Antarctica and Greenland Raised Sea Levels More Than Half an Inch in Just 16 Years, New NASA Data Shows
01 May
Climate
Greenland's fast-melting Kangerdlugssup glacier. NASA / Jim Yungel
Greenland and Antarctica have raised global sea levels by more than half an inch in the last 16 years, according to data from the most advanced laser that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has ever launched into space to observe the earth.
<p>While the figures themselves are consistent with other studies, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/climate/antarctica-ice-climate-change.html?campaign_id=51&emc=edit_MBE_p_20200501&instance_id=18124&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=88631294&section=whatElse&segment_id=26351&te=1&user_id=d8eb7cee9d3c5ab39515239b6ec54d19" target="_blank">The New York Times pointed out</a>, the satellite laser allows researchers a much more precise picture of how polar ice is changing over time, which helps determine the role of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> and plan for future <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a>.</p><p>"We've all been waiting for this new dataset," Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory research professor Robin Bell <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/30/848398472/antarctica-and-greenland-are-losing-thousands-of-gigatons-of-ice-thats-a-lot?utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&fbclid=IwAR2t-fTSchEfWMFJe_R91Jy86koAqTfmGlewTvq9eG6z0lzpdM1w8GjogGY" target="_blank">told NPR</a>.</p>
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<p>The study, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/29/science.aaz5845" target="_blank">published in Science Thursday</a>, combines data from two NASA satellites: the original Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which took measurements from 2003 to 2009, and ICESat-2, launched in 2018. The two satellites allowed researchers to measure changes in ice mass from 2003 to 2019, and to calculate that Greenland and Antarctica contributed 0.55 inches to sea level rise during that time. That's around a third of the global total, which was also driven by the expansion of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">oceans</a> as they warm, NPR explained.</p><p>"If you watch a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" target="_self">glacier</a> or ice sheet for a month, or a year, you're not going to learn much about what the climate is doing to it," University of Washington glaciologist and lead study author Ben Smith said in a <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2981/nasa-space-laser-missions-map-16-years-of-ice-sheet-loss/?fbclid=IwAR0vi9r5VM03t_d9hDoceJSHkeEsxDtzOIApDy3x4TniEx4UowY02_j-bSM" target="_blank">NASA press release</a>. "We now have a 16-year span between ICESat and ICESat-2 and can be much more confident that the changes we're seeing in the ice have to do with the long-term changes in the climate."</p>
<p>The data also revealed that Greenland's ice sheet lost an average of 200 gigatons of ice per year and Antarctica's lost an average of 118. That's more than 5,000 gigatons total, NPR reported. To put that in perspective, one gigaton is enough to fill 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.</p><p>But the satellite data also helped show how the ice was being lost. In Antarctica, the East actually gained mass, probably because of increased precipitation, The New York Times reported. But this was offset by losses in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. In West Antarctica, 30 percent of that loss was due to floating ice, which either calves icebergs or melts from below due to warm ocean water. While this ice cannot contribute directly to sea level rise because it is already floating, its loss destabilizes the so-called "grounded ice" that can.</p><p>"It's like an apple tart and the ice shelves are like the wall of pastry around the edges of the tart," Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego glaciologist and study coauthor Helen Fricker explained to NPR. "And if those walls are too thin or they're not baked well enough, then the filling will ooze out."</p><p>In Greenland, two thirds of the ice loss was due to surface melting, something that rarely occurs in Antarctica, The New York Times said. Greenland also lost a lot of mass from its coastal glaciers, according to NASA. Its Kangerdulgssuaq and Jakobshavn glaciers have shrunken by 14 to 20 feet per year.</p>
<p>NASA explained why its satellites were able to provide such a detailed portrait:</p><blockquote>ICESat-2's instrument is a laser altimeter, which sends 10,000 pulses of light a second down to Earth's surface, and times how long it takes to return to the satellite – to within a billionth of a second. The instrument's pulse rate allows for a dense map of measurement over the ice sheet; its high precision allows scientists to determine how much an ice sheet changes over a year to within an inch.<br><br>The researchers took tracks of earlier ICESat measurements and overlaid the tracks of ICESat-2 measurements from 2019, and took data from the tens of millions of sites where the two data sets intersected. That gave them the elevation change, but to get to how much ice has been lost, the researchers developed a new model to convert volume change to mass change. The model calculated densities across the ice sheets to allow the total mass loss to be calculated.</blockquote><p>This level of detail is essential for helping coastal residents and governments plan for sea level rise, which is expected to reach two to six feet by 2100, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/climate-change-antarctica-greenland-ice-melt-raised-sea-levels-by-half-inch-in-last-16-years.html" target="_blank">according to CNBC</a>.</p><p>"Our goal is to be able to tell every coastal community what they can plan on [in] the coming decades," Bell told NPR. "To be able to do that, we both need to measure how the ice is changing but also understand better why it's changing."</p>
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Antarctica before and after its hottest day on record Feb. 6. NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and GEOS-5 data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC.
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Penguins are seen near the Great Wall station in Antarctica, Feb. 9, days after the continent measured its hottest temperature on record at nearly 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Xinhua / Liu Shiping / Getty Images
By Richard Connor
Scientists have recorded Antarctica's first documented heat wave, warning that animal and plant life on the isolated continent could be drastically affected by climate change.
