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World’s melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise

By Guest PostMay 29, 2013Environmentalaska, alex gardner, antarctic ice sheets, arctic canada, clark university, climate experiment, coastal greenland, columbia glacier, contribution, glacier mass changes, grace, gravity recovery, greenland, icesat, john wahr, melting glaciers, NASA, sea rise, sea-level rise, tad pfeffer, the himalayas, the southern andes, university colorado boulder, university of michigan, world

While 99 percent of Earth’s land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world’s glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder.

The new research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas. The glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic sheets lost an average of roughly 260 billion metric tons of ice annually during the study period, causing the oceans to rise 0.03 inches, or about 0.7 millimeters per year. (more…)

European Satellite Confirms UW Numbers: Arctic Ocean is on Thin Ice

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Environmentandy ridout, arctic ocean, Arctic sea ice, arctic waters, assimilation system, axel schweiger, below the ice, cloud, cryosat 2 satellite, data, duncan wingham, european satellite, european space agency, extent, ice ocean modeling, icesat, jinlun zhang, katharine giles, land elevation satellite, NASA, ocean surface, pan arctic, piomas, polar scientist, rosemary willatt, satellite observation, seymour laxon, thin ice, total volume, uk, university of washington, vulnerable, warming

The September 2012 record low in Arctic sea-ice extent was big news, but a missing piece of the puzzle was lurking below the ocean’s surface. What volume of ice floats on Arctic waters? And how does that compare to previous summers? These are difficult but important questions, because how much ice actually remains suggests how vulnerable the ice pack will be to more warming.

New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years has produced widely quoted estimates of Arctic sea-ice volume. Findings based on observations from a European Space Agency satellite, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, show that the Arctic has lost more than a third of summer sea-ice volume since a decade ago, when a U.S. satellite collected similar data. (more…)

NASA Map Sees Earth’s Trees in a New Light

By Guest PostFebruary 19, 2012Environment, Scienceaustralia, caltech, carbon, carbon cycle, climate change, cloud, data, earth, effects of topography, eucalyptus, flowering plants, forest, forest canopy, forest habitat, global map of forest height, height, high resolution map, icesat, laser pulse measurements, lidar, light detection and ranging, marc simard, modis, monitor, NASA, new zealand, satellites, south latitude, southern tropical forests, Space, spatial modeling, spatial resolution, trmm sensors, vegetation, worldclim database

PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA-led science team has created an accurate, high-resolution map of the height of Earth’s forests. The map will help scientists better understand the role forests play in climate change and how their heights influence wildlife habitats within them, while also helping them quantify the carbon stored in Earth’s vegetation.

Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Mass., created the map using 2.5 million carefully screened, globally distributed laser pulse measurements from space. The light detection and ranging (lidar) data were collected in 2005 by the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System instrument on NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). (more…)

Russian River Water Unexpected Culprit Behind Arctic Freshening

By Guest PostJanuary 6, 2012EnvironmentArctic, arctic ocean, arctic oscillation, Arctic sea ice, atmospheric condition, atmospheric pressure, beaufort high, beaufort sea, bottom pressures, canada, canada basin, cecilia peralta ferriz, changes in ocean circulation, clockwise gyre, cold halocline, eurasian basin, fraction, freshwater, freshwater in the upper ocean, freshwater pathway, global climate, global warming, grace, greenland, hemispherewide phenomenon, icesat, ignatius rigor, jamie morison, low pressure, matt alkire, melting ice, mike steele, nasa satellites, poles, roger andersen, ron kwok, russia, russian river water, salinity of the arctic ocean, sources, united states, university of washington

A hemispherewide phenomenon – and not just regional forces – has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea.

Frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia’s mighty rivers was diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean in response to a decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with the phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation, according to findings published in the Jan. 5 issue of Nature. (more…)

First-of-Its-Kind Map Details the Height of the Globe’s Forests

By Guest PostJuly 21, 20101 commentEnvironment, Scienceaqua, atmosphere, canopy, carbon cycles, carbon dioxide, desdynI, douglas fir, ecosystems, height of the world’s forests, icesat, imaging spectrodiometer, lidar, michael lefsky, modis, NASA, richard Houghton, satellite data, satellites, tallest forests, terra, tropical rain forests, woods hole research center

WASHINGTON — Using satellite data, scientists have produced a first-of-its kind map that details the height of the world’s forests. Although there are other local- and regional-scale forest canopy maps, the new map is the first that spans the entire globe based on one uniform method.

(more…)

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World’s melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise

European Satellite Confirms UW Numbers: Arctic Ocean is on Thin Ice

NASA Map Sees Earth’s Trees in a New Light

Russian River Water Unexpected Culprit Behind Arctic Freshening

First-of-Its-Kind Map Details the Height of the Globe’s Forests