Nearly 700 feet (more than 200 meters) under the Svartisen glacier in northern Norway, researchers are huddled together underground. In the world’s only lab located inside one of these giant hunks of ice, they are carrying out some of the best experiments on the movement and composition of glaciers ever done.
Posts tagged "climate"
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World's First Lab Inside a Glacier →
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Large-Scale Melting of Permafrost May Be Underway →
As the climate warms, thawing permafrost could have a major impact on the world’s climate, but that potential is overlooked in many climate models and studies, warns a new report from the U.N. Environment Programme.
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Wind Farms Warming Texas →
New research finds that wind farms actually warm up the surface of the land underneath them during the night, a phenomena that could put a damper on efforts to expand wind energy as a green energy solution.
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Rapid climate change threatens Asia's Rice Bowl →
As Asia’s monsoon season begins, leading climate specialists and agricultural scientists warned today that rapid climate change and its potential to intensify droughts and floods could threaten Asia’s rice production and pose a significant threat to millions of people across the region.
“Climate change endangers crop and livestock yields and the health of fisheries and forests at the very same time that surging populations worldwide are placing new demands on food production,” said Bruce Campbell of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). “These clashing trends challenge us to transform our agriculture systems so they can sustainably deliver the food required to meet our nutritional needs and support economic development, despite rapidly shifting growing conditions.”
Southeast Asia recently has experienced dramatic meteorological swings, as last year’s horrendous flooding in Thailand was preceded by a record drought across the region in 2010. These and many other extreme weather events around the world have hammered global food prices, stretching their impact beyond immediate personal and ecological tragedies.
In Thailand, a drought during the 2010 growing season caused $450 million in crop damages. One year later, massive flooding in 2011 caused $40 billion in damages that rippled through all sectors of Thailand’s economy.
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NASA views our perpetual ocean →
The swirling flows of tens of thousands of ocean currents were captured in this scientific visualization created by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
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The States That Are The Most Unprepared For Future Water Risks →
You would hope are government would be getting ready for a world where water is harder and harder to come by (that world is already on its way. Sadly, many states are just hoping the problem will go away on its own.
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Hot, crowded, and running out of fuel: Earth of 2050 a scary place →
A new report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development paints a grim picture of the world in 2050 based on current global trends. It predicts a world population of 9.2 billion people, generating a global GDP four times the size of today’s, requiring 80 percent more energy. And with a worldwide energy mix still 85 percent reliant on fossil fuels by that time, it will be coal, oil, and gas that make up most of the difference, the OECD predicts.
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The San Francisco Archipelago: A Vision Of A City Underwater →
The effects of global warming are a bit theoretical, until you start to imagine actual cities, and actual neighborhoods. The streets of San Francisco, for example.
Johnny O, author of the site Burrito Justice, has created maps of his native city after 200-foot sea level rise—which could happen in the next 60 years, if ice-sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic start melting.
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Ocean robots help to trace ocean warming to late 19th century →
A new study contrasting ocean temperature readings of the 1870s with temperatures of the modern seas reveals an upward trend of global ocean warming spanning at least 100 years.
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An Even Warmer Future Ahead →
By 2050, global average temperatures will probably be between 1.4°C and 3°C (between about 2.5°F to 5.5°F) higher than they were from 1960 to 1990.
A lot is riding on global warming predictions for everyone from biologists to policy-makers to farmers. And while the climate scientists who create the models want to get the numbers right, the new study, which used many thousands of personal computers to both refine and raise previous estimates of future temperatures, points out just how hard it is to predict the future of something as multi-faceted and complex as climate.
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Warmer climate may trouble world’s lungs →
Respiratory health experts say global climate change will result in more asthma, allergies, and infectious and cardiovascular diseases.
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Greenland ice sheet may melt completely with 1.6 degrees global warming →
The Greenland ice sheet is likely to be more vulnerable to global warming than previously thought. The temperature threshold for melting the ice sheet completely is in the range of 0.8 to 3.2 degrees Celsius global warming, with a best estimate of 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels, shows a new study by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Today, already 0.8 degrees global warming has been observed. Substantial melting of land ice could contribute to long-term sea-level rise of several meters and therefore it potentially affects the lives of many millions of people.
The time it takes before most of the ice in Greenland is lost strongly depends on the level of warming. “The more we exceed the threshold, the faster it melts,” says Alexander Robinson, lead-author of the study now published in Nature Climate Change. In a business-as-usual scenario of greenhouse-gas emissions, in the long run humanity might be aiming at 8 degrees Celsius of global warming. This would result in one fifth of the ice sheet melting within 500 years and a complete loss in 2000 years, according to the study. “This is not what one would call a rapid collapse,” says Robinson. “However, compared to what has happened in our planet’s history, it is fast. And we might already be approaching the critical threshold.”
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Warmer Planet Could Be Dominated by Mosquitoes, Tics, Rodents and Jellyfish →
Imagine a planet where jellyfish rule the seas, giant rodents roam the mountains and swarms of insects blur everything in sight. It may sound far-fetched, but enough global warming is likely to change the distribution of wildlife on Earth. While species that are under threat, such as the polar bear, seem to get all the attention, others are beginning to thrive like never before.