<p>Australian Antarctic Program researchers recorded the heat wave event at Casey research station in East Antarctica during the 2019-2020 southern hemisphere summer.<em></em></p>
<p>Findings by the team were published in the Global Change Biology journal on Tuesday, with authors warning that the changes could affect global weather patterns.</p><p>Between January 23 and 26, a research team at Casey — directly south of Perth in western Australia — recorded the highest maximum and minimum temperatures ever seen at the base.</p>
<p>During the period, minimum temperatures were higher than zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) while the maximums peaked above 7.5 degrees.</p><p>On January 24, the Casey team recorded a record high temperature of 9.2 degrees Celsius, 6.9 degrees higher than the station's mean maximum.</p><p>Heat waves are classified as three consecutive days where very high maximum and minimum temperatures are recorded.<br></p><p><span></span>At the same time, record high temperatures were also reported on the other side of the continent, on the Antarctic Peninsula. Last month, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/antarctica-records-continents-hottest-temperature-ever/a-52295518" target="_blank">the highest ever temperature — 18.3 degrees — was recorded at the Argentinian research station Esperanza Base</a>.</p>
Global Impact on Climate
<p>The authors of the study said the local effects of climate change could have a global impact.</p><p>"Antarctica may be isolated from the rest of the continents by the Southern Ocean, but it has worldwide impacts," they said.</p><p>"It drives the global ocean conveyor belt, a constant system of deep-ocean circulation which transfers oceanic heat around the planet, and its melting ice sheet adds to global sea-level rise."</p><p>Co-author Dana Bergstrom said the hot summer could affect local populations positively at first, but could also lead to drought and heat stress on species adapted for the cold.</p><p>"Most life exists in small ice-free oases in Antarctica, and depends on melting snow and ice for their water supply," said Bergstrom, a principal scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division.</p><p>While an increase in meltwater flooding associated with higher temperatures could provide extra water to such ecosystems – helping them on a short-term basis - it could also dislodge plants and radically change the composition of communities of invertebrates and microbes.</p><p>"Based on our experience from previous anomalous hot summers in Antarctica we can expect a multitude of biological impacts to be reported in coming years, illustrating how climate change is impacting even the most remote areas of the planet," the study said.</p><p>Contributors to the research came from Australia's University of Wollongong, the University of Tasmania and the government agency Australian Antarctic Division.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/antarctica-experiences-first-known-heat-wave/a-52963959?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Antarctica's Denman Glacier. NASA
Antarctica's Denman Canyon is the deepest gorge on the Earth's surface, and, if the ice inside it melted, it could raise sea levels by almost five feet.
<p>Now, research published in <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL086291" target="_blank">Geophysical Research Letters</a> Monday looked at how close that might be to happening and found that the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" target="_self">glacier</a> had retreated five kilometers (approximately three miles) in the last 22 years, according to a <a href="https://news.uci.edu/2020/03/23/east-antarcticas-denman-glacier-has-retreated-almost-3-miles-over-last-22-years/" target="_blank">University of California Irvine (UCI) press release</a>.</p><p>"If warm water continues to induce high rates of ice melt near the glacier grounding zone, the potential exists for Denman Glacier to undergo a rapid and irreversible retreat, with major consequences for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a>," the researchers concluded.</p><p>The study, carried out by scientists at UCI and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is the most detailed of the glacier to date. It found that it has lost 268 billion tons of ice between 1979 and 2017. It also noticed that the glacier's grounding line ― the point where the ice begins to flow into the ocean ― had retreated asymmetrically, falling back mostly on the Western side.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52007637" target="_blank">BBC News</a> explained why:</p><blockquote>The reason, the scientists can now determine, is a buried ridge under the eastern flank which is pinning and protecting that side of the glacier. In contrast, the western flank features a narrow but sizeable trough that would allow warm ocean water to erode the grounding line and push it backwards.<br><br>This potentially is an Achilles heel. The further inland the glacier reaches, the deeper its bed - which is a geometry that has been demonstrated to favour more and more melting. If a lot of warm ocean water can find its way to the front of Denman, the opportunity is there to melt out its ice in a significant way.</blockquote><p>NASA's Dr. Virginia Brancato told BBC News it was impossible to say how fast that ice would melt and that the narrowness of the channel that housed the glacier might also slow down its retreat.</p>
<p>"At present, it is critical to collect more data, and closely and more frequently monitor the future evolution of the glacier," she told BBC News.</p><p>The findings also reflect growing concern among researchers about East Antarctica, where the glacier is located. The region is considered more stable than fast-melting West Antarctica, but that is changing.</p><p>"East Antarctica has long been thought to be less threatened, but as glaciers such as Denman have come under closer scrutiny by the cryosphere science community, we are now beginning to see evidence of potential marine ice sheet instability in this region," study co-author and UCI scientist Eric Rignot said in the university release. "The ice in West Antarctica has been melting faster in recent years, but the sheer size of Denman Glacier means that its potential impact on long-term sea level rise is just as significant."</p>
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Seymour Island with icebergs in front of it in the Antarctic Sound. On Feb. 9 scientists measured a temperature of 69.35 on the island. Richard McManus / Moment / Getty Images
The Antarctic region just recorded a temperature higher than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time.
