Tag Archives: Pine Island Glacier

Climate Change & Sustainability

Climate action: a doddle or deep adaptation?

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Again, this post started as an edition of Climate clippings.

Where I ended up after a series of happenings as described below, is concluding that we need a paradigm shift in our climate change aspirations. Instead of trying to limit warming to a point where we can avoid dangerous climate change, we need to recognize that we’ve already gone too far, that the climate is already dangerous, so we should aim to ratchet down GHG concentrations in the atmosphere to attain a safe climate.

1. Germans look to 7.4 trillion tons of fake snow to save the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Continue reading Climate action: a doddle or deep adaptation? →

Climate Science

Pine Island Glacier spawns a giant iceberg

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As David Spratt posted at Climate Code Red a giant crack has opened across the full width of the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) ice shelf, spawning a new iceberg about 720 square kilometres in area, roughly eight times the size of Manhattan Island in New York. This is about the best photo I can find:

Pine Island Glacier_dn23847-1_450

We’ll get some orientation first and then look at the implications. This image locates the PIG on the continent of Antarctica:

AntarcMapPelto-300x255

This image from the LiveScience photo gallery outlines the PIG basin:

Pine Island Gl;acier_pi-3-PIG_map_Bodentopograpfie_beschriftet_w

This basin together with the Thwaites Basin just to the south drains 40% of West Antarctica. These two glaciers alone could lead to sea level rise of half a metre by 2100 according to material cited by Spratt. Continue reading Pine Island Glacier spawns a giant iceberg →

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 →