A
study published in
Nature has some more bad news about global warming. This time it's Antarctica. Andrea Germanos
reports at Common Dreams:
[T]he world's largest ice sheet, previously thought to be at little risk from climate change, has undergone rapid changes in the past five decades, signaling a potential threat to global sea levels. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) holds enough water to raise sea levels over 50 meters.
The moving end point of the glacier on the
EAIS marks an ebb and flow in area previously
thought to be resilient to climate change.
Using declassified spy satellite data from 1963 to 2012, researchers from the University of Durham looked at 175 glaciers along the ocean margins of the ice sheet and found "widespread and synchronous changes" consistent with climate change.
"We've shown for the first time that these glaciers are in concert with climate," Chris Stokes, a professor of geography at Durham University and an lead researcher of the paper, told LiveScience.
"People have thought because [the EAIS] is so big and so cold, it must be some way off a threshold of showing a reaction to climate but actually it is quite sensitive and we can see melt water ponds forming along the margin of this part of the ice sheet," Stokes explained further.
"If the climate is going to warm in the future, our study shows that large parts of the margins of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet are vulnerable to the kinds of changes that are worrying us in Greenland and West Antarctica—acceleration, thinning and retreat," said Stokes.
"We need to monitor their behavior more closely and maybe reassess our rather conservative predictions of future ice sheet dynamics in East Antarctica."
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, and the 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidates:
It was July 16, 1945. At 5:29:45 AM, the quiet southern New Mexico desert morning was shattered by an explosion, the effects of which were felt as far north as Albuquerque. It was the famous Trinity nuclear weapon test, the brainchild of the Manhattan Project, born of the concern that Nazi Germany was developing a similar weapon.
However, Germany wasn't on anyone's mind that morning, as World War II had ended in Europe two months earlier. The war still raged in the Pacific theater; after the successful test of "the gadget" in New Mexico, Manhattan Project Metallurgical Laboratory scientist Leo Szilard, and 69 of his colleagues sent a petition to President Truman expressing their opposition to the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. The petition warned of triggering an arms race, with dire international consequences.
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Tweet of the Day:
It was an "encore performance" of the
Kagro in the Morning show today, with another look back at where we were a year ago: Recapping the craziness of the Republican National Convention's first night, both on the podium and on the floor. Rick Santorum's grandfather's (secretly socialist) hands. Kelly Ayotte's lemonade stand. Nikki Haley's Sudafed. Chris Christie's... Chris Christie. And more. Plus Greg Dworkin's daily polling and issues analysis, and Armando's take on the shouting down of Zoraida Fonalledas.
High Impact Posts. Top Comments.