Last January, a study in Nature Climate Change showed the world's glaciers are the smallest they've been in human history, revealing radiocarbon material that hasn't been exposed for 40,000 years. Now, new research published in Nature quantifies how much the world's lost glaciers have contributed to rising sea levels. From …
The minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year, researchers said in a study to be published shortly, suggesting that thinning of the ice had outweighed a recovery in area. The study estimated that last year broke the previous, 2007 record for the minimum …
Denmark and its self-governing dependency of Greenland plan to present a seabed claim extending to the North Pole before the end of 2014 against competing claims from other Arctic states, Danish officials said on Monday. Ownership of the Arctic seabed has grown in importance as the shrinking of sea ice …
An international team of researchers, including physical oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has confirmed the presence of a deep-reaching ocean circulation system off Iceland that could significantly influence the ocean's response to climate change in previously unforeseen ways. The current, called the North Icelandic Jet (NIJ), contributes …
The new current, the North Icelandic Jet, feeds the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a giant pattern known as the "great ocean conveyor belt," or by the disconcerting acronym AMOC. Because this pattern is critically important for regulating Earth's climate, including European and North American climates, any strong influences on it, …
Methane and ethane are the most abundant hydrocarbons in the atmosphere and they affect both atmospheric chemistry and climate. Both gases are emitted from fossil fuels and biomass burning, whereas methane (CH4) alone has large sources from wetlands, agriculture, landfills and waste water. Here we use measurements in firn (perennial …
We present a sea-ice record from northern Greenland covering the past 10,000 years. Multiyear sea ice reached a minimum between ~8500 and 6000 years ago, when the limit of year-round sea ice at the coast of Greenland was located ~1000 kilometers to the north of its present position. The subsequent …
Cairn Energy expects to find out later on Wednesday whether a lawsuit designed to deter environmental protesters from disrupting its Arctic drilling campaign has been successful. Cairn, a British oil and gas firm which is leading a charge to find oil off the coast of Greenland, faces strong opposition from …
British oil explorer Cairn Energy said on Saturday it had suspended drilling from a rig off the coast of Greenland after environmental protesters breached an exclusion zone. The company, which plans to drill a total of four wells off Greenland this summer, said Greenpeace activists boarded its "Leiv Eiriksson" drilling …
Global warming will likely open up coastal areas in the Arctic to development but close vast regions of the northern interior to forestry and mining by mid-century as ice and frozen soil under temporary winter roads melt, researchers said. Higher temperatures have already led to lower summer sea ice levels …
Environmental group Greenpeace has sent two vessels into the northern North Sea to protest against oil exploration off Greenland, the organization and officials said on Tuesday. Greenpeace's action came as British explorer Cairn Energy laid out its plans for drilling off Greenland this summer and began preparing to move the …
Sea levels could rise up to 5 feet by the end of this century, driven by warming in the Arctic and the resulting melt of snow and ice, according to this study by the International Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP). This is more than two and a half times …
Quickening climate change in the Arctic including a thaw of Greenland's ice could raise world sea levels by up to 1.6 meters by 2100, an international report showed on Tuesday. Such a rise -- above most past scientific estimates -- would add to threats to coasts from Bangladesh to Florida, …
A novel explanation for the long-term temperature record in Antarctic ice cores invokes local solar radiation as the driving agent. This proposal will prompt palaeoclimate scientists to pause and to go back to basics.
Water flowing from the North Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean is at its warmest level for more than 2,000 years. The sea in the Gulf Stream between Greenland and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard reached an average of 6
Shrinking ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is reflecting ever less sunshine back into space in a previously underestimated mechanism that could add to global warming, a study showed. Satellite data indicated that Arctic sea ice, glaciers, winter snow and Greenland's ice were bouncing less energy back to …
Reliable forecasts of sea-level rise depend on accurately modelling the dynamics of polar ice sheets. A numerical framework that better reflects ice-sheet basal drag adds greater realism to such models.
This publication aims at providing an improved understanding of sea-level rise and variability to reduce the uncertainties associated with projections for sea-level rise, and hence contribute to more effective coastal planning and management. It presents a synthesis of the findings and recommendations from the discussion of position papers from a …