<p>Brazilian scientists measured a temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius (approximately 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit) on Seymour Island Feb. 9, <a href="https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/antarctica-registers-record-temperature-over-20-c-doc-1oz4pp5" target="_blank">one of the researchers told AFP Thursday</a>. </p><p>"We'd never seen a temperature this high in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctica</a>," Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.</p><p>The record was broken three days after the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/antarctica-hottest-temperature-record-2645059660.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">Antarctic continent recorded its highest temperature to date</a> at a balmy 18.3 degrees Celsius (approximately 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit). That measure was taken at Argentina's Esperanza station on the Antarctic peninsula that extends north towards South America. </p><p>The Brazilian reading was taken on one of the islands that extends off that peninsula, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51500692?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment&link_location=live-reporting-story" target="_blank">according to BBC News</a>. It breaks the previous record for the entire Antarctic region, <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-verifies-highest-temperatures-antarctic-region" target="_blank">defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)</a> as all the land and ice south of 60 degrees. The previous record for the region of 19.8 degrees Celsius (approximately 67.6 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded in 1982 on Signy Island.</p><p>Schaefer was careful to point out that the temperature reading was not part of a larger study and so could not be used as evidence of a climate trend.</p><p>"We can't use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It's a data point," he told AFP. "It's simply a signal that something different is happening in that area."</p><p>However, Antarctica as a whole has warmed by almost three degrees Celsius over the past 50 years, according to WMO data reported by BBC News. During that time, about 87 percent of the glaciers on its western coast have retreated. The region also just recorded its warmest January on record. </p><p>Schaefer works as part of Brazil's Terrantar project that studies 23 sites in Antarctica. Temperatures on the peninsula, the South Shetland Islands and the James Ross archipelago cooled during the first decade of the 21st century, and then began to rise quickly, he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/13/antarctic-temperature-rises-above-20c-first-time-record" target="_blank">told The Guardian</a>. </p><p>"We are seeing the warming trend in many of the sites we are monitoring, but we have never seen anything like this," he said.</p><p>The peninsula and its surrounding islands have been the areas of Antarctica most impacted by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> so far, which means they might indicate how the rest of the region will react.</p><p>"It is important to have sentinel areas like the South Shetlands and the Antarctic peninsula because they can anticipate the developments that will happen in the future, the near future," Schaefer told The Guardian.</p><p>If all of the ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would cause 50 to 60 meters (approximately 164 to 197 feet) of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a>. This would take centuries, however. In the nearer term, scientists predict 30 to 110 centimeters (approximately 12 to 43 inches) of sea level rise by 2100, depending on how successfully greenhouse gas emissions are reduced and how the ice reacts. </p>
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Grounded icebergs seen in Northeast Greenland, Polar regions, the region of the 79 North Glacier studied by scientists to find warm ocean currents beneath are carving away the ice sheet. Michael Nolan / robertharding / Getty Images
The Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than ever recorded in modern history. New research finds that the world's second-largest ice deposit is not just melting from the surface but from below as well, which adds a new twist to consider when predicting global sea level rise.
<p>The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Arctic" rel="noopener noreferrer">Arctic</a> ice sheet stores large quantities of frozen water extending 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) long, <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html" target="_blank">according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center</a>. In recent years it has seen unprecedented melting — seven times faster today than in the 1990s — that is likely to be intensified by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis</a>. Scientists estimate that if the Greenland Ice Sheet completely melted, sea levels would rise by about 20 feet. </p>
<p>Researchers have long known that surface melt occurs from exposure to the sun and rising temperatures, but Arctic scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (<a href="https://www.awi.de/en.html" target="_blank">AWI</a>) in Germany have now determined that an underwater current of warmer <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/water">water</a> is carving a destructive path below the surface.</p><p>To come to their findings, the team took to the 79 North Glacier, a 50-mile-long "<a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glossary/term/glacier-tongue" target="_blank">tongue</a>" of floating ice that has slid into the ocean and floats on the surface while remaining connected to the land ice. In the last two decades the 79 North Glacier has seen dramatic loss of both its mass and thickness. The first-ever extensive ship-based survey of the ocean floor revealed an underwater current more than a mile-wide arriving from the Atlantic Ocean, bringing heat into contact with the glacier to accelerate its melting. </p>
<p>"The reason for the intensified melting is now clear," researcher Janin Schaffer <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/awih-hto012920.php" target="_blank">said</a>, <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/awih-hto012920.php" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to EurekAlert!</a><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/aboutus.php" target="_blank"></a>. "Because the warm water current is larger, substantially more warmth now makes its way under the ice tongue, second for second."</p><p>Schaffer and her team also found what is known as a bathymetric sill, which acts as a dam to water flowing over the seafloor. As water builds up against this barrier, it grows until eventually rushing over and coming into contact with the tongue, further melting the ice from below. </p><p>"The readings indicate that here, too, a bathymetric sill near the seafloor accelerates warm water toward the glacier. Apparently, the intensive melting on the underside of the ice at several sites throughout Greenland is largely produced by the form of the seafloor,"Schaffer said. </p><p>Writing in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0529-x" target="_blank">Nature Geoscience</a>, the study authors add that similar effects were seen at other parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet as well. The researchers say that their findings may help to more accurately gauge the total amount of meltwater lost from the ice sheet each year.</p>
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Thwaites Glacier currently contributes four percent of yearly sea level rise. NASA / James Yungel
Scientists have discovered record warm water beneath Antarctica's "doomsday glacier" for the first time, leading to concerns for the glacier whose collapse could contribute nearly a meter (approximately 3 feet) to global sea level rise.
