antarctica

New Research Confirms ‘Catastrophic’ Climate Threat: Global Sea Levels Could Rise 174 Feet From Melting East Antarctic Ice Sheet

New Research Confirms ‘Catastrophic’ Climate Threat: Global Sea Levels Could Rise 174 Feet From Melting East Antarctic Ice Sheet

By Tim Radford New research has confirmed one of the worst nightmares of climate science: the instability of the East Antarctic ice sheet. This vast mass holds enough water to raise sea levels by 53 meters (approximately 174 feet) worldwide. And researchers have confirmed that one stretch of the southern polar coastline has melted many […]

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    Intensity of Harvey’s Devastation Linked to Warming

    Intensity of Harvey’s Devastation Linked to Warming

    By Alex Kirby Tropical storm Harvey is by any standard off the scale. Some parts of Texas have received in just over a week the rainfall they would normally expect in an entire year, and the storm is described as generating as much rain as would normally be seen only once in more than 1,000 […]

    Scientists Discover 91 Volcanoes Hidden Under Antarctic Ice Sheet

    Scientists Discover 91 Volcanoes Hidden Under Antarctic Ice Sheet

    Antarctica, the coldest place on Earth, may now be home to the densest concentration of volcanoes, according to a first-of-its-kind study. The discovery isn’t something to get too excited about. The researchers warned that if these volcanoes were to erupt, it could cause more ice sheets to melt and contribute to sea level rise. Scientists […]

    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 […]

    Massive Iceberg Finally Breaks Off: Antarctic Landscape ‘Changed Forever’

    Massive Iceberg Finally Breaks Off: Antarctic Landscape ‘Changed Forever’

    One of the biggest icebergs ever recorded has “finally” broken away from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, researchers studying the event announced. The iceberg, which will likely be dubbed A68, weighs more than a trillion tonnes, has a volume twice that of Lake Erie, and is about 5,800 square kilometers in size—roughly the […]

    If We Stopped Emitting Greenhouse Gases Right Now, Would We Stop Climate Change?

    If We Stopped Emitting Greenhouse Gases Right Now, Would We Stop Climate Change?

    By Richard B. Rood Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The primary cause of that change is the release of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and […]

    Scientists Rescue History From Melting Glaciers

    Scientists Rescue History From Melting Glaciers

    Scientists climbed a mountain to preserve 18,000 years of climate history before it melts. Check out this video from Vocativ and watch the Ice Memory expedition collect ice cores from glaciers in the Andes of Bolivia. Storing them will allow current and future scientists to study the important climate and environmental data they hold. Ice […]

    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. […]