RSS Feed
Author Archive
Rougher Atlantic storms to pound Western Europe – study
Posted by Climate Home: Tim Radford on March 21st, 2016
Climate Home: The Atlantic seas could be getting rougher, with winter storms capable of causing dramatic changes to the beaches of Western Europe. And new research shows that the pounding delivered to the shorelines of the UK and France in the winter of 2013-2014 was the most violent since 1948. Gerd Masselink, professor of coastal geomorphology at Plymouth University School of Marine Science and Engineering, UK, and colleagues report in Geophysical Research Letters that they decided to switch focus from sea...
Posted in 
Mediterranean could be in driest spell for 900 years
Posted by Climate Home: Tim Radford on March 14th, 2016
Climate Home: The drought that has blighted the eastern Mediterranean since 1998 could be the worst in nine centuries, according to new research led by scientists from the US space agency Nasa.
They report in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres that they used a tree-ring chronicle – trees accurately reflect the rainfall conditions of each year in their annual growth – to establish what had happened.
They found that although the island of Cyprus and the bordering nations of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon,...
Rate of Antarctic ice melt to double by 2050 – study
Posted by Climate Home: Tim Radford on October 14th, 2015
Climate Home: Antarctica, the planet’s largest desert, is home to 90% of the world’s ice – enough to raise global sea levels by at least 60 metres. So what happens to its ice and snow is a matter of serious concern to all of us.
One group has just predicted that, by 2050, the rate at which the ice shelves melt will double. Another reports that powerful winds are not just shifting Antarctica’s snow, but are also blowing 80 billion tonnes of it away, into the sea or the atmosphere.
Both cases exemplify the...