Phys.org September 22, 2021 The loss of melting ice from land masses such as Greenland and Antarctica are causing the planet’s crust to warp slightly, even in spots more than 1,000 kilometres from the ice loss. A team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, Columbia University) analyzed satellite data on melt from 2003 to 2018 and studied changes in Earth’s crust to measure the shifting of the crust horizontally. They found that in some places the crust was moving more horizontally than it was lifting. They demonstrated that mass changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet and high latitude glacier […]
Category Archives: Climatology
Scientists still don’t know how far melting in Antarctica will go, or the sea level rise it will unleash
Phys.org September 21, 2021 Ice loss from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets was the largest contributor to sea level rise in recent decades. Adapting to the projected sea level rise that will have widespread effects in Australia and around the world due to ice sheet melt are so wide that developing ways for societies to adapt will be incredibly expensive and difficult. An international scientific collaboration known as the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6) is quantifying how much Antarctic ice sheets will contribute to sea level rise has identified basal melt, the melting of ice shelves from underneath, […]
Jet stream changes could amplify weather extremes by 2060s
Phys.org September 13, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, University of Arizona, University of Hawaii, Desert Research Institute) collected glacial ice core samples from nearly 50 sites spanning the Greenland ice sheet to reconstruct changes in windiness across the North Atlantic dating back to the eighth century. Model projections forecast a northward migration of the North Atlantic jet stream which could render the jet stream significantly different within a matter of decades. The ice core layers tell us about how much precipitation fell each year and about the temperatures that airmasses were exposed […]
Scientists solve mystery of icy plumes that may foretell deadly supercell storms
Science Daily September 9, 2021 The strongest supercell thunderstorms typically feature an above-anvil cirrus plume (AACP), which is a plume of ice and water vapor in the lower stratosphere that occurs downwind of the ambient stratospheric flow in the lee of overshooting deep convection. AACP-origin hydration of the stratosphere has a poorly constrained role in ozone destruction and surface warming. A team of researchers in the US (Stanford University, University of Wisconsin) used large eddy simulations corroborated by radar observations to understand the physics of AACP generation. They showed that the overshooting top of a simulated supercell can act as […]
Precipitation in Central Asia shaped by sea surface temperature over tropical Pacific and North Atlantic
Phys.org August 26, 2021 Central Asia is one of the major food-producing regions in the world. Its agricultural production relies heavily on climate conditions, especially precipitation. Researchers in China found that both the decadal scale warming over the tropical Pacific and North Atlantic are favorable for wetter conditions over Central Asia. During the positive phase of tropical Pacific decadal variability (TPDV) (warm tropical Pacific), the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over tropical Pacific can lead to more precipitation over Central Asia, especially the southern and southeastern region. The warm phase of AMV (warm North Atlantic) can excite a circumglobal teleconnection […]
Can East Asian monsoon enhancement induce global cooling?
Phys.org August 2, 2021 The strong erosion in the Himalayas was assumed to be a primary driver of Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 decline and global cooling predominantly through accelerating silicate chemical weathering in the India-Asia collision zone or through effective burial of organic carbon in the nearby Bengal Fan in South Asia. An international team of researchers (China, France) has found that the northward advance of the East Asian monsoon on tectonically inactive subtropical China induced globally significant silicate weathering atmospheric CO2 sink. The organic carbon burial flux is approximately 25% of the contemporary CO2 consumption by silicate weathering. The unusual […]
Global evidence links rise in extreme precipitation to human-driven climate change
Phys.org July 7, 2021 Detecting anthropogenic forcing is difficult to detect in observational record. Researchers at UCLA used artificial neural networks to find patterns of extreme precipitation in weather records. They found multiple lines of evidence that human activity has intensified extreme precipitation during recent decades. Even when the data sets were widely different, they were able to see the human influence…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Leading scientists warn of global impacts as Antarctic nears tipping points
Phys.org June 16, 2021 According to a panel of leading Antarctic scientists human-driven climate change is pushing the Antarctic towards numerous tipping points that will impact wider earth systems, with profound implications for humanity and biodiversity. They examine how climate change is rapidly pushing five critical, interconnected processes in the Antarctic Southern Ocean towards substantial changes. They warn that disrupting these processes may disproportionately exacerbate global climate change and have widespread impacts on marine and human life worldwide, due to the region’s central role in regulating our earth systems. According to the group we can build resilience in the Antarctic […]
New climate predictions increase likelihood of temporarily reaching 1.5 °C in next 5 years
World Meteorological Organization May 27, 2021 According to the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update https://hadleyserver.metoffice.gov.uk/wmolc/ , produced by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, there is about a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level in at least one of the next five years – and these odds are increasing with time, according to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). There is a 90% likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record. This is mainly due to using an improved temperature dataset […]
Trace gases from ocean are source of particles accelerating Antarctic climate change
Phys.org May 13, 2021 An international team of researchers (UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia) studied the summertime open ocean and coastal new particle formation in the Antarctic Peninsula region based on both ship and station measurements. The rates of particle formation relative to sulfuric acid concentrations, as well as the sulfuric acid dimer-to-monomer ratios, were similar to those seen for sulfuric acid–dimethylamine–water nucleation. Numerous sulfuric acid–amine peaks were identified during new particle formation events, providing evidence that alkylamines were the bases that facilitated sulfuric acid nucleation. Most new particle formation events occurred in air masses arriving from the ice-covered Weddell Sea […]