(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)
A major current of circulating air called the Arctic polar vortex has completely reversed course and is now spinning ‘backwards’. With winds now blowing easterly, scientists are trying to predict what effect this might have on weather systems in the coming months. Before you start envisioning the sudden collapse of our planet’s weather systems, these reversals aren’t all that unusual……Story continues…..
By: DAVID NIELD
Source: ScienceAlert
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Critics:
Rising global temperatures cause the ice in Antarctica to melt, which in turn, causes the level of the oceans to increase around the world. This is known as sea-level rise. Scientists warn deep ocean water flows from the Antarctic could decline by 40 percent by 2050, threatening the collapse of circulation crucial for planetary systems.
With a warmer climate, there would definitely be some room for human settlement, but Antarctica is geologically very similar to the Andes so it’s never going to be prime real estate. Ever-shifting factors, like the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, could slow or accelerate global warming, and in turn, the rate that glaciers melt.
While West Antarctica warmed by over 0.1 °C/decade from the 1950s to the 2000s and the exposed Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 3 °C (5.4 °F) since the mid-20th century, the colder and more stable East Antarctica had been experiencing cooling until the 2000s.
About 30 kilometers above the continent’s icy surface, in the layer known as the stratosphere, a series of warming events took place starting in July 2024. July temperatures in the stratosphere above Antarctica are typically around minus 80 degrees Celsius (minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit).
Scientists have created the first ever large-scale map of microscopic algae as they bloomed across the surface of snow along the Antarctic Peninsula coast. Results indicate that this ‘green snow’ is likely to spread as global temperatures increase.Scientists have created the first ever large-scale map of microscopic algae as they bloomed across the surface of snow along the Antarctic Peninsula coast.
Results indicate that this ‘green snow’ is likely to spread as global temperatures increase. Climate change is the greatest long-term threat to the region. Some parts of Antarctica are experiencing significant ice retreat, including the collapse of ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula, while other areas are increasing.
This is one of the highest, driest, and coldest places on Earth where humans have a permanent presence. But living there as a permanent Antarctic resident would be hard, expensive and potentially bad for your health — although it does provide a useful analogue for what we might expect on long-duration space flights.
Without any ice, Antarctica would emerge as a giant peninsula and archipelago of mountainous islands, known as Lesser Antarctica, and a single large landmass about the size of Australia, known as Greater Antarctica. These regions have different geologies. Scientists are working on an unusual plan to prevent Antarctic glaciers from melting. They want to build a set of giant underwater curtains in front of ice sheets to protect them from being eroded by warm sea water.
If all the ice covering Antarctica , Greenland, and in mountain glaciers around the world were to melt, sea level would rise about 70 meters (230 feet). The ocean would cover all the coastal cities. And land area would shrink significantly. But many cities, such as Denver, would survive. The South Pole is a lot colder than the North Pole. Both the North and South Pole are very cold because they get very little direct sunlight throughout the year.
This has to do with where the poles are located on the sphere-shaped Earth. The North Pole is at the top, and the South Pole is at the bottom. While this part of Antarctica’s ice sheet is destined to be lost, other vulnerable sections of Earth’s environment can still be saved by reducing heat-trapping emissions so there is reason to still cut back on carbon pollution, Naughten said.
Antarctica hasn’t always been covered with ice – the continent lay over the south pole without freezing over for almost 100 million years. Then, about 34 million years ago, a dramatic shift in climate happened at the boundary between the Eocene and Oligocene epochs. If all glaciers and ice sheets melted, global sea level would rise by more than 195 feet (60 meters).
NASA continuously measures the weight of glaciers and ice sheets – with the twin GRACE satellites from 2002 to 2017, and with the GRACE-Follow On satellites since 2018. Antarctica’s “doomsday glacier,” referred to as such for its potential to dramatically raise global sea levels, is melting faster than we thought thanks to warmer sea water passing below it, according to a new study.
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