<p>The findings are part of the <a href="https://thwaitesglacier.org/projects/melt" target="_blank">International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration</a> — a UK and U.S.-led research expedition to better understand how quickly the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica might collapse. On Jan. 8 and 9, researchers drilled a bore hole through the ice, then measured the waters beneath for the first time on Jan. 10 and 11, according to <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/january/scientists-find-record-warm-water-in-antarctica--pointing-to-cau.html" target="_blank">New York University</a> (NYU). They recorded temperatures more than two degrees Celsius above freezing.</p>
<p>"Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about by climate change," researcher David Holland, who directs NYU's Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Global Sea Level Change, said in the university press release. "If these waters are causing glacier melt in Antarctica, resulting changes in sea level would be felt in more inhabited parts of the world."</p>
<p>The Thwaites Glacier has been called the "doomsday" glacier and the "most important" glacier in the world, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51097309" target="_blank">BBC News explained</a>. The glacier, roughly the size of Britain or Florida, already contributes four percent a year to global sea level rise. Not only that, it acts as a stop on the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which could raise sea levels by more than three meters (approximately 10 feet).</p><p>"It certainly has a big impact on our U.S. coast and in many areas," Twila Moon of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, who is not involved with the Thwaites project, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/climate/thwaites-glacier-melting-antarctica.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR177XLLQRk0TWnyrvxz9r6ubzjwCT2O28qumlzSsvaqp3vWvz7b983nhiQ" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> of the glacier.</p>
<p>While satellite data shows that the glacier is rapidly retreating, there has not been an on-the-ground investigation of the glacier until now, BBC News reported. Partly, this is because of how difficult it is to reach. West Antarctica is the stormiest place on Earth, and the glacier is more than 1,000 miles from the closest research station.</p><p>Researchers specifically took measurements from the glacier's grounding zone. That's the place where the glacier's ice moves off of bedrock and into the sea, NYU explained. Thwaites is especially precarious because the bed it rests on slopes downward, according to BBC News. As warm water melts the ice between the glacier's surface and the bedrock, the glacier retreats and the ice on top is more likely to break off.</p><p>"The fear is these processes will just accelerate," University of Oregon glaciologist Dr. Kiya Riverman told BBC News. "It is a feedback loop, a vicious cycle."</p><p>To better understand the grounding zone, the scientists drilled a 600 meter (approximately 1,968.5 feet) hole through the ice and used a device to measure the ocean's temperature and turbulence — a sign of the glacier's fresh water mixing with the salt water of the ocean. This is the first time scientists have measured the ocean beneath Thwaites through a bore hole, and their results so far show they were right to be worried.</p><p>"The fact that such warm water was just now recorded by our team along a section of Thwaites grounding zone where we have known the glacier is melting suggests that it may be undergoing an unstoppable retreat that has huge implications for global sea level rise," Holland told NYU.</p>
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Build Your Own Solutions to the Climate Crisis With the En-Roads Climate Simulator
27 January
Climate
Slowing deforestation, planting more trees, and cutting emissions of non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases like methane could cut another 0.5 degrees C or more off global warming by 2100. South_agency / E+ / Getty Images
Killer hurricanes, devastating wildfires, melting glaciers, and sunny-day flooding in more and more coastal areas around the world have birthed a fatalistic view cleverly dubbed by Mary Annaïse Heglar of the Natural Resources Defense Council as "de-nihilism." One manifestation: An increasing number of people appear to have grown doubtful about the possibility of staving-off climate disaster. However, a new interactive tool from a climate think tank and MIT Sloan shows that humanity could still meet the goals of the Paris agreement and limit global warming.
<p>By itself, a carbon tax rising to around $200 per ton of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/emissions" rel="noopener noreferrer">emissions</a> would bring the world about halfway to the Paris goal, according to the <a href="https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/" target="_blank">En-ROADS interactive tool</a> developed by the MIT Sloan School of Management and Climate Interactive. Countries would also need to implement other aggressive climate policies targeting the many different sectors of the economy that generate large-scale greenhouse gas emissions. The tool allows a user to figure out how:<em></em></p>
<ul><li>civilization must change the fuel mix supplying the world's energy and boost efficiency</li><li>the extent to which more buildings and vehicles must be electrified</li><li>strategies could help reduce deforestation and how to plant more trees of the optimum species at the right locations</li><li>carbon capture technology could be relied upon to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere</li></ul>
Carbon Taxes Seen as the Most Effective Tool
<p>According to Climate Interactive's climate and energy lead, Ellie Johnston, "Behind En-ROADS is a system dynamics model that weaves the interdependencies and feedbacks of our global climate system with the actions that we need to take globally to address climate change."</p><p>The simulation begins with a default business-as-usual scenario leading to 4.1 degrees Celsius (7.3 degrees Fahrenheit) global warming above pre-industrial temperatures by the year 2100. This outcome is essentially a worst-case scenario, assuming that current worldwide climate policies and pledges (which would limit warming to <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/" target="_blank">approximately 3 degrees C</a>, or 5.4 degrees F) are not successfully implemented. For context, the international Paris agreement set a target of no more than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) global warming, whereas 3 to 4 degrees C warming would likely result in disastrous <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/climate-best-to-worst-case-scenarios.html" target="_blank">climate change consequences</a>.</p><p>In the En-ROADS simulator, taxing carbon pollution is the single most effective way to bridge the gap between business-as-usual warming and the Paris target. A strong global carbon tax that eventually rises to around $200 per ton of carbon dioxide would reduce global warming from 4 to approximately 3 degrees C by 2100, erasing half of the difference between the two scenarios. The carbon tax makes already-expensive coal even costlier, accelerating its replacement by renewables, and also increases consumer demand for more energy-efficient products that become comparatively cheap as fossil fuel energy prices rise. According to <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/FM/Issues/2019/09/12/fiscal-monitor-october-2019#Mitigating%20Climate%20Change" target="_blank">a recent International Monetary Fund report</a>, a carbon tax of $75 per ton would more than triple the price of coal and increase natural gas prices by 70 percent, with gasoline prices rising by about 70 cents per gallon.</p><p>A growing body of climate economics research supports a robust carbon tax. For example, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/42/20886" target="_blank">an October 2019 study</a> in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focusing on risk and uncertainty concluded that the appropriate carbon tax is more than $100 per ton of carbon dioxide, most economically efficient if immediately implemented at that high price. As co-author Gernot Wagner at New York University described their results, "taking risk and uncertainty seriously — and applying standard tools from financial economics — dramatically increases today's carbon prices. It also reverses carbon price paths over time: high today, declining over time."</p><p>Experts for some time have debated the best way to structure a carbon tax. Some argue that the price should start low and increase over time in order to give consumers a period to adjust, thus making the tax more politically palatable. The new PNAS study argues that from a risk management perspective, the carbon tax should start high because emissions will then fall quickly, reducing the risk of catastrophic outcomes. As Wagner put it, "folks in 2300 will know more about the climate in 2300 than we know today. Uncertainty resolves itself over time." In the meantime, the reasoning follows, prudent risk management requires taking aggressive steps to avoid a possible climate catastrophe.</p>
