Home/Posts Tagged ‘ice’
Posts Tagged ‘ice’
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Feb 23rd, 2012,
By Michael D. Lemonick Legend has it that in the final days of the Third Reich, loyalists smuggled Adolf Hitler’s remains out of Berlin along with those of his paramour, Eva Braun. The deceased were later ferried by U-Boat all the way down to a secret Nazi base in Antarctica, where they were, depending on which version you believe, interred or used for cloning experiments. Maybe a thousand identical copies of the mass murderer walk among us! Or maybe the legends about Nazis in Antarctica are as every bit as ridiculous as they sound (though not as ridiculous as this…
Tags: Antarctica, Climate change, climatecentral.org, ice
Animals, Climate Change, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 26th, 2012,
Due to recent storms in Europe, over 100 baby harp seals have washed up on the northern shores of the Netherlands. The amount of seals found on the country’s beaches has increased within the past two to three years. An animal rescue center in England has also received stranded seals because of the storms and is now caring for 41. The incident is an extreme example among a recent increase in pup strandings, experts say. Overfishing has reduced the seals’ available prey, and the polluted fish the animals do catch often make them sick. –National Geographic For more on…
Tags: baby, beach, Canada, harp seals, ice, pup, storms
Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Dec 16th, 2011,
Over 100 beluga whales, a species of cetacean, are stuck in the two holes located in the ice, which extends as far as the sea in between Russia and Alaska. The only chance of salvation for them is human intervention. The animals are trapped near the Chukchi Peninsula of Russia. “The area surrounding the Bering Straight, just northeast of where the whales are, is a “harsh climate.” It is notorious for severe periodic wind and freezing temperatures. It’s not uncommon for ice to form with gaps in it” – said Senior Meteorologist Jim Andrews from AccuWeather. The whales have enough…
Tags: beluga, beluga whales, Chukchi Peninsula, ice, trapped
Climate Change, Wildlife & Flora, Dec 6th, 2011,
‘A million seal pups dead’ – this was the headline (in Swedish) for a brief article in Friday’s Sydsvenskan, a newspaper for the southern Swedish province of Skåne. But it was enough to make me want to know more. The lack of ice cover on Canada’s east coast has contributed to massive die off of seal pups, which are born on ice sheets. If there is not enough sea ice cover or the ice melts before the pups learn how to swim, the pups drown. A study by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada determined that 45% of the…
Tags: Canada, dead, ice, pups, seal
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Sep 26th, 2010,
The environmental and geopolitical ramifications of melting Arctic glaciers and the rush of different nations for the region’s mineral wealth is fraught with conflict and change. Melting ice in the Arctic spells trouble for some of Greenland’s traditional indigenous Inuit and for low-lying nations vulnerable to rising sea levels. A warming climate will also change shipping routes in the region, contributing further to the opening up of the region for economic exploitation. The Arctic is becoming the new battleground for the environment. Groups such as Greenpeace, the WWF and Climate Camp actively confront the activities of oil companies, like Scotland’s…
Tags: arctic, change, climate, gas, glacier, greenland, ice, melting, mineral, oil, Russia
Conservation, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 21st, 2010,
To Canadian disappointment, a ban on the importation of seal products into the European Union was enacted yesterday. However, the European Commission stated that the ban does not apply to groups that have already filed court appeals, including 16 Inuit groups from Canada. According to a report by the Associated Press, indigenous peoples of Greenland and Canada have argued that the European Union seal import ban disproportionately affects their traditional way of life, yet the same reports cite EU data stating that only one percent of Canadian seal imports into the EU were from Inuit sources. Canadian hunters killed an…
Tags: ban, Canada, Canadian, EU, European, exceptions, harp, hunt, ice, import, indigenous, Inuit, products, seal, seals, Union
Climate Change, Nature, Aug 15th, 2010,
The massive 160 square mile (414 sq km) ice island that broke off from Greenland’s Petermann glacier earlier this month is ‘certainly a manifestation of warming’ according to Dr. Richard Bates of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Andrews, a geophysicist, is part of a British-led expedition in Greenland, which is measuring glaciers including the Petermann. From an article in the Telegraph: Dr Richard Bates, who is monitoring the ice alongside researchers from America, said the expedition had expected to find evidence of melting this year after “abnormally high” temperatures in the area. Climate change experts say that globally it…
Tags: Bates, change, climate, glacier, greenland, ice, island, melt, Petermann, Richard, temperatures, warming
Climate Change, Nature, Aug 7th, 2010,
A piece of ice four times the size of the island of Manhattan has broken off from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier in what may be the largest glacier collapse in recorded history. A similarly sized piece of ice broke off the Petermann in 1962. This latest collapse reduces the glacier’s ice shelf by about 25%. According to a BBC News report the ice could disrupt shipping lanes between Greenland and Canada or freeze in place. From an National Geographic article: The so-called “ice island” covers a hundred square miles (260 square kilometers) and holds enough water to keep U.S. public tap water…
Tags: collapse, glacier, global warming, greenland, ice, island, Meunchow, Petermann
Climate Change, Jul 17th, 2010,
June 2010 has gone on record as the hottest June since temperatures have been documented, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The scientific body’s National Climatic Data Center records go back to 1880 and also show the January-June and April-June periods to be the warmest ever recorded. Though temperatures were warmer than average throughout much of the globe, Peru, central and eastern US and both eastern and western Asia experienced the most markedly hotter temperatures. Southern China, Scandinavia and the northwestern US were actually cooler than average, as was Spain. From an AFP report: In June,…
Tags: ever, global, hottest, ice, June, NOAA, record, recorded, temperatures, US, warmer, warmest
