“Stalagmites are the ice cores of the tropics,” says Jess Adkins, professor [...] at the California Institute of Technology. He and Kim Cobb of the Georgia Institute of Technology led a team that collected samples from stalagmites in caves in northern Borneo and measured their levels of oxygen isotopes to reconstruct a history of the tropical West Pacific’s climate over four glacial cycles during the late Pleistocene era.
“New clues as to how the Earth’s remote ecosystems have been influenced by the industrial revolution are locked, frozen in the ice of glaciers. [...] Globally, glacier ice loss is accelerating, driven in part by the deposition of carbon in the form of soot or “black carbon,” which darkens glacier surfaces and increases their absorption of light and heat.” Quoted from the Woods Hole Research Center press release.
New clues as to how the Earth’s remote ecosystems have been influenced by the industrial revolution are locked, frozen in the ice of glaciers. “We are finding this human derived signature in a corner of the U.S. that is traditionally viewed as being exceptionally pristine.”
“In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth’s melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“Fountain Stream is one of the largest rivers draining Malaspina Glacier. The changes in this river over the past 120 years provides an example of how glacial retreat can starve rivers of sediment and lead to erosion downstream, and an example of the complex changes that can result from climate change.”
” The storm we watched eroded 10 feet of forest floor. Beneath the tree roots, we could see the remains of beaches formed only a few decades ago, when a surplus of sand was still flowing from the glacier.” Quoted from the case study.
After a storm, the signs of rapid coastal erosion are especially obvious. Here, spruce roots trail uselessly down to the beach, where the dirt has been washed away beneath them. Coastal Erosion Slideshow
“The bottom of a glacier is not the most hospitable place on Earth, but at least two types of bacteria happily live there.” Quoted from the Penn State press release.
“Researchers are beginning their analysis of what are probably the first successful ice cores drilled to bedrock from a glacier in the eastern European Alps.” Quoted from the Ohio State University press release.
Ground Truth Trecking has a new gallery featuring some surprising and spectacular photos of Alaska’s glacial ice. Check it out. Also some great photos from their trek to Malaspina Glacier, including oil seeps, supercooled springs, the most tectonically active mountain in North America, and forested ice-calving faces.
Depending on the data analysis approach, 2011 was either the third most extensive or the sixth most extensive melting year since satellite records began in 1979.
* Data for 2011 is available before the end of the calendar year because the melt season is over.
NSF-funded researches are figuring out the ancient tectonic events that form the subglacial Gamburtsev Mountains hidden beneath the Antarctic ice cover.
NASA researchers have noticed a large crack across the Pine Island Glacer in Antarctica. They believe that it has the potential to produce an iceberg with a surface area of over 300 square miles.
Researchers at City College of New York have discovered that the Greenland ice sheet can experience cycles of extreme melting even when temperatures are not hitting record highs.
“Boulders deposited by an ancient glacier that once covered the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii have provided more evidence of the extraordinary power and reach of global change.”
Climate change has glacial lakes in the Himalayas growing to extreme capacity. Tipping-point lakes at high altitude on extremely steep slopes could be disasters waiting to happen.
This interesting time lapse video of the Columbia Glacier in Alaska clearly shows how the glacier is a conveyor of ice and has retreated year after year.
The Ilulissat Glacier in West Greenland is enormous. It is thought to deposit more ice into the ocean than any other glacier in the Northern Hemisphere.
In a study of 2767 Himalayan Glaciers the Geological Survey of India found that “2184 are retreating, 435 are advancing, and 148 glaciers show no change.”
First complete map of the speed and direction of ice flow in Antarctica, derived from radar interferometric data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s ALOS PALSAR, the European Space Agency’s Envisat ASAR and ERS-1/2, and the Canadian Space Agency’s RADARSAT-2 spacecraft. The color-coded satellite data are overlaid on a mosaic of Antarctica created with data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft. Quoted from the NSAS press release.
“During the last prolonged warm spell on Earth, the oceans were at least four meters — and possibly as much as 6.5 meters, or about 20 feet — higher than they are now. [...] Mainly from melting ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, and many scientists, including UW-Madison geoscience assistant professor Anders Carlson, have expected that Greenland was the main culprit.” Quoted from the University of Wisconsin-Madison news release.
“According to satellite imagery and reports from local scientists, the glacier has moved roughly 800 to 1,000 meters since June 2011. The glacier normally moves 200 to 400 meters in an entire year.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
In many parts of Europe communities depend upon glacial meltwater to supply their summer water needs. With most glaciers in rapid retreat these necessary water supplies are threatened.