<p>However, there are limits to how effectively carbon taxes alone can cut emissions. <a href="https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/file-uploads/EICDA_CGEP-Report.pdf" target="_blank">An assessment</a> by scientists at Columbia University and the Rhodium Group of a specific carbon tax bill introduced to Congress — the <a href="https://energyinnovationact.org/" target="_blank">Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act</a> — found that its rising carbon price would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 37 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. That result would more than double the 16 percent that American emissions are anticipated to fall during that same period under current policies. However, the analysis found that the bulk of these emissions reductions would come from the electricity sector, while carbon pollution from other sectors like transportation would remain relatively high. For example, the resulting increase in gasoline prices by around $1 per gallon on its own would be insufficient to dramatically reduce American vehicular fuel consumption.</p>
Complementary Policies Are Needed
<p>Similarly, the En-ROADS model also shows that a carbon tax alone would dramatically reduce the share of energy generated by coal, leading to continued high emissions as a result of more oil and gas production.</p><p>Oil consumption can be reduced in the En-ROADS model by strengthening vehicle fuel efficiency and electrification policies. In the real world, this approach translates to policies like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy" target="_blank">vehicle fuel economy standards</a>, which can mandate increased efficiency and thus accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. Projects to improve and electrify public transportation systems can also reduce demand for oil. Natural gas consumption can similarly be reduced by expanding energy efficiency and electrification of buildings and industrial activities. Together, the En-ROADS model suggests that these steps could curb global warming by one-half a degree Celsius.</p><p>Slowing deforestation, planting more trees, and cutting emissions of non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases like methane could cut another 0.5 degrees C or more off global warming by 2100. Combined with a carbon tax, these policies could achieve the Paris climate targets, if implemented globally. However, the En-ROADS tool illustrates just how difficult it will be to meet those goals, and how many different large-scale policies must be implemented to do so.</p><p>Meeting the Paris targets would require that countries around the world soon begin implementing aggressive climate policies targeting the many different sectors of the economy that generate large-scale greenhouse gas emissions. Pricing carbon pollution is one of the single most effective steps to curb emissions, but achieving the Paris goals will require additional complementary policies.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/01/en-roads-climate-solutions-simulator/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em><a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/01/en-roads-climate-solutions-simulator/" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
- 3 Tools to Help You Channel Your Inner Climate Scientist - EcoWatch ›
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200 Years of Exploring Antarctica — the World’s Coldest, Most Forbidding and Most Peaceful Continent
27 January
Science
The Antarctic Peninsula on Feb. 28, 2019. Daniel Enchev / Flickr
By Dan Morgan
Antarctica is the remotest part of the world, but it is a hub of scientific discovery, international diplomacy and environmental change. It was officially discovered 200 years ago, on Jan. 27, 1820, when members of a Russian expedition sighted land in what is now known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf on the continent's east side.
<p>Early explorers were drawn there by the mythology of <a href="https://lib-dbserver.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/pacific/pacific-ocean/terra-australis.html" target="_blank">Terra Australis</a>, a vast southern continent that scholars imagined for centuries as a counterweight to the Northern Hemisphere. Others sought economic bounty from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247416000644" target="_blank">hunting whales and seals</a>, or the glory of conquering the planet's last wilderness. Still others wanted to <a href="https://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/highlights/2012/terraNova.html" target="_blank">understand Earth's magnetic fields</a> in order to better navigate the seas.</p><p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2atjAwMAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">geologist</a> who specializes in understanding the timing and extent of past ice ages. Much of my work focuses on the glacial history of Antarctica, and I've been privileged to conduct five field seasons of research there.</p><p>For the next two years I'll be working with a field team made up entirely of undergraduate students from Vanderbilt University to determine whether the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet" target="_blank">East Antarctic Ice Sheet</a> changes flow patterns as it changes shape. All of the research these budding scientists conduct will be done under the auspices of the <a href="https://www.ats.aq/index_e.html" target="_blank">Antarctic Treaty</a>, a global agreement that promotes scientific cooperation and environmental protection.</p>
<h2>Frozen but Abundant</h2><p>Antarctica separated from South America 35 million years ago, and its climate started to change. It began to grow <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html" target="_blank">ice sheets</a> – masses of glacial land ice covering thousands of square miles. As plate tectonics shifted other continents, Antarctica became colder and drier. For the past 14 million years, it has been the frigid continent that persists today.</p><p>Antarctica is the only continent that was literally discovered, because it has no native human population. British explorer Sir James Cook circumnavigated the continent in 1772-1775, but saw only some outlying islands. Cook <a href="https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-JOD-00020/1" target="_blank">concluded</a> that if there were any land, it would be "condemned to everlasting regidity by Nature, never to yield to the warmth of the sun."</p><p>Cook also reported that Antarctic waters were rich with nutrients and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a>. This drew sealers and whalers, mainly from England and the U.S., who hunted the region's fur seals and elephant seals to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247416000644" target="_blank">near-extinction</a> in the following decades. This hunting spree led to the discovery of the Antarctic mainland and its ice sheets, the largest in the world.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYyMTMxOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDY0MTI4N30.DpM_jVKSqvQlJFmIhmsEPPvDYnOcHftDmYqk8-a7AgY/img.jpg?width=980" id="b9767" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="67367dfa973727d67b54e074149b6f44" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Antarctica is mostly covered by ice sheets on land and fringed by floating ice shelves. NOAA
