antarctica

Is Geoengineering the Answer to Limit Global Warming?

Is Geoengineering the Answer to Limit Global Warming?

By Tim Radford Geoengineering, the deliberate alteration of the planet to undo its inadvertent alteration by humans over the past 200 years, is back on the scientific agenda, with a climate compromise suggested as a possible solution. One group wants to turn down the global thermostat and reverse the global warming trend set in train […]

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    Massive Antarctic Ice Shelf Days From Breaking Off

    Massive Antarctic Ice Shelf Days From Breaking Off

    By Andy Rowell Any day now we will truly witness climate change in action. Within days at worst, maybe weeks at best, scientists predict that a huge section of the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica will break off into the ocean, in what is called a major “calving” event. The size of the U.S. […]

    Plastic Pollution in Antarctica 5 Times Worse Than Expected

    Plastic Pollution in Antarctica 5 Times Worse Than Expected

    Not only have microplastic particles infiltrated the pristine Antarctic, the problem is much worse than anyone thought. Scientists from the University of Hull and the British Antarctic Survey have determined that the levels of microplastics are five times higher than previous estimates. The results were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. These […]

    Massive Crack in Larsen C Ice Shelf Grew 11 Miles in 6 Days

    Massive Crack in Larsen C Ice Shelf Grew 11 Miles in 6 Days

    The widening crack in Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf has grown even longer. An iceberg the size of Delaware is now precariously hanging on to the main ice shelf by 8 miles of ice. Scientists with the Antarctic research group Project Midas report that the rift lengthened by another 11 miles between May 25 and […]

    Antarctic Warming Threatens World’s Second Largest Ice Shelf

    Antarctic Warming Threatens World’s Second Largest Ice Shelf

    By Tim Radford German scientists have worked out the process that could destroy an Antarctic ice shelf the size of Iraq. They predict that, in a few decades, the oceanographic machinery that keeps the Ronne-Filchner ice shelf in the Weddell Sea will fail. A warm ocean will begin to eat away at the 450,000 square […]

    New Crack Found in Larsen C Ice Shelf, Could Accelerate Massive Breakoff

    New Crack Found in Larsen C Ice Shelf, Could Accelerate Massive Breakoff

    A new branch has split off the widening crack in the Larsen C Ice Shelf in another sign of the ice’s impending breakoff, scientists reported this week. British researchers monitoring the ice shelf using satellite technology spotted the new nine-mile-long branch, which runs about six miles below the original crack. The rift in the Larsen […]

    Giant Waterfall in Antarctica Worries Scientists

    Giant Waterfall in Antarctica Worries Scientists

    By Tim Radford Scientists poring over military and satellite imagery have mapped the unimaginable: a network of rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and even a waterfall, flowing over the ice shelf of a continent with an annual mean temperature of more than -50C. In 1909 Ernest Shackleton and his fellow explorers on their way to the […]

    Earth’s Melting Glaciers Captured in Stunning Before-and-After Images

    Earth’s Melting Glaciers Captured in Stunning Before-and-After Images

    If you don’t agree with 97 percent of climate scientists that climate change is real, you should at least believe your own eyes. The Earth’s rapidly rising temperatures has dramatically transformed our landscapes, as you can see quite clearly in these vivid photos of the world’s melting glaciers. Retreat of the Columbia Glacier, Alaska, USA, […]

    Massive Iceberg Hangs by 12-Mile ‘Thread’

    Massive Iceberg Hangs by 12-Mile ‘Thread’

    The growing rift in the Antarctic Peninsula has now lengthened to 110 miles, meaning that the Larsen C ice shelf is now connected to the main ice shelf by only a 12-mile “thread,” USA TODAY reports. The British Antarctic Survey determined that the crack has expanded by 50 miles since 2011. “It is particularly hard […]