arctic and that the surface snowpack above Arctic sea ice plays a previously unknown role in the bromine cycle. Bromine is key to chemical reactions that purge pollutants and destroy ozone.
This means, concludes researchers, that loss of sea ice, which been occurring more rapidly in recent years, has previously unknown and extremely disruptive effects in the balance of atmospheric chemistry in high latitudes. The team's findings suggest the rapidly changing…
Average sea level changes have averaged about 3 millimeters annually in recent years, leading the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report to estimate that sea levels could rise between 18 and 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches) this century.
The potential impact of rising oceans on populated areas is one of the most pressing concerns. Many of the world's major cities, such as New York, Miami, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Tokyo, are located in low-lying areas near the water.
A new model by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) says that reducing four…
Rising temperatures will lead to a "greening" of the Arctic by mid-century, according to a new numerical model.
The greening not only will have effects on plant life, the researchers noted, but also on the wildlife that depends on vegetation for cover. The greening could also have a multiplier effect on warming, as dark vegetation absorbs more solar radiation than ice, which reflects sunlight.
In the paper, scientists detail their new computer projections stating that wooded areas in the Arctic could increase by as much as 50 percent over the coming decades. The researchers also show…
Sea-level rise over the coming century could affect some regions far more than others, according to a numerical model which projects that parts of the Pacific will see the highest rates of rise while some polar regions will experience falls in relative sea levels due to the ways sea, land and ice interact globally.
In their Geophysical Research Letters article the researchers simulated out to the year 2100 to calculate how ice loss will continue to add to rising sea levels. It's well known that sea level rise around the globe will not be uniform, but the ice2sea researchers say the global…
Ancient carbon trapped in Arctic permafrost is extremely sensitive to sunlight and can release climate-warming carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere faster than previously thought if exposed to the surface when long-frozen soils melt and collapse..
They studied places in Arctic Alaska where permafrost is melting and is causing the overlying land surface to collapse, forming erosional holes and landslides and exposing long-buried soils to sunlight, and found that sunlight increases bacterial conversion of exposed soil carbon into carbon dioxide gas by at least 40 percent compared to…
There are projections that coral reefs will decline due to global warming but evolution disagrees. A number of coral species survive at seawater temperatures far higher than estimates for the tropics during the next century.
We associate coral reefs with tropical seas of around 28 degrees so in that mindset even slight warming can have devastating effects on corals. But in the Arabian/Persian Gulf, corals survive seawater temperatures of up to 36 degrees Celsius every summer, heat levels that would kill corals elsewhere. Corals have adapted.
Reefs are made up of many species of…
Greenland Ice Cores Show It's Less Sensitive To Warming Than Believed - But There Is Still A Caution
A new study details changes in Earth's climate from more than 100,000 years ago and indicates that the last interglacial, the term for the periods between "ice ages", was warmer than previously thought.
The research findings also indicate that melting of the massive West Antarctic ice sheet may have contributed more to sea-level rise at that time than melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
The new results from the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project, managed by Denmark's Centre for Ice and Climate, show that during the Eemian interglacial, the climate in North Greenland…
Arctic sea ice has not only declined over the past decade but has also become distinctly thinner and younger - mainly thin, first-year ice floes which are extensively covered with melt ponds in the summer months where once meter-thick, multi-year ice used to float.
Researchers have now measured the light transmission through the Arctic sea ice for the first time on a large scale, enabling them to quantify consequences of this change. They come to the conclusion that in places where melt water collects on the ice, far more sunlight and therefore energy is able to penetrate the ice than is the…
Reconstructions of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and sea level over the past 40 million years show that greenhouse gas concentrations similar to the present (nearly 400 parts per million) were associated with sea levels at least nine meters above current levels.
They determined the 'natural equilibrium' sea level for CO2 concentrations ranging between ice-age values of 180 parts per million and ice-free values of more than 1,000 parts per million. Of course, it takes centuries for equilibrium to be reached so they don't try to predict any sea level value for the coming century…