<h2>Reading the Ice</h2><p>Today the combined East and West Antarctic ice sheets hold 90% of the world's ice, enough to raise global sea levels by <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html" target="_blank">roughly 200 feet (60 meters) if it all melted</a>. Antarctica is the coldest, highest, driest, windiest, brightest, and yes, iciest continent on Earth. And 200 years of research has shown that it is a key component of Earth's climate system.</p><p>Despite the appearance that it is an unchanging, freeze-dried landscape, my research and work by many others has shown that the East Antarctica Ice Sheet does slowly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.2039" target="_blank">thin and thicken over millions of years</a>. Interestingly, my data also suggest that as the ice advances and retreats, it moves in <a href="https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2016AM/webprogram/Paper285013.html" target="_blank">the same patterns each time</a>. Put another way, the ice flows over the same land each time it advances.</p><p>While East Antarctica adds and loses ice slowly, it is so large that it is a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1095" target="_blank">major contributor to sea level rise</a>. Understanding how the ice has changed in the past is key to predicting how much and how fast it will melt in the coming years.</p><p>These questions are especially important in West Antarctica, where the bottom of the ice sheet is below sea level, making it very susceptible to changes in sea level and ocean temperature. By itself, the West Antarctic ice sheet has the potential to raise sea level by <a href="https://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/375/2013/" target="_blank">16 feet (5 meters) if it collapses</a>.</p><p>As <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a> raises global sea levels, parts of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, such as the <a href="https://thwaitesglacier.org/" target="_blank">Thwaites</a> and <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/pine-island" target="_blank">Pine Island Glaciers</a>, are particularly vulnerable to collapse. At the end of the last ice age, parts of West Antarctica thinned by an average of <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/299/5603/99" target="_blank">1.5 to 3 feet (0.5 - 1 meters) per year</a>. Today with GPS, satellite and airborne measurements, scientists are seeing parts of West Antarctica thin by <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060111" target="_blank">3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters) per year</a>.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ce3d9d95770bb88b75dab3921d4ac1a5"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YRe1ymYR45k?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>We also know from the geological record that this ice sheet is capable of rapid collapses, and has sometimes thinned at rates in excess of <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6174/999.abstract" target="_blank">30 feet (10 meters) per year</a>. Recent models show sea level could rise by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145" target="_blank">1 meter by 2100 and 15 meters by 2500</a> if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates and the ice sheet experiences a rapid collapse, as it has in the past.</p>
<h2>Finding Inspiration in Scientific Diplomacy</h2><p>Despite the potential for environmental disaster in Antarctica, the continent also offers evidence that nations can collaborate to find solutions. The <a href="https://www.scar.org/policy/antarctic-treaty-system/" target="_blank">Antarctic Treaty System</a> is the world's premier example of peaceful and scientific international cooperation.</p><p>This landmark accord, signed in 1961, sets aside Antarctica for peaceful and scientific purposes and recognizes no land claims on the continent. It also was the first non-nuclear accord ever signed, barring use of Antarctica for nuclear weapons testing or disposal of radioactive waste.</p><p>The great Antarctic explorer <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/shackleton_ernest.shtml" target="_blank">Sir Ernest Shackleton</a> said that "optimism is true moral courage," and the authors of the Antarctic Treaty were certainly courageous optimists. They were encouraged by the success of the 1957-1958 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/International-Geophysical-Year" target="_blank">International Geophysical Year</a>, a worldwide program of scientific research during which 12 countries built over 50 bases in Antarctica, including <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/support/mcmurdo.jsp" target="_blank">McMurdo Station</a> and the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/support/southp.jsp" target="_blank">Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYyMTMyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTU4MDQ1NX0.ZOlVVKoamPniRPz-7TpcaLWxkOy5JdVs831kjjNces4/img.jpg?width=980" id="08b0a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d6203b818d7ce7e9a395971aedcd71d1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Flags of the 12 original Antarctic Treaty member countries at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. U.S. Antarctic Program / Rob Jones
<p>Under the treaty, scientists from North Korea, Russia and China can freely visit U.S. research stations in Antarctica. Researchers from India and Pakistan willingly share their data about Antarctic <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers">glaciers</a>.</p><p>Thanks to the Antarctic Treaty, 10% of Earth's land surface is protected as a wildlife and wilderness refuge. I have set foot in places in Antarctica where I know no one has ever been before, and the treaty sets areas aside that no one will ever visit. Antarctica's landscapes are unlike anywhere else on Earth. The best comparison may be the Moon.</p><p>Yet in these stark environments, <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/about/antarctica/wildlife/" target="_blank">life finds a way to persist</a> – showing that there are solutions to even the most daunting challenges. If Antarctica has taught us anything in 200 years, it's that we can cooperate and collaborate to overcome problems. As <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/WTfFSJCJ5jkqnGPm4fqHyy/ernest-shackleton" target="_blank">Ernest Shackleton once said</a>, "Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all."</p>
<p>
<em>Dan Morgan is an associate dean and principal senior lecturer in earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University.<br/>
</em><em>Disclosure statement: Dan Morgan receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/200-years-of-exploring-antarctica-the-worlds-coldest-most-forbidding-and-most-peaceful-continent-129607" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
</p><script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129607/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script>From Your Site Articles
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Cracker Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana. Jacob W. Frank / NPS / Flickr
By Jason Bittel
High up in the mountains of Montana's Glacier National Park, there are two species of insect that only a fly fishermen or entomologist would probably recognize. Known as stoneflies, these aquatic bugs are similar to dragonflies and mayflies in that they spend part of their lives underwater before emerging onto the land, where they transform into winged adults less than a half inch long. However, unlike those other species, stoneflies do their thing only where cold, clean waters flow.
