Mention Arctic ice melt and the first image to come to mind is the northern Atlantic. Mostly Greenland. Sometimes the far reaches of Canada or Iceland. Maybe it’s because the northern Atlantic is the same ocean that researchers from major institutions dip their toes in in 100-plus degree heat waves. But way out in the Pacific, researchers at the University of Hawaii are taking a different look at the climate. In a paper published this week in the journal Science, oceanographer Axel Timmermann... [Read more]

How fast can a glacier melt? Usually the answer is attributed to the amount of warming or CO2 level rise. But researchers are also looking into the actual mechanics of glacier melt to get a handle on what’s causing ice to wear away. In a paper published recently in Nature Geoscience, Adrian Jenkins of the British Antarctic Survey and colleagues examined Pine Island Glacier, one of the two main contributors of ice loss in West Antarctica. Pine Island Bay, 1984. Photo by Tom Kellogg onboard the... [Read more]

The journal Science has devoted an entire issue to exploring the way the oceans are rapidly transforming in response to climate change and other factors. It’s worth taking a peek into this extensive sweep of research; the oceans, after all, account for 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and are the least explored part of the globe. I’ll be looking at a number of the papers published in the issue largely because of the growing sense I’ve felt from an accumulation of news stories... [Read more]

Climate change has made apparent the interconnectedness of Earth systems. That sometimes doesn’t match with our human experience of the vastness of the world, where we dump trash elsewhere, fish the oceans without limit, and send pollutants into the atmosphere thinking nothing will ever come back at us. Yet a study published in a recent journal of Science is a reminder of how change in one place can ripple to the far reaches of the globe. Data from as far back as 3.5 million years ago shows... [Read more]

The disappearance of glaciers goes hand in hand with warming temperatures. But it turns out that the process may be more complicated than rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere. For insight, we look to the past. The Pliocene epoch was last era in which temperatures were this warm, about 3 to 5 million years ago. CO2 concentrations were 30 percent higher, sea levels 15 to 20 meters higher, and temperatures more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter. And there were no glaciers, except intermittent ice caps... [Read more]

Greenland’s coastal areas, rebounding like a sponge as the ice melts away, is rising upward about an inch a year. Geophysicists at the University of Miami found that if the trend continues, the acceleration could be as much as two inches per year by 2025. Sea Ice off Greenland's Coast “It’s been known for several years that climate change is contributing to the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet,” said Tim Dixon, a co-author of a study published in the latest Nature... [Read more]

Maybe the most defining characteristic of the Arctic is its ice. What would the Arctic be, if not for a frigid, barren, icy landscape? We’ve come to lament the loss of sea ice in the Arctic. Yet it’s interesting to note that the Arctic has, in fact, been ice free and for long periods of time. As recently as 125,000 years ago, the summertime brought ice-free conditions. In fact, it probably wasn’t until 14 million years ago — the launch of a cooling period — that the... [Read more]

The ocean’s version of the La Brea Tarpits has been discovered off the Santa Barbara coast, so-called asphalt volcanoes that probably added a lot of methane to the atmosphere when they were active some 35,000 years ago and deposited massive flows of petroleum offshore. The underwater volcanoes are part of a larger structure of tar deposits in the area, and although the volcanoes themselves are not active, oil has been bubbling steadily out of nearby seeps in the underground rock for thousands... [Read more]

There’s a glut of research on climate change. Seemingly every day some new study comes out demonstrating the latest scientific understanding of changes to the Earth’s systems. But the foundation of much research of this type is measurement, and there are, of course, severe limits to what can be measured. Improvements to our measurement abilities goes a long way towards improving and expanding climate change research. Which is why a new technology that fuels ocean robot exploration has... [Read more]

It’s common to think of physical conditions as the building blocks of life. A plant’s growth is limited by the amount of light, rainfall, and the type of soil. Changing climate conditions these days – drought, warmer weather, sea level rise — is typically seen as a primary driver of a species’ ability to adapt or die. But it’s important to remember that life can also drastically impact the basic physical conditions of the Earth’s systems. Oxygen in the atmosphere... [Read more]