Climate Change, Politics, Science & Technology, Jul 7th, 2010,
An analysis based on national emissions targets suggests that global temperatures will rise by 4C (7.2F) by 2100. Six months after over 100 governments pledged to limit their countries’ emissions in order to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5-2C (2.7-3.6F) above pre-industrial levels a major international study of over 60 nations, called the Climate Scoreboard, has calculated that temperatures are set to double if current targets are held to. Another study by Climate Analytics, at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, suggests there is “virtually no chance” world governments will keep the temperature rise to below 2C, and the rise…
Tags: albedo, climate, Climate change, global, ice, melt, melting, NASA, polar, rise, satellite, sheet, snow, study, targets, temperatures
Politics, Pollution, Jun 28th, 2010,
The long dark and gooey shadow of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is shining a gruesome light on offshore drilling, its toll on the environment and the true cost of oil. Yet the Gulf spill is also getting all the attention, while other environmental issues or injustices suffer from neglect or overshadowing. Bhopal activists have juxtaposed the attention being given to the spill against their unfortunate plight, for instance. Ironically, new remote – and potentially catastrophic – frontiers are being explored for oil at this very moment, yet this is receiving little attention from the mainstream…
Tags: arctic, Cairn, Canada, coast, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, energy, greenland, Gulf, ice, oil, spill
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Apr 30th, 2010,
It seems Chicken Little may have been right, after all. Last week, I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel. It basically talked of a number of strange phenomena or news accounts and one segment in particular caught my attention. That particular segment was about megacryometeors. Megacryometeors are large chunks of ice that randomly fall out of the sky. It is not known where they come from (for certain) or why they fall at random. What is known is that they can fall anywhere at any time and cause a considerable amount of damage. Even more strange is the…
Tags: falling chunks of ice, ice, megacryometeor, phenomenon, random, sky, strange, study, unknown, weather, weird
Climate Change, Science & Technology, ,
Arctic temperatures have risen twice as fast in recent decades as temps in the rest of the world. Melting sea ice – considered part of a positive feedback loop – as well as wind, cloud and ocean current changes have been suspected of driving this rapid warming, known as Arctic amplification. A positive feedback loop is a system where the cause and effect perpetuate one another, like a vicious circle. A new study shows that Arctic warming from melting sea ice may be driving a positive feedback loop between rising temperatures and disappearing ice. From an article in the Guardian:…
Tags: Antarctica, arctic, feedback, floating, Guardian, ice, loop, melt, ozone, positive, sea, temperatures, warming
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Mar 29th, 2010,
A NASA physical oceanographer has found no slow down in the giant ocean currents that bring warm water from the tropical Pacific to the North Atlantic. These currents, which function like a ‘conveyor belt’ driven by ocean salinity, make much of Europe far more habitable than it would be without the constant influx of warm water. The observation that these currents are not slowing and probably have not slowed since the early 90s is good news for warm-current dependent regions like the UK. These latest findings, which draw on data from drifting sensors and satellites, support other recent evidence downplaying…
Tags: climate, conveyor, current, currents, Europe, ice, NASA, ocean, warming
Climate Change, Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 26th, 2010,
Alun Anderson is the author of the book After The Ice: Life, Death and Politics in the New Arctic. He was previously editor at New Scientist magazine and has also worked as an editor for the journals Nature and Science. From a review of After the Ice in The Economist: Mr Anderson looks in on the extraordinary, tiny world of the tributary system within the Arctic ice, formed by trickles of briny water which gets squeezed as it freezes. But from the bear above to the microscopic wonders within, all are doomed once the summer ice goes, which is expected…
Tags: After the Ice, Alun, Anderson, arctic, Climate change, ecologist, ice
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Jan 19th, 2010,
Ice. Oh, the many uses and happenings that involve ice. It keeps your drinks cold. It’s a pain to deal with in winter. It’s been known to put holes in ships and has quite the alarming melt factor as of late. The biggest news happened down at Antarctica. Apparently, a chunk of ice bigger than the size of Rhode Island broke away from Antarctica and then shattered into even more pieces. If you don’t know your US states or geography, Rhode Island is the smallest state. Some people compare this to the size of Yosemite National Park. The event was…
Tags: Antarctica, ice, NASA, Rhode Island, sea ice
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Nov 29th, 2009,
Some very old ice in northern Greenland may provide insights into how our climate might change in the future. Scientists at the NEEM ice coring project in Greenland are drilling into ice sheets to retrieve ice from the previous interglacial period. Interglacials are warm intervals within ice ages. The previous interglacial, called the Eemian, ended 115,000 years ago. NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) hopes to learn more about what our future climate will be like by studying the distant past – as preserved deep in the ice of North-West Greenland. Learn more about the NEEM ice coring project at…
Tags: Climate change, global warming, greenland, ice, interglacial, NEEM
Climate Change, Sep 24th, 2009,
Could Greenland become like the mythical Atlantis someday; completely submerged underwater? It certainly is possible with the increase in speed that the ice has been melting away. For weeks now, there have been reports coming out on the melting ice problems that Greenland faces, but it seems things are much worse than scientists have anticipated. Shrinking faster than originally thought, researchers discovered that 81 of the 111 Greenland glaciers are thinning at what could be described as a self-feeding pace. Basically, the edges of two major ice sheets are melting at a quicker pace; so the more ice that melts,…
Tags: Climate change, cop15, global warming, greenland, ice, melting ice
