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By mid-century, more Antarctic snowfall may help offset sea-level rise

Science Daily - Wed, 08/24/2016 - 20:22
Scientists have used historical records and climate simulations to examine snowfall trends in Antarctica. They found that the effect of rising temperatures on snowfall has so far been overshadowed by Antarctica's large natural climate variability, which comes from random, chaotic variations in the polar weather. By mid-century, however, as temperatures continue to rise, the study shows how the effect of human-induced warming on Antarctica's net snow accumulation should emerge above the noise.

Climate analysis makes sense of Antarctic puzzle

Science Daily - Wed, 08/24/2016 - 20:22
Researchers caution that global warming signals are being masked by random weather variations and report that the human influence on snowfall levels will become detectable within the next few decades.

A mystery of form and structure: Untangling the Landscape of China's Tarim Basin

Science Daily - Wed, 08/24/2016 - 12:55
Earth scientists have untangled the curious landscape of China's Tarim Basin using a model simulation of ancient events. Despite lying in arid desert and being the site of rapidly growing, elongated folds of stratified rock called anticlines, the Tarim Basin region features huge flat surfaces that have been beveled across the tops of those folds. The folds are caused by the ongoing convergence between India and Asia.

Humans have caused climate change for 180 years

Science Daily - Wed, 08/24/2016 - 12:50
An international research project has found human activity has been causing global warming for almost two centuries, proving human-induced climate change is not just a 20th century phenomenon.

Scientists begin to unravel summer jet stream mystery

Science Daily - Wed, 08/24/2016 - 07:46
Scientists have discovered the cause of the recent run of miserable wet summers as they begin to unravel the mysteries of the Atlantic jet stream.

Study measures methane release from Arctic permafrost

Science Daily - Mon, 08/22/2016 - 11:54
A new research project has provided the first modern evidence of a landscape-level permafrost carbon feedback, in which thawing permafrost releases ancient carbon as climate-warming greenhouse gases.

Antarctica's past shows region's vulnerability to climate change

Science Daily - Mon, 08/22/2016 - 10:18
Fresh understanding of West Antarctica has revealed how the region's ice sheet could become unstable in a warming world.

NASA monitors the 'new normal' of sea ice

Science Daily - Fri, 08/19/2016 - 10:42
This year's melt season in the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas started with a bang, with a record low maximum extent in March and relatively rapid ice loss through May. One NASA sea ice scientist describes this as 'the new normal.'

Thin tropical clouds cool the climate

Science Daily - Wed, 08/17/2016 - 08:06
Thin clouds at about 5 km altitude are more ubiquitous in the tropics than previously thought and they have a substantial cooling effect on climate, report researchers. The cooling effect of mid-level clouds is currently missing in global climate models.

Sea ice strongly linked to climate change in past 90,000 years

Science Daily - Tue, 08/16/2016 - 10:10
Expansion and retreat of sea ice varied consistently in pace with rapid climate changes through past 90,000 years, a new study shows.

New Antarctic ice discovery aids future climate predictions

Science Daily - Tue, 08/16/2016 - 07:47
A team of scientists has discovered a 65 percent reduction in sea ice during the last interglacial period around 128,000 years ago.

Managing climate change refugia to protect wildlife

Science Daily - Wed, 08/10/2016 - 17:09
Natural and cultural areas that will remain similar to what they are today -- despite climate change -- need to be identified, managed and conserved as 'refugia' for at-risk species, according to a new study. The study sets out, for the first time, specific steps to help identify and manage these more resilient and climate-stable havens for plants, animals and fishes.

Climate change already accelerating sea level rise, study finds

Science Daily - Wed, 08/10/2016 - 07:46
Greenhouse gases are already having an accelerating effect on sea level rise, but the impact has so far been masked by the cataclysmic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, according to a new study.

Strategies needed for light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas reduction

Science Daily - Tue, 08/09/2016 - 13:44
Solutions including electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, vehicle connectivity, and automation are examined.

Lake Tanganyika fisheries declining from global warming

Science Daily - Mon, 08/08/2016 - 15:34
The decrease in fishery productivity in Lake Tanganyika since the 1950s is a consequence of global warming rather than just overfishing, according to a new report. The lake was becoming warmer at the same time in the 1800s that the abundance of fish began declining and the lake's algae started decreasing. Large-scale commercial fishing did not begin on Lake Tanganyika until the 1950s.

Melting ice sheet could expose frozen Cold War-era hazardous waste

Science Daily - Thu, 08/04/2016 - 13:12
Climate change is threatening to expose hazardous waste at an abandoned camp thought to be buried forever in the Greenland Ice Sheet, new research has found. Camp Century, a United States military base built within the Greenland ice sheet in 1959, doubled as a top-secret site for testing the feasibility of deploying nuclear missiles during the Cold War. When the camp was decommissioned in 1967, its infrastructure and waste were abandoned.

Whales' ultrasonic hearing has surprisingly ancient history, fossilized ear shows

Science Daily - Thu, 08/04/2016 - 12:59
All living toothed whales rely upon echoes of their own calls to navigate and hunt underwater, a skill that works best in conjunction with high-frequency hearing. Now, researchers who studied one of the best-preserved ears of any ancient whale ever discovered find that whales' high-frequency hearing abilities arose earlier than anticipated.

Stone Age hunter-gatherers experimented with farming in Turkey before migrating to Europe

Science Daily - Thu, 08/04/2016 - 12:59
Clusters of hunter-gatherers spent much of the late Stone Age working out the basics of farming on the fertile lands of Turkey before taking this knowledge to Europe. In an analysis of ancient genomes, researchers report that two waves of early European settlers belonged to the same gene pool as farmers in Turkey -- genealogy that can be traced back to some of the first people to cultivate crops outside of Mesopotamia.

New genome reveals how Arctic microbes survive in cold extreme habitats

Science Daily - Wed, 08/03/2016 - 09:39
Scientists have revealed how a tiny Arctic microbe, crucial to shaping the surface of glaciers, survives in such extreme conditions.

Warm ocean current reaches surprisingly far south in the Antarctic Weddell Sea

Science Daily - Tue, 08/02/2016 - 09:39
New observations show that warm deep water reaches the large Filchner ice shelf in the southern Weddell Sea.

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