<p>In fact, these flies live pretty much exclusively downstream from glaciers, snowfields, and frigid alpine springs, and they have evolved a nifty suite of <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/winter-stoneflies-sure-are-supercool/" target="_blank">antifreeze compounds</a> to make it all possible. It's a pretty cool trick — one that has helped the insects survive for <a href="http://tolweb.org/Plecoptera" target="_blank">hundreds of millions of years</a> in frigid conditions that have sent others packing. But what makes these insects special may also be their undoing — and soon.</p><p>In November, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added the western glacier stonefly (<em>Zapada glacier</em>) and the meltwater lednian stonefly (<em>Lednia tumana</em>) to the Endangered Species List, <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/21/2019-25195/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-threatened-species-status-for-meltwater-lednian" target="_blank">both under the designation of threatened</a>. And while the two species are extremely sensitive to pollution, as all stoneflies are, another very significant risk factor is what triggered the listing.</p>
<p>"All of the glaciers in Glacier National Park are expected to be gone by 2030," said <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/about/staff/" target="_blank">Noah Greenwald</a>, director of endangered species for the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). Like, <em>all of them</em> all of them. <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/21/2019-25195/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-threatened-species-status-for-meltwater-lednian" target="_blank">Ten years from now.</a> And without giant chunks of ice to chill their streams and supply life-sustaining meltwater, the stoneflies cannot exist.</p><p>"In 1900, there were 150 glaciers in Glacier National Park," said Greenwald. "There are now 25."</p><p><a href="https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects" target="_blank">According to the U.S. Geological Survey</a>, the disappearance of the park's glaciers could also bring more <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires">wildfires</a> to the region and negatively affect native trout species, which have also evolved to live in cold water. But <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a> cometh first for the stoneflies, and that right soon.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYyMDAwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTc4NTUxOX0.BF_I0nrpZ0fokYAO1sIH-BEWW4b1vcfDkHSnajF2xRU/img.jpg?width=980" id="4c96f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8517b47b0319875027bded6997464a97" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
From left: meltwater lednian stonefly (Lednia tumana); a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey looks for aquatic insects in an alpine stream at Glacier National Park.
Glacier NPS
<p>How, you may wonder, would an Endangered Species Act listing help these seemingly doomed species?</p><p>Well, the act would have previously required the FWS to designate critical habitat for the stoneflies. But the Trump administration announced changes this summer that allow the agency to opt out of declaring critical habitat in cases when "it may not be prudent" — as the FWS phrased it in the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/21/2019-25195/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-threatened-species-status-for-meltwater-lednian" target="_blank">stoneflies' entry into the Federal Register</a>. Cases, ahem, linked to climate change, for instance.</p><p>This is akin to saying climate change is a problem without a solution. But there <em>is</em> a scientific solution, of course. We need to cut carbon emissions. As much and as quickly as possible. The fact that the Trump administration hasn't made any meaningful effort to do so does not mean that it is impossible by definition. Or that we should simply give up on the stoneflies and their habitat, and so, so much more.</p><p>The CBD and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation have been petitioning for the western glacier stonefly's listing since 2010, and WildEarth Guardians has been pushing for federal protections for the meltwater lednian stonefly since 2007. And while the non-designation of critical habitat is disappointing, Greenwald said the FWS still must develop a recovery plan for both species, though it's unclear at this stage what that will look like. But the listings are important for another reason as well.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYyMDAwNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTA4Mjk0NH0.9p81QO0kUj9SwYp5XCIIVzWaKNpNUOSK5wfW7vQyQk4/img.jpg?width=980" id="2182d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fc9a438429c7f74f583322bb4cc14695" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Clockwise from top: a meltwater stonefly at Glacier National Park; close-up of two meltwater lednian stoneflies; close-up of western glacier stonefly (Zapada glacier)
Glacier NPS / Flickr. Western glacier stonefly: Joe Giersch / USGS
<p>"Listing provides information to people," said Greenwald. "Really, it raises the alarm bells in terms of climate change."</p><p>Of course, the stoneflies themselves have a stake in all of this too. Every species has an <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/should-we-really-save-devils-hole-pupfish" target="_blank">inherent right to exist</a>, and what's more, their loss would ripple throughout the ecosystems they inhabit. Stonefly nymphs <a href="http://fieldguide.mt.gov/speciesDetail.aspx?elcode=IIPLE0U060" target="_blank">shred leaf material</a> and other aquatic detritus, which helps unlock nutrients and facilitates their spread throughout the ecosystem. Stoneflies also serve as yummy snacks for amphibians, other insects, and the trout that fishermen lust after. And after the adults emerge from their cool waters to breed, they die, providing yet another buffet for other critters. In short, stoneflies are a critical base layer of the local food web.</p><p>In the end, the real story of the stoneflies is one of urgency. The extinctions and other climate-fueled changes scientists keep warning us about aren't like some far-off, Nostradamus predictions. They'll be here before we know it. In fact, we are already watching them unfold.</p><p>"I think for anyone out there who's really doubting how rapidly our world is changing, how serious the threat climate change is, they should pay attention to these stoneflies," said Greenwald.</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/glacier-national-park-ice-isnt-only-thing-thats-disappearing" target="_blank">onEarth</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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Ama Dablam mountain of the Himalayan mountains. Rohit Tandon / Unsplash
Researchers have found that plants are growing farther up the Himalayas than they did in the past, according to a new study in the journal Global Change Biology, as Newsweek reported.
