Tag: ice snow glaciers icebergs

Study: Melting ice in Antarctica could trigger chain reactions, bringing monsoon rains to the ice cap

CNN: Melting ice in Antarctica could trigger chain reactions, bringing monsoon rains to the ice cap, study says.

In an ever-warming climate, ripple effects or chain reactions could lead to altered weather patterns across the globe thanks to a melting Antarctic ice sheet, a new study says.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that as Earth continues to heat up, the land underneath the Antarctic ice sheet will become more exposed. As a result of that process, wind patterns will shift, and rainfall will increase over Antarctica, which could trigger processes that speed up ice loss.

“We found that ice sheet retreat exposing previously ice-covered land led to big increases in rainfall, which through a feedback mechanism dramatically warms the ocean,” Catherine Bradshaw, senior scientist at the UK Met Office and lecturer at the University of Exeter told CNN.

Study: Emissions Cuts Could Drop the Impact of Melting Ice on Oceans by Half

New York Times: Emissions Cuts Could Drop the Impact of Melting Ice on Oceans by Half. A new study said that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could reduce sea level rise from melting ice sheets from about 10 inches to about five by 2100.

Scientists on Wednesday reported another reason the world should sharply rein in global warming: doing so would likely cut in half the current projected amount of sea level rise from the melting of ice this century.

In a study that averaged results of hundreds of computer simulations from research teams around the world, the scientists said that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could reduce sea level rise from melting glaciers and the vast Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from about 10 inches to about five by 2100.

The Daily Climate, April 27, 2021

Articles include: California drought; underreporting GHGs; weather station in the Andes; 26,000 snakes; tools: graphics and climate change; deforesting Brazil; EPA and California air standards; pandemic and snow melt in SE Asia.

Report: We can avoid the worst effects of climate change, but we’re still in for a fight

Popular Science: We can avoid the worst effects of climate change, but we’re still in for a fight. We may still be able to reverse some of the major effects if we cross the crucial threshold.

It’s easy to get disheartened about climate change. To keep global warming within the safe threshold of 1.5ºC adopted by the Paris Agreement, we need to have declines in carbon emissions on par with those of 2020, a year in which a global pandemic forced transportation and industry to slow down. As economies rev back up, it’s understandable to be anxious that things will return back to “normal,” a planet-wrecking status quo.

But even if the odds of global leaders shifting gears to focus on mitigating climate change are low, it’s not cause for climate doomerism. Every bit of warming we ward off helps. A new review in the journal Nature illustrates that even if we overshoot a global warming threshold, it won’t necessarily destabilize crucial Earth systems—including ice sheets, ocean currents, and tropical forests—right away. “If you change [the course of emissions] fast enough, you can avoid certain consequences that might be otherwise irreversible,” says Valerio Lucarini, a physicist at the University of Reading who was not involved in the study. “I think the paper does a good job in making this clear.”

Global warming targets like 1.5ºC are based on what researchers think is needed to avoid setting off powerful and irreversible changes to the biosphere that could devastate humans and ecosystems. But Paul Ritchie, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter who led the study, says that a common misconception is that once we cross a climate threshold, all is lost—that processes like ice melt will spin out of control until the Earth equilibrates at a new, hotter normal. “You often hear that we are very close to the threshold now [for ice sheet collapse]—some say we’ve already crossed it—and that means, apparently, that we’re committed to suffering a large [amount of] ice melt,” he says. “That’s not necessarily the case.”

Study: Climate Tipping Point – 2 articles

Phys.org: ‘Doomsday’ climate tipping points have wiggle room: Study. Global warming thresholds that could tip massive ice sheets into irreversible melting or see the Amazon rainforest shrivel into savannah have “grace periods”, giving humanity more time to draw down planet-warming carbon emissions, researchers have calculated. More than a dozen tipping points triggered mainly by rising temperatures could unleash catastrophic changes in Earth’s climate system. As the Paris Agreement goal of a 1.5 degree Celsius cap above pre-industrial levels slips out of reach, this is potentially very good news—although no reason to relax—scientists said. Ice sheets atop Greenland and West Antarctic hold enough frozen water to lift oceans a dozen meters (40 feet), drowning cities and redrawing the planet’s coastlines. But new research led by Paul Ritchie and Peter Cox from the School of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at Exeter University asks a different question. “Our analysis shows that it is possible to overshoot tipping point thresholds without leading to an abrupt and permanent climate change—as long as the overshoot is for a short period of time,” Cox, senior author of a study published Wednesday in Nature, told AFP. [No study link provided.]

Vice: The Climate Tipping Point Nobody’s Talking About. Efforts to mitigate climate change can worsen “relational tipping points” with Indigenous peoples that were crossed long ago, says one expert. Rapid deforestation. Permafrost melt. Ice sheet decline. These are just a few of the “tipping points” in Earth’s climate system that could trigger runaway changes if crossed. As global temperatures continue to rise due to human activity, scientists warn that tripping these ecological wires will exacerbate the climate crisis in dramatic and irreversible ways. In a 2019 article published in WIREs Climate Change, Whyte introduces the idea of “relational tipping points,” which are not measured by sea ice extent or global forest cover, but by qualities central to Indigenous kin relationships: consent, trust, accountability, and reciprocity, among others.

The Daily Climate, April 21, 2021

Articles include: cannabis; melting ice and bowhead whales; emissions increasing as pandemic wanes; economic effects of climate change; scripture to mobilize faithful; cities moving from gas to electricity; more renewable energy; investment firms and climate change; demand for coal rising; microbes that eat methane; food systems produce 1/3rd of GHGs; flood protection policy.

The Daily Climate, April 20, 2021

Articles include: Exxon & carbon capture; offshore wind; glaciers melting in the Andes; coal financing; cities hardest hit by climate change; Biden trying to reinstate US climate change leadership; shrinking sea meadows and GHGs; Canadian budget; Euro lawsuits derail clean energy; DOI heads towards clean energy; climate change and coffee; melting Arctic & Russia.

Ars Technica: Missing Arctic ice fueled the “Beast of the East” winter storm. Less ice means more moisture in the air, but connecting it to weather is difficult.

Extreme weather has become the new normal—whether it’s precipitation, drought, wind, heat, or cold. The question of how the ever-shrinking layer of Arctic sea ice has contributed to any of these changes has prompted some lively discussion over the past few years. Researchers have proposed that a weakened jet stream driven by vanishing Arctic sea ice might play a large role in extreme winter events like the descending polar vortex that struck North America earlier this year. But the idea hasn’t held up well in light of more recent evidence.

But now, researchers have identified a direct link between extreme winter weather and sea ice loss. The 2018 “Beast of the East” winter storm hit Europe with record-breaking snowfall and low temperatures. And potentially as much as 88 percent of that snowfall originated from increased evaporation of the Barents Sea.

The working hypothesis is that Arctic sea ice acts as a cap for Arctic waters, limiting evaporation. Less sea ice and warmer Arctic temperatures mean more evaporation, potentially explaining the increased severity of winter storms like the Beast of the East. Until now, it has been tough to measure direct evidence linking sea ice loss to extreme European winters, but recent advances in technology are making this a little less challenging.