Record 2012 Greenland Melt Challenges Climate Models
A weather pattern that may have become more common in recent years was largely responsible for causing last summer’s record melt in Greenland, according to a new study. The research, published this week in the International Journal of Climatology, found that a giant protective dome of high pressure established itself above Greenland throughout the … Read More
Look Out Below: Antarctic Melting From Underneath
Ice experts have long known that Antarctica is losing ice at the margins of its vast ice sheets, where the frozen continent meets the sea — presumably, they thought, from icebergs breaking off and floating away. According to a report published in Science, however, more than half the ice loss is coming from warming ocean waters, which are melting th… Read More
Catastrophic Oil Spill Threat to Canadian River Basin
The Mackenzie River Basin, a vast globally important area in Canada, is at great risk from climate change and a catastrophic oil spill from the tailing ponds of tar sands mining, according to a panel of nine Canadian, American and British scientists. The warning came just days after the Canadian Oil Producers Association says it expects oil produc… Read More
Spring in U.S. Was Cooler and More Extreme Than Average
The season was especially notable for its exceptionally cold and wet start in the central part of the country, with many cities, from Bismark, N.D., to St. Louis and even Richmond, Va., receiving more snow during the meteorological spring months than they did during winter. Fourteen states, from Minnesota to Georgia had a spring that ranked among t… Read More
Tornadoes, Heat-Related Deaths, and Hurricanes
An extreme weather-packed slideshow of the week's top climate news.… Read More
Widespread Greenland Melting A Sign of Things to Come
When 97 percent of Greenland’s ice experienced at least some melting in July 2012, scientists wondered if it was a one-time phenomenon. Now a new study in Geophysical Research Letters indicates it is a sign of things to come and by 2025, there is a 50-50 chance of it happening annually. It’s not clear what the effects of such melting will be: the … Read More
Warming Causing Rockies, Everest to Lose Ice and Snow
Around 20 percent of the snow cover in North America’s greatest mountain range has been lost – because of warmer springs in the last three decades. Scientists from the American Geophysical Union and the U.S. Geological Survey report that they had established a pattern of snowfall in the northern and southern Rockies: when the snowpack was large in… Read More
Tornadoes Resume; Drought Divides; Fish on the Move
Tornado season resumes, drought divides the U.S. and how warming is affecting ice and fish. … Read More