<p>Researchers looked at satellite data from 1993 to 2018 and found plant life extending into the harsh terrain between the top of the tree line and the bottom of the snowline. The new growth may have large impacts on the water that feeds the rivers that flow down from the Himalayas, according to lead researcher, Karen Anderson, of the University of Exeter in the UK. </p>
<p>"If the ecology is changing, that will have impacts on the hydrology. Nobody's considered that before," she said, as the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229618-plants-are-growing-higher-up-mount-everest-as-the-climate-warms/#ixzz6Av7mkikm" target="_blank">New Scientist</a> reported.</p>
<p>That's significant since nearly 1.4 billion people rely on water from the Himalayas, according to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/10/plants-growing-around-everest-ice-melts-himalayas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Telegraph</a>. <br></p><p>Anderson and her team looked at 25 years of images from NASA's Landsat satellites to zero in on the subnival region - the area between the tree line (the edge of where trees can grow) and the snow line (the boundary between permanently snow-covered land and snow-free land), as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51050456" target="_blank">BBC</a> reported. The rocky, cold terrain that is over 4,500 meters (13,600 feet) above sea level is particularly inhospitable to most plants, meaning the vegetation is mostly shrubs and grasses. </p>
<p>The subnival region is also very large, extending five to 15 times the size of the landmass covered in snow and ice, according to the study. "Yet, the harsh conditions make the area difficult to study. There's hardly any ecological data from this region at all," said Anderson, as the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229618-plants-are-growing-higher-up-mount-everest-as-the-climate-warms/#ixzz6Av7mkikm" target="_blank">New Scientist</a> reported.</p>
<p>For this paper, Anderson and her team focused on three sections of the Hindu Kush Himalaya, a range that stretches from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/satellite-data-plants-higher-himalayas-1481532" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p>
<p>"The strongest trend in increased vegetation cover was between 5,000 meters and 5,500 meters altitude," said Anderson, as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51050456" target="_blank">BBC</a> reported. "At higher elevations, the expansion was strong on flatter areas while at lower levels that has been observed on steeper slopes."</p>
<p>There is no definitive reason that plants are moving to higher elevations, but the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis</a> is a likely culprit. "My initial guess would be that the primary driver is temperature limitation being removed," said Anderson to the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229618-plants-are-growing-higher-up-mount-everest-as-the-climate-warms/" target="_blank">New Scientist</a>. She added that extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could also be helping the plants grow.</p><p>The climate crisis is dramatically affecting the Himalayas, which are warming rapidly due to greenhouse gas <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/emissions">emissions</a>. That has meant that elevations that were once too cold for plants may now be hospitable to them, as the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229618-plants-are-growing-higher-up-mount-everest-as-the-climate-warms/" target="_blank">New Scientist</a> reported.</p>
<p>Already, concern has grown over the Himalayas' melting <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" rel="noopener noreferrer">glaciers</a> and how it will alter borders between countries. Furthermore, the melting glaciers will wreak havoc on the water supplies of countries that rely on runoff, causing an increase in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">floods</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" rel="noopener noreferrer">droughts</a>. </p>
<p>Water that runs from the Himalayas feeds the 10 largest rivers in Asia, and 250 million rely on water from the range's glaciers, which are threatened by global warming, as the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/10/plants-growing-around-everest-ice-melts-himalayas/" target="_blank">Telegraph</a> reported. If global warming is somehow held to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, then one-third of the Himalayan ice caps will still melt away. </p>
<p>Anderson told the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229618-plants-are-growing-higher-up-mount-everest-as-the-climate-warms/" target="_blank">New Scientist</a> that it is crucial to figure out how the new vegetation climbing the mountains will affect the flow of water. Plant growth may trap more heat, causing the snow to melt faster. </p>
<p>"The plants could trap more snow. Or the plants could warm the areas nearby through albedo effects, causing the snow to melt at a different rate," she said, as the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/10/plants-growing-around-everest-ice-melts-himalayas/" target="_blank">Telegraph</a> reported.</p>
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Glacier National Park Is Replacing Signs That Predicted Glaciers Would Disappear by 2020
10 January
Climate
Female hiker looking down at the majestic Grinnell glacier, located in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. Feng Wei Photography / Moment / Getty Images
Signs added to Glacier National Park more than a decade ago predicting that the glaciers would be gone by 2020 are being taken down and replaced, as CNN reported.
<p>The signs were first put up over a decade ago when climate models predicted the glaciers would melt. By 2017, the projections had been revised, but the National Parks budget was so tightly constrained that it made it impossible to change the signs, according to park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen who spoke to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-2020-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. </p>
<p>Kurzmen added that the most prominent sign was changed last year at the St. Mary's Visitor Center, but the park is still waiting for budget authorization to change two other signs, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-2020-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p>
<p>Kurzmen also told MTN News in Montana that the climate models still predict shrinking glaciers, but the patterns of glacier melting are nuanced and much more complex than was initially predicted, as <a href="https://www.kpax.com/news/local-news/flathead-county/glacier-national-park-to-remove-all-glaciers-will-be-gone-by-2020-signs" target="_blank">KPAX</a> in Missoula and Western Montana reported.</p>
<p>A number of right wing outlets including Breitbart, The Washington Times, and the white nationalist outlet The Daily Caller have reported on the inaccurate signs, using it as a clarion call for denying the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis</a>. </p><p>However, while the signs are outdated and the initial predictions were off-target, the loss of glaciers is conspicuous and troubling. A 2017 study by the U.S. Geological Survey and Portland State University found that some ice formations in Montana had lost 85 percent of their size and the average shrinkage was 39 percent, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-2020-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>.</p>
<p>Kurzmen told CNN that while the signs will be changed, the message will not change and will pin their loss on human activity. She said that the new signs will say: "When they will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking."</p>
<p>It is a tough time for glaciers across the globe, even if the ones in Montana have survived into 2020, as the <a href="https://www.deseret.com/2020/1/8/21057080/glacier-national-park-climate-change" target="_blank">Deseret News</a> reported. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/iceland-glacier-funeral-2639890762.html" target="_self">Iceland held a funeral</a> for, Okjökull, a glacier lost in 2019. In the spring of 2019, researchers at the University of Zurich found that more than <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/fresh-water-supplies-melt-away-as-world-s-glaciers-lose-335-billion-tonnes-of-ice-a-year" target="_blank">9 trillion tons of ice have melted</a> since 1961.</p>
<p>Scientists memorialized the Okjökull glacier with a plaque that read: "Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years, all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and know what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it."</p>
<p>The 2017 study found that Montana's glaciers have almost no chance of surviving to the end of the century.</p>
<p>"In several decades they will be mostly gone. They will grow so small that they will disappear. They will certainly be gone before the end of the century," Dan Fagre, the study's lead scientist, had said, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-2020-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p>
<p>Fagre added that humans are responsible.</p>
<p>"There are variations in the climate but it is humans that have made all those variations warmer. The glaciers have been here for 7,000 years and will be gone in decades. This is not part of the natural cycle."</p>
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