Tag Archives: Antarctica

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 44

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Giant red crabs invade the Antarctic abyss

From the New Scientist via Huffington Post “Huge crabs more than a metre across have invaded the Antarctic abyss, wiped out the local wildlife and now threaten to ruin ecosystems that have evolved over 14 million years.”

These critters occupy a layer between 1400 and 950 metres deep, where the water is a little warmer. Further up the water is cooled by melting ice.

Global warming seems to be the culprit. Back in 1982 the minimum temperature there was 1.2°C, too cold for king crabs. Last year it had risen to a balmy 1.47°C, enough for the crabs to thrive.

The temperature rise at 0.27°C is not large, but I suspect it takes a lot of energy to produce it. Continue reading Climate clippings 44 →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 41

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Antarctica’s glacial movements

Via Gizmodo researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and the University of California, Irvine have made a map of every glacier on the continent, down to its individual shape and flow velocity, illustrating how water melting in the interior of the continent makes its way out to the coasts. Lead author Eric Rignot calls it a “game changer for glaciology.”

I think the implication may be that we will lose more ice than previously thought from East Antarctica with a temperature rise of 1 or 2C.

NASA press release here. Continue reading Climate clippings 41 →

Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 33

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Stormy weather

2010 possibly the worst ever for extreme weather

That’s according to über-meteorologist Jeff Masters posting at Climate Progress.

The year was extraordinary, featuring the hottest year on record equalling 2005, the most extreme winter Arctic atmospheric circulation on record, the warmest and driest winter on record for North America-Canada, the lowest volume of Arctic sea ice on record and 3rd lowest in extent, a record melting in Greenland, the second most extreme shift from El Niño to La Niña, the second worst coral bleaching year, the wettest year over land, the Amazon rainforest experienced its 2nd 100-year drought in 5 years and, it must be said, we had the lowest global tropical cyclone activity on record. Here’s the precipitation graph: Continue reading Climate clippings 33 →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science, Social Science and Society

Climate clippings 30

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Antarctic research team with DC3

East Antarctic ice sheet sits on rivers and lakes

The Science Show reported on a new survey of East Antarctica published in nature.

probably something like the Northern Territory area was actually below 500 metres below sea level, and if you look at the deepest bits, something like the size of Tasmania was more than one kilometre deep.

The implication is that at some stage the sheet will melt faster than previously thought.

The lakes are formed through thermal heat from below.

See also here. Continue reading Climate clippings 30 →

Climate Science

Climate clippings 7

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These posts include a brief mention of a number of news items relating to climate change. They don’t preclude treating any of these topics at more length in a separate post.

They can also serve as an open thread so that we can keep each other informed on important climate news.

November turns out to be the hottest on record

I thought that with a La Nina, November temperatures would turn out to be cooler than 2005 on the NASA GISS record. Turns out they were the hottest on record. Here are some images from the post:

The graph for 2010:

Temperature anomaly graph 2010

Continue reading Climate clippings 7 →