Tag: Greenland

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.

How an election in Greenland could affect China — and the rare-earth minerals in your cellphone

Washington Post: How an election in Greenland could affect China — and the rare-earth minerals in your cellphone.

Sitting on vast, untapped reserves of uranium and rare-earth minerals, Greenland holds the keys to massive wealth.

But many Greenlanders have grave doubts about whether they should allow the world to exploit those resources, given the risk that mining could pose to the Arctic territory’s fragile environment.

The remote, snow-covered island sent a clear message to global mining interests this week when voters handed a rare victory to Inuit Ataqatigiit, a democratic socialist party with a 34-year-old leader and an environmental bent. The party, whose name translates to “Community of the People,” had campaigned on halting what was on track to become a massive mining operation in southern Greenland, led by an Australian company and backed by Chinese investment.

New Documentary ‘Meltdown’ Looks At Greenland’s Melting Glaciers And The Effects Of Climate Change

WABE: New Documentary ‘Meltdown’ Looks At Greenland’s Melting Glaciers And The Effects Of Climate Change. A new documentary, “Meltdown,” brings viewers to the shores of Greenland’s melting glaciers for an exploration of natural beauty at its most vulnerable. “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes spoke with the film’s executive producer, Mike Tollin about the film. He shared how he, photographer Lynn Davis, and climate expert Anthony Leiserowitz brought their talents together for a personal, intimate experience of the stunning yet rapidly changing icy landscapes.

Yale Climate Connection, February 19, 2021

Articles include: climate research persisted;  The internet’s big carbon footprint;  ‘Meltdown film: A Greenland ice documentary;  Mardi Gras;  New books, reports on environmental and climate justice; Flooding problems at Washington, D.C;  Why the power is out in Texas;  coastal salt marshes; Arkansas school district goes solar; future with electric vehicles;  how to reduce urban heat.

Study: Greenland’s ice sheet could begin losing more than it gains every year as soon as 2055, a new study says

Arctic Today: Greenland’s ice sheet could begin losing more than it gains every year as soon as 2055, a new study says. But if strong measures are taken to prevent the rise of global temperatures, the negative threshold could be avoided.

If global warming continues unabated, the surface of the Greenland ice sheet may start losing more mass than it gains every year by 2055, new research finds.

Glacial melt due to rising temperatures will be greater than snow accumulation within the next three decades under the worst-case emissions scenario, according to a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The findings, which were based on cutting-edge climate models, confirm previous studies predicting ice sheet loss by the middle of the century.

[Greenland’s ice sheet saw record mass loss in 2019, study finds]

Studies: Earth is now losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year. And it’s going to get worse

Washington Post: Earth is now losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year. And it’s going to get worse. Ice is melting faster worldwide, with greater sea-level rise anticipated, studies show.

Global ice loss has increased rapidly over the past two decades, and scientists are still underestimating just how much sea levels could rise, according to alarming new research published this month.

From the thin ice shield covering most of the Arctic Ocean to the mile-thick mantle of the polar ice sheets, ice losses have soared from about 760 billion tons per year in the 1990s to more than 1.2 trillion tons per year in the 2010s, a new study released Monday shows. That is an increase of more than 60 percent, equating to 28 trillion tons of melted ice in total — and it means that roughly 3 percent of all the extra energy trapped within Earth’s system by climate change has gone toward turning ice into water.

There is good reason to think the rate of ice melt will continue to accelerate. A second, NASA-backed study on the Greenland ice sheet, for instance, finds that no less than 74 major glaciers that terminate in deep, warming ocean waters are being severely undercut and weakened.

Scientists descended into Greenland’s perilous ice caverns — and came back with a worrying message

The Washington Post discusses Scientists descended into Greenland’s perilous ice caverns — and came back with a worrying message. Vertical ice caves in Greenland, called ‘moulins,’ drain water from the ice to the sea — and they’re even bigger than we thought.

The scientists prepped for their descent into the maw of the Greenland ice sheet by drilling deep into the ice. They created two intersecting holes into the bed of a now frozen-over ice river, running a rope through them in the shape of a V to anchor their lines. It would be more than strong enough to carry their weight, but they drilled a second anchor as well — just in case.

Then Matt Covington, a geologist and cave explorer who has spent more than a year of his life beneath the ground, was ready. He began to lower himself into the vertical cavern that, in the summer, fills with the chaos of a waterfall — a moulin. The sharp crampons on his boots gripped the ice. The fact that it was October now made the moulin a little safer, but Covington could still hear running water somewhere.

Study: Greenland could lose more ice this century than it has in 12,000 years

National Geographic discusses why Greenland could lose more ice this century than it has in 12,000 years. The rate of ice melt over the last two decades was comparable to the highest points in recent geologic history—and it’s still speeding up.

GREENLAND IS ON track to lose more ice this century than it has at any other point in the Holocene, the 12,000-year period in which human civilization has flourished, an alarming new study has found.

The study, published today in the journal Nature, offers the latest evidence that Earth’s northernmost ice sheet, which contains enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 24 feet, has entered a period of rapid decline and may melt away entirely if humanity continues burning fossil fuels at current levels. The research also puts to rest the notion that Greenland’s recent deterioration might be part of a natural cycle, by showing just how fast the current meltdown is compared with the ups and downs of the geologic past.

“We have confidence now that this century is going to be unique in the context of natural variability of the last 12,000 years,” says lead study author Jason Briner, a glaciologist at the University at Buffalo.

Study: Rise in sea level from ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica match worst-case scenario

CBC discusses a study showing that the rise in sea level from ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica match worst-case scenario. Rise could expose 16 million people to annual coastal flooding by the end of the century, says study. Sea ice meets land as seen from NASA’s Operation IceBridge research aircraft along the Upper Baffin Bay coast above Greenland. Acording to a recent study, those rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland, along with melting ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to be the main contributor to a rise in sea level around the world.

Now, according to a recent study, led by Thomas Slater, a climate researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds, those rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland, along with melting ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to be the main contributor to a rise in sea levels around the world. And the rate of the melt matches the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s worst-case climate warming scenario.

The study was co-authored by Anna Hogg, climate researcher with the University of Leeds in England, and Ruth Mottram, a climate researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute.

According to a report in Nature Climate Change, ice loss between 2007 to 2017 matched up with the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s (IPCC) worse case estimates.

Study: Loss of Greenland Ice Sheet Reached a Record Last Year

The New York Times discusses the loss of Greenland ice sheet reached a record last year. The ice loss in 2019 was more than twice the annual average since 2003, scientists said.

Greenland lost a record amount of ice in 2019, researchers reported Thursday. Nearly half of it was lost in July, when the region roasted from an unusual heat wave.

The net ice loss of more than 530 billion metric tons was more than twice the annual average since 2003, the scientists said. In July, when warm air from Europe moved north, leading to temperatures that were well above normal and causing widespread surface melting of the ice sheet, the loss was roughly equal to the average loss in a full year.

Ingo Sasgen, a geoscientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany, and the lead author of a paper describing the findings in the journal Communications and Environment, said with the warmth last summer, he and his colleagues suspected that 2019 would be a bad one for the ice sheet.