Geophysical Research Letters, January 19 Greenland has been losing mass and contributing to sea-level rise since the 1980’s, according to most studies, with most of this loss occurring through calving of icebergs where glaciers running from the ice sheet meet the ocean. Melting of the surface of the ice sheet each summer however is largely offset […]

Using 1951-1980 as baseline, NASA ranked 2020 as the warmest year on record by a narrow margin, while NOAA and the UK Met Office put 2020 in a close second place, essentially tied with 2016. This record or near-record is even more staggering considering the fact that 2020 saw the beginning of a La Niña, […]

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, January 19 The ratio of ice to water in clouds strongly influences how much they reflect the sun’s rays, and whether they are primarily warming or cooling.  Scientists have struggled however to explain the large number of ice particles found in clouds above the coasts of Antarctica during the summer.  New […]

Nature Scientific Reports, January 15 Glacial melting has been identified as one of the main triggers for larger and more frequent landslides in high mountain Asia (the eastern Pamir, western Himalayas, Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and western Kunlun mountains). For the past two decades, glacier extent in this region has decreased overall, while the number of […]

Advancing Earth and Space Science, January 19   The response of Himalayan rivers to climate change is complex due to multiple competing factors: snowfall and snowmelt; rainfall; and glacier melt. This study focused on 5 river basins in the Central Himalayas, and found that snowmelt contributions to river flows will likely decrease by 2100 under both […]

Nature Communications, January 8 Rapid coastal and riverbank erosion due to thawing permafrost today is one of the main sources of nitrogen nutrients in the Arctic Ocean, contributing around 30-50% of the total input (the rest is transferred from neighboring seas and oceans). This land-derived nitrogen off the Arctic continental shelves boosts the productivity of […]

Nature, January 13   Ice ages have long been associated with small periodic changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, but how and why such changes could trigger an ice age has remained an enigma.  Now, one possible explanation has arisen: under a specific orbital setting, Antarctic icebergs travel, and melt further and further […]

Nature Communications, January 4 The oldest and thickest portions of Arctic sea ice can be found in the Nares Strait, located off the northwest coast of Greenland.  Sea ice tends to form in the Laptev Sea north of Russia, then circulates around the Arctic Ocean, with thick multi-year ice discharging each summer through the Nares. […]

Nature, January 4 Warming does not occur evenly across the world. Regional differences in temperature can influence the way the Earth sends its heat back into space and temporarily dampens the planet’s response to increasing emissions, therefore masking a warmer future. This feedback, not included in most models, has the potential to increase long-term estimates for […]

Science Advances, January 1   Warm Atlantic water flowing into dozens of Greenland’s deepest fjords nearly doubles the amount of ice loss by undercutting their outlet glaciers, accounting for about half of their melting and ice loss during the summer months.  The abrupt ∼1.9°C warming of sub-surface ocean waters around Greenland in 1998–2007 triggered widespread […]

Geophysical Research Letters, August 14   Since the 1970s, freshwater lakes in the Northern Hemisphere have been three times more likely to experience entirely ice-free winters, never freezing at all. Drawing less attention than Arctic sea ice loss, this shift – driven by warmer winters — carries major ecological, socio-economic, and cultural consequences. Projections show […]

Science Advances, December 16 Large tabular icebergs (with areas ≥ 3 km2) are one of the greatest sources of melting from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Until now, studies struggled to accurately model these large icebergs, consistently misrepresenting their survival time or drifting trajectory. By including a new breakup mechanism applied to large icebergs, this study […]

Journal of Geophysical Research, December 15   A new revision of the UK Met Office HadCRUT5 dataset finds that global surface temperatures have actually risen 1.07°C since the industrial revolution, revising upwards their previous estimate of 0.91°C. This increased result arises in part from a better representation of Arctic warming, as well as from improved datasets […]

Nature Communications, December 15 New CMIP6 models developed for the sixth IPCC Assessment Report (AR6) show that surface melt from the Greenland Ice Sheet alone could contribute a total of 18 cm to sea-level rise under high emissions by 2100, nearly double the amount anticipated by CMIP5. These new models better include the Arctic’s greater […]

Frontier Earth Science, December 15 Measurements of carbon emissions (the greenhouse gases CO2 and methane) from a permafrost column sample found that still-frozen layers deeper in the soil produced measurable amounts of emissions, even prior to thaw.  This carbon release appears to arise from active microorganisms living in the frozen permafrost environment, adding to emissions […]