The Cryosat-2 mission is delivering on its promise to make high-precision radar measurements of polar ice.
The first data from the European spacecraft has been presented at an Earth observation meeting in Norway.
The information clearly shows Cryosat has the required sensitivity to assess the state of Antarctic and Arctic ice
Filed under Antarctic Ice Shelves, Arctic climate change, Arctic sea ice, Future Climate Projections, Mitigation, Polar Ice, Recent Posts, Technological Solutions, Tipping Points, Visible Effects · Tagged with Antarctic, Arctic sea ice, climate change, CryoSat, CryoSat 2, First-year Ice, Ross Ice Shelf, Sea ice extent
Last winter’s big snowfall and cold temperatures in the eastern United States and Europe were likely caused by the loss of Arctic sea ice. Arctic climatologist David Barber says that not only does the loss of ice affect conditions locally but “what happens in the Arctic dictates some of what happens in the mid-latitudes…This huge mass of warmer air over the Arctic in the late fall not only generates more wind and snow locally, several studies have now documented the impacts on global weather patterns.
Filed under Arctic sea ice, Future Climate Projections, Melting Permafrost, Mitigation, Polar Ice, Recent Posts, Tipping Points, Visible Effects · Tagged with Arctic sea ice, climate change, Colder winters, David Barber, Mark Serreze, Oslo Science conference, Rotten sea ice, Warming of the Arctic
Arctic sees record sea ice shrinkage, as well as heading for record low volume
Filed under Arctic sea ice, Future Climate Projections, Mitigation, Recent Posts, Video, Visible Effects · Tagged with Arctic sea ice, climate change, multiyear ice, PIOMAS, Sea ice extent, sea ice thickness
Yesterday morning, March 30, I emailed James Overland with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory/NOAA in Seattle asking him about the slow melt of visible Arctic sea ice, adding that this was certain to stoke the fires of the army of climate skeptics.
This morning Dr. Overland replied that “the winds on the Atlantic [...]
Filed under Arctic climate change, Arctic sea ice, Climate Skeptics, Dangerous Climate Change, Global Climatic Disruption, Recent Posts, Tipping Points, Visible Effects, Zero Emissions · Tagged with Arctic sea ice, climate change, CryoSat, First-year Ice, IceSat, Sea ice extent
Scant ice over the Arctic Sea this winter could mean a “double whammy” of powerful ice-melt next summer, a top U.S. climate scientist said on Thursday.
“It’s not that the ice keeps melting, it’s just not growing very fast.”
“We’ve grown back ice in the winter, but that ice tends to be thin and that’s the problem,” he said. “You set yourself up for a world of hurt in summer. The ice that is there is also thinner than it was before and thinner ice simply takes less energy to melt out the next summer.” – Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.
In January, Arctic sea ice grew by about 13,000 square miles (34,000 sq km) a day, which is a bit more than one-third the pace of ice growth during the 1980s, and less than the average for the first decade of the 21st century.
Arctic ice cover is important to the rest of the world because the Arctic is the globe’s biggest weather-maker, sometimes dubbed Earth’s air-conditioner for its ability to cool down the planet.
As Arctic climatologist David Barber and his colleagues explain in a recent paper in Geophysical Review Letters, the analysis of what the satellites were seeing was wrong. Some of what satellites identified as thick, melt-resistant multiyear ice turned out to be, in Barber’s words, “full of holes, like Swiss cheese. We haven’t seen this sort of thing before.”
What Barber’s expedition further discovered was that some Arctic sea ice is not only whisper thin, but that even in places with thick ice, the ice was not as solid as satellites had indicated. That thick ice was still there, but largely as individual chunks covered with a veneer of new ice that masked their true nature.
Filed under Arctic climate change, Arctic sea ice, Dangerous Climate Change, Ocean temperature, Recent Posts, Tipping Points, Video · Tagged with Arctic ice, Arctic sea ice, Canadian research icebreaker Amundsen, climate change, David Barber, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Tipping Points
The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, in the surface temperature analysis of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world.
Filed under 350 ppm Carbon Dioxide, Abrupt Climate Shifts, Arctic climate change, Arctic sea ice, Climate Change Psychology, Climate Deniers, Climate Skeptics, Dangerous Climate Change, El Nino, Global Climatic Disruption, James Hansen, Mitigation, Polar Ice, Political/Legal Action, Recent Posts, Tipping Points, Zero Emissions · Tagged with Arctic sea ice, climate change, Global surface temperature change, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, Jim Hansen, Real Climate, Temperature Anomaly
It’s easy for people in Russia, England and on the eastern coast of the US, with the severe winter conditions they’re experiencing, to forget that on other parts of our Planet are feeling the heat of dangerous climate change. What we should remember is that what we’re witnessing is not so much “Global Warming,” or even “Climate Change,” but “Global Climatic Disruption,” the term coined by President Obama’s chief science advisor John Holdren.
Filed under 350 ppm Carbon Dioxide, Abrupt Climate Shifts, Arctic climate change, Arctic sea ice, Climate Deniers, Climate Skeptics, Dangerous Climate Change, Drought, El Nino, Flooding, Global Climatic Disruption, Heat Waves, Mitigation, Recent Posts, Tipping Points, Visible Effects, Zero Emissions · Tagged with Arctic sea ice, Australian heat wave, climate change, Global Climatic Disruption, Heatwave, Warmest decade
For new inspiration and knowledge, we would most like to recognise James Hansen, who with the publication of his book Storms of My Grandchildren has made climate science accessible and interesting to anyone with a high school education.
Filed under 350 ppm Carbon Dioxide, Abrupt Climate Shifts, Adaptation, Arctic sea ice, Cap and Trade, Carbon Cap and Dividend, Carbon Tax, Carbon Trading, Climate Psychology, Coal Fired Plants, Copenhagen, Dangerous Climate Change, Fee and Dividend, Glacial Melt, Greenwashing, IPCC, James Hansen, Melting Permafrost, Mitigation, Ocean Acidification, Political/Legal Action, Tipping Points, Video, Zero Emissions · Tagged with 350 ppm, Carbon Dioxide, climate change, Copenhagen, Dangerous Climate Change, James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren, Venus Syndrome
On the eve of the Copenhagen conference, a group of scientists has issued an update on the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Their conclusions? Ice at both poles is melting faster than predicted, the claims of recent global cooling are wrong, and world leaders must act fast if steep temperature rises are to be avoided.
Filed under 350 ppm Carbon Dioxide, Abrupt Climate Shifts, Adaptation, Arctic sea ice, Carbon Emissions Budget, Climate Change Psychology, Climate Ethics, Climate Psychology, Copenhagen, Dangerous Climate Change, Future Climate, Glacial Melt, Global Resources, Heat Waves, IPCC, Melting Permafrost, Mitigation, Political/Legal Action, Tipping Points, Zero Emissions · Tagged with Andrew Weaver, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, climate change, Dangerous Climate Change, Elizabeth Kolbert, Intergenerational Crime, Setting Targets, The Copenhagen Diagnosis, Yale Environment 360
