This is the 33rd issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. However, as a series, the …
A loose coalition of more than 100 countries, including the US and European nations, is pushing for an early phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a powerful greenhouse gas that if left unchecked is set to add a potentially disastrous 0.5C to global temperatures by the end of the century. At a …
The same hotspot in Earth's mantle that feeds Iceland's active volcanoes has been playing a trick on the scientists who are trying to measure how much ice is melting on nearby Greenland. According to a new study in the journal Science Advances, the hotspot softened the mantle rock beneath Greenland …
The year 1980 has often been used as a benchmark for the return of Antarctic ozone to conditions assumed to be unaffected by emissions of ozone depleting substances (ODSs), implying that anthropogenic ozone depletion in Antarctica started around 1980. Here, the extent of anthropogenically-driven Antarctic ozone depletion prior to 1980 …
Recent salinity changes in the Southern Ocean are among the most prominent signals of climate change in the global ocean, yet their underlying causes have not been firmly established. Here we propose that trends in the northward transport of Antarctic sea ice are a major contributor to these changes. Using …
Ocean warming may well turn out to be the greatest hidden challenge of our generation. Whilst some may be aware of the challenges a warming ocean presents to coral reefs, few know about the other consequences this holds for the ocean. Ocean acidification emerged as a new story around 2004, …
Apart from global warming, another factor that aggravates the melting of glaciers in the Third Pole is air pollution. China and India are among the worst-ranked countries in air pollution. The region covering the mighty Himalaya-Hindukush mountains and the Tibetan plateau happens to be the third largest ice-covered region on …
Scientists who have been observing Antarctica have observed the progression of a large crack in one of the world's great ice shelves, the Larsen C. The crack is threatening to break off an iceberg with a size as big as Delaware. Since the crack is spreading quickly, the collapse could …
More temperature could mean increased snowfall in Antarctica which could in turn help reduce the global sea-level rise by 51 to 79 millimetres by 2100, according to a new study. When Antarctica's air temperature rises, moisture in the atmosphere increases. That should mean more snowfall on the frozen continent, the …
A fourth production region for the globally important Antarctic bottom water has been attributed to dense shelf water formation in the Cape Darnley Polynya, adjoining Prydz Bay in East Antarctica. Here we show new observations from CTD-instrumented elephant seals in 2011–2013 that provide the first complete assessment of dense shelf …
Sea ice around Antarctica shrank in a warm period more than 100,000 years ago, an indication that man-made climate change could also trigger an abrupt retreat, a scientific report said Tuesday. A thaw would reverse a paradoxical expansion of the extent of floating ice on the ocean around the frozen …
While most people accept the reality of human-caused global warming, we tend not to view it as an urgent issue or high priority. That lack of immediate concern may in part stem from a lack of understanding that today’s pollution will heat the planet for centuries to come, as explained …
Researchers develop a new system that uses satellite observations to study the world's vegetation. Researchers have developed a new system to map the world's "biomes" - large-scale vegetation formations - that may help track the effect of climate change on Earth's ecosystems. The system uses satellite observations of the timing …
Geologists have found evidence supporting the hypothesis that Indian subcontinent was part of Antarctica a billion years ago but were separated and re-united several times due to tectonic movement of plates before the evolution of mankind. A group of geologists from India and Switzerland researching on evolution of the Earth's …
Melbourne, Aug 2 (IANS) Australian scientists have discovered a toxic form of mercury in Antarctic's atmosphere and sea ice. The study, led by a team from the University of Melbourne, found significant amounts of methylmercury, an especially dangerous strain of mercury, in the Southern Ocean, Xinhua news agency reported. Caitlin …
The State of the Climate report series is the authoritative annual summary of the global climate. Published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the report is edited by scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. The 2015 report is based on contributions from more than 450 scientists …
“When the earth burps, Law Dome records it,” says Australian climate scientist Dr David Etheridge. Law Dome is a special spot in eastern Antarctica where scientists have been drilling down into the continent’s long-frozen surface to pull out cores of ice. Trapped in the ice cores are bubbles that give …
Latitude is the main factor which determines the organic pollutant concentration in Antarctic giant petrels -emblematic species in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions-, according to an article from the journal Environmental Research in which Professor Jacob González Solís, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the …
Here it is shown that the late twentieth century warming trends in the Antarctic Peninsula have ceased, with the Peninsula having instead been cooling for most of the twenty-first century, underscoring the considerable internal variability within the Antarctic climate system.
The Antarctic Peninsula, among the fastest warming places on Earth last century, has since cooled due to natural swings in the local climate, scientists said on Wednesday, adding that the respite from the thaw is likely to be brief. Rapid warming until the late 1990s on the peninsula, which snakes …
For a number of years now, climate change skeptics have argued that there’s a key part of the Earth’s climate system that upends our expectations about global warming, and that is showing trends that actually cut in the opposite direction. This supposed contrary indicator is the sea ice that rings …