A melt water lake contained by ice of Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier broke free last week causing a flash flood that swept down the Mendenhall River. Fortunately it caused very little damage and will serve as a warning.
In August 2010 a large “ice island” about four times the size of Manhattan broke from the Petermann Glacier on the northwestern coast of Greenland. Now the “Petermann Ice Island” is about the size of Manhattan and drifting off the coast of Labrador.
A 97 square-mile chunk of ice broke off of a Greenland glacier about a year ago and was recently spotted by satellites off the coast of Labrador, Canada. This is the largest Arctic iceberg in 50 years.
“Stronger ocean currents beneath West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf are eroding the ice from below, speeding the melting of the glacier as a whole.” Quoted from the Earth Institute of Columbia University press release.
After covering a large portion of Iceland with ash in late May 2011, Grímsvötn Volcano left behind a small lake filled with melt water and a hole in the Vatnajökull Glacier.
Here is an article and photo gallery that people interested in either glaciers or ice climbing might enjoy. The author gets a guided tour into a moulin at the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska.
“Scientists from the U.S., U.K. and Australia have used ice-penetrating radar to create the first high-resolution topographic map of [..] some of the largest fjords or ice cut channels on Earth, providing important insights into the history of ice in Antarctica.” Quoted from The University of Texas at Austin press release.
“The research found that freshwater entering the ocean from melting ice sheets can weaken the climate controlling part of the large-scale ocean circulation, with dramatic climate change as a consequence.” Quoted from The University of Sheffield media release.
“In the last decade, two of the largest three glaciers draining [Greenland] have lost enough ice that, if melted, could have filled Lake Erie.” Quoted from Ohio State University research release.
Grimsvotn is a volcano in Iceland that is located under the Vatnajokull glacier. Recently there has been glacial melting and minor earthquakes in the area. On Saturday it began erupting, producing a large ash cloud.
John Freeland has an interesting blog post titled: “Iceberg Drag Marks on the Bottom of Glacial Lake Agassiz“. He reports that the drag marks are “up to several miles long, hundreds of feet wide and several feet deep.”
If you are building an oil platform such as the Hibernia (the world’s largest) off the coast of St. John’s Newfoundland you need to worry about icebergs. The platform was built on a 600,000-ton gravity-base structure shaped to resist icebergs. “It can withstand contact with a six million tonne iceberg, estimated to be the largest that can drift into that water depth and only expected once in 10,000 years, with repairable damage.” Quoted from the Hibernia.ca website.
“University of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Geochronology Center (BGC) scientists have employed a clever technique to reconstruct the landform history of a 300-square-mile area of Fiordland in New Zealand, from the early Pleistocene some 2.5 million years ago, when the world cooled and glaciers formed, through today’s warmer interglacial period.” Quoted from the UC Berkeley press release.
“Scientists working in the remotest part of Antarctica have discovered that liquid water locked deep under the continent’s coat of ice regularly thaws and refreezes to the bottom, creating as much as half the thickness of the ice in places, and actively modifying its structure.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation announcement.
Between 1921 and 2007 the Rongbuk Glacier, located on north side of Mount Everest, has lost about 320 vertical feet of ice. Compare photos from 1921 and 2007.
After a surge of the Helheim Glacier on the southeast coast of Greenland, researchers discovered warm, Gulf Stream waters in Sermilik Fjord, at the base of the glacier.
“Scientists working in the remotest part of Antarctica have discovered that liquid water locked deep under the continent’s coat of ice regularly thaws and refreezes to the bottom, creating as much as half the thickness of the ice in places, and actively modifying its structure.” Quoted from the Lamont-Doherty press release.
An article at Reuters.com reports that Tuesday’s 6.3 magnitude earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand caused 30 million tons of ice to fall from the Tasman Glacier.
Argentina’s Congress passed a law intended to regulate the activities that can occur in the area surrounding existing glaciers. The law is being challenged by mining companies who have invested billions of dollars in the regulated areas.
This is the first of a series of videos featuring Adrian Hayes who holds the world’s record for reaching the top of Everest, the North Pole and the South Pole in the shortest amount of time. He then embarks on a 3500-kilometer unsupported crossing of Greenland – assisted by kites.
“New research shows that 2010 set new records for the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, expected to be a major contributor to projected sea level rises in coming decades.” This video takes you on a quick helicopter tour showing spectacular meltwater volumes coming off of the Greenland ice sheet.
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