ice

Breakaway

by Gareth April 9, 2009

This somewhat crude(*), but effective animation of the two most recent ESA images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf break up shows clearly that with the “pin” gone, large areas of ice are beginning to move. The most recent image (April 8th) is the smaller, overlaid on one captured on April 5th. Focus on what was [...]

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Gone west

by Gareth April 8, 2009

NASA’s Earth Observatory has just published a pair of beautiful images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf showing the ice bridge before and after collapse. The image above, acquired on April 6th, shows the bergs created by the break up moving towards the west. With the bridge gone, the remnant ice from earlier break ups to [...]

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Melt away

by Gareth April 7, 2009

As winter turns to spring and the melt season begins, the Arctic sea ice looks to be primed for another bad summer. Multi-year ice is down to only 10% of the total extent — down from 40% during 1979-2000, and new work on ice thickness suggests that the ice cover is thinner than at any [...]

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…Gone

by Gareth April 5, 2009

Since I posted 12 hours ago on the imminent demise of a large chunk of the Wilkins ice shelf, new ESA imagery shows that it has finally collapsed into a shattered mass of icebergs — roughly centre of this image. The BBC has the story, together with comments from David Vaughan of the British Antarctic [...]

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Last straw

by Gareth April 5, 2009

The last bit of the ice “bridge” pinning the Wilkins Ice Shelf in place appears to be on the verge of collapse, according to the European Space Agency. New rifts formed on April 2nd (blue lines above), and have begun to spread rapidly. Worth keeping an eye on the ESA’s “webcam from space” over the [...]

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The inner mounting flame

by Gareth March 31, 2009

The rapid climate change underway in the Arctic has the potential to disrupt weather patterns around the planet, and brings with it the risk that methane bubbling out of the permafrost that rings the Arctic Ocean and from gas hydrates under the sea floor could make our attempts to restrain emissions and stabilise atmospheric greenhouse [...]

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Telling porkies to Parliament

by Gareth March 24, 2009

The Emissions Trading Scheme Review committee has released the first batch of submissions it has received — those made by organisations and individuals who have already made their presentations to the committee. There are some heavy hitters in there: from New Zealand’s science and policy community there’s the Climate Change Centre (a joint venture between [...]

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Two Miles Down in Time

by Bryan Walker March 21, 2009

Richard Alley’s The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future explains why ice cores are such a mine of information about past climates. He was right there when the ice cores from central Greenland were being extracted between 1989 and 1993.  There had been earlier extractions in places easier of access, [...]

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This is hardcore

by Gareth March 19, 2009

The last time that atmospheric CO2 levels were as high as today, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) regularly retreated or collapsed, causing sea level rises of up to 7 metres according to the first analysis of the first ANDRILL core, published in Nature today. The ANDRILL (Antarctic Geological Drilling) programme, a joint effort by [...]

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Down down

by Gareth March 12, 2009

New Scientist has posted this remarkable footage of a camera being lowered down a moulin in Greenland, and reveals that Konrad Steffen’s team, moulin explorers extraordinaire, are inventing a new extreme sport: Later this year, the team will be boldly going where no researchers have gone before. Under the guidance of expert climbers, they plan [...]

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