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Emissions Could Make Earth Uninhabitable
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on February 28th, 2016
Climate News Network: Greenhouse gases could tip the Earth-or at least a planet like Earth, orbiting a star very like the Sun-into a runaway greenhouse effect, according to new research.
The new hothouse planet would become increasingly steamy, and then start to lose its oceans to interplanetary space. Over time, it would become completely dry, stay at a temperature at least 60°C hotter than it is now, and remain completely uninhabitable, even if greenhouse gas levels could be reduced.
Max Popp, postdoctoral researcher...
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Cloud Blanket Warms Up Melting Icecap
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on January 30th, 2016
Climate News Network: Researchers have identified another piece in the climate machinery that is accelerating the melting of the Greenland ice cap. The icy hills are responding to the influence of a higher command system: the clouds.
An international research team led by scientists from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium report in Nature Communications journal that cloud cover above the northern hemisphere’s largest single volume of permanent ice is raising temperatures by between 2 degrees and 3 degrees...
Weather Extremes Slash Cereal Yields
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on January 9th, 2016
Climate News Network: Climate change may have already begun to take its toll of agriculture. New research suggests that drought and extreme heat in the last 50 years have reduced cereal production by up to 10%. And, for once, developed nations may have sustained greater losses than developing nations. Researchers have been warning for years that global warming as a consequence of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—in turn, a pay-off from increased fossil fuel combustion—will result in a greater frequency...
Climate Change Boosted Australia’s 2010 Floods
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on November 21st, 2015
Climate News Network: For the first time, researchers have linked the catastrophic floods in Australia in the summer of 2010 with global warming. And they warn that the double hazard of long-term ocean warming and rising atmospheric temperatures makes the risk of extreme rainfall greater in years to come.
In 2010, during a natural cyclic Pacific phenomenon called La Niña, sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific were high, and the air became saturated with moisture.
When the clouds billowed...
Greenland’s Rapidly Melting Glaciers ‘Will Result in Rising Sea Levels for Decades to Come’
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on November 15th, 2015
Climate News Network: A massive Greenland glacier that holds enough water to raise sea levels by half a meter [nearly 20 inches] is melting at speed, according to a new study.
The Zachariae Isstrom in northeast Greenland has entered a phase of accelerated retreat, and is losing mass at the rate of 5 billion metric tons a year, according to U.S. scientists.
They report in the journal Science that a succession of aerial surveys combined with multiple satellite observations has established that the base of the glacier...
Global Warming Is Draining the Waters of Life
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on November 14th, 2015
Climate News Network: Up to two billion people who depend on winter snow to deliver their summer water could see shortages by 2060 as upland and mountain snowpacks continue to dwindle.
An estimated 300 million people could find, 45 years on, that they simply won’t have enough water for all their needs, according to new research.
Climate change driven by rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide-in turn, fed by human combustion of fossil fuels-may already be affecting global precipitation. Researchers have consistently...
Humans to Blame for Catastrophic Drought in California, Scientists Say
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on August 28th, 2015
Climate News Network: One way or another, humans are to blame for the catastrophic drought in California that scientists say may be emerging as a “new normal.” Either humans have mismanaged the state’s water or human-triggered global warming has begun to help turn America’s landscape of wine and roses into a dustbowl, according to two new studies. And the arguments have relevance extending far beyond the U.S. west, as the European Drought Observatory has warned that much of mainland Europe is now caught up in the continent’s...
Drought becoming ‘new normal’ for Californians
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on August 28th, 2015
Climate News Network: One way or another, humans are to blame for the catastrophic drought in California that scientists say may be emerging as a “new normal”.
Either humans have mismanaged the state’s water, or human-triggered global warming has begun to help turn America’s landscape of wine and roses into a dustbowl, according to two new studies.
And the arguments have relevance extending far beyond the US west, as the European Drought Observatory has warned that much of mainland Europe is now caught up in the...
Natural world feels the heat as temperatures soar
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on July 13th, 2015
Climate News Network: Extremes of heat - and an extra helping of drought - have begun to change the planet in small, subtle ways, and will almost certainly continue the process of change, according to new research.
Bird species such as the Elegant Tern have begun to move north from the Gulf of California in Mexico, a species of ant that lives underground has shown it cannot take the heat, and the giant trees of the world’s forests may be at risk.
The link between any single extreme of heat and drought, and global...
Alaska’s glaciers melt faster as climate change speeds up
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on June 30th, 2015
Climate News Network: The glaciers of Alaska are melting and retreating: the chief cause is climate change and the loss of ice is unlikely to slow, according to a new study by US scientists. They calculate that the frozen rivers of the Pacific coast of America’s northernmost state are melting fast enough to cover the whole of Alaska with 30 cms of water every seven years. Since Alaska is enormous – it covers 1.5 million square kilometres and is the size of California, Texas and Montana put together – this adds up to...