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With Fewer Hard Frosts, Tropical Mangroves Push North

By Guest PostJanuary 4, 2014Environmentatlantic coast, australia, biodiversity, birds, brazil, climate change, coastal insects, daniel s gruner, evolutionary biology, florida, florida atlantic coast, landsat 5, mangrove forests, Mexico, miami, NASA, new zealand, palm beach county, peru, rising sea levels, salt marshes, temperature, tropical mangroves, university of maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Cold-sensitive mangrove forests have expanded dramatically along Florida’s Atlantic Coast as the frequency of killing frosts has declined, according to a new study based on 28 years of satellite data from the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md.

Between 1984 and 2011, the Florida Atlantic coast from the Miami area northward gained more than 3,000 acres (1,240 hectares) of mangroves. All the increase occurred north of Palm Beach County. Between Cape Canaveral National Seashore and Saint Augustine, mangroves doubled in area. Meanwhile between the study’s first five years and its last five years, nearby Daytona Beach recorded 1.4 fewer days per year when temperatures fell below 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius). The number of killing frosts in southern Florida was unchanged. (more…)

Greenland Ice Stores Liquid Water Year-Round

By Guest PostDecember 30, 2013Environmentairborne radar imagery, catastrophic, clement miege, climate change, effects, equation, global ocean, greenland ice, greenland ice sheet, liquid water, little data, meltwater runoff, nasa operation icebridge, perennial firn aquifer, rick forster, rising sea levels, sea level changes, store, subglacial streams, university of utah, west virginia

Potential for Storing Meltwater Important for Calculating Sea-Level Rise

Researchers at the University of Utah have discovered a new aquifer in the Greenland Ice Sheet that holds liquid water all year long in the otherwise perpetually frozen winter landscape. The aquifer is extensive, covering 27,000 square miles.

The reservoir is known as a “perennial firn aquifer” because water persists within the firn – layers of snow and ice that don’t melt for at least one season. Researchers believe it figures significantly in understanding the contribution of snowmelt and ice melt to rising sea levels. (more…)

NASA: Climate Change May Bring Big Ecosystem Changes

By Guest PostDecember 15, 2011Environmentbiodiversity, biome changes, biosphere, boreal forests, caltech, carbon, climate, climate change, climate model projections, computer modeling, desert, duane waliser, earth, eastern equatorial africa, ecological consequences, ecological sensitivity, ecosystem, element cycles, energy, environmental changes, forest, global climate simulations, grassland, great lakes, great plains, greenhouse gases, himalayas, hotspots, ice, jon bergengren, last glacial maximum, Madagascar, major ecological community type, mediterranean region, melting glaciers, migrate, model projections, modern climate changes, multiple generations, NASA, North America, northern hemisphere, plant communities, rising sea levels, southern south america, tibetan plateau, tundra, water

PASADENA, Calif. – By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth’s land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type – such as forest, grassland or tundra – toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modeling study.

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., investigated how Earth’s plant life is likely to react over the next three centuries as Earth’s climate changes in response to rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases. Study results are published in the journal Climatic Change. (more…)

Rising Oceans – Too Late to Turn the Tide?

By Guest PostJuly 16, 2011Environmentantarctic ice sheets, anthropogenic reasons, atmosphere, atmosphere ocean interactions, bahamas, barbados, bette otto bliesner, cause and effect relationships, climate, climate models, computer simulations, current global warming, earth, global distribution of sea surface temperatures, great polar ice sheets, greenhouse gas concentrations, greenhouse gases, greenland, ice caps, jonathan overpeck, last interglacial period, melting ice sheets, mountain glaciers, natural reasons, nicholas mckay, paleoceanic records, paleoclimate, rising sea levels, sea level, thermal expansion of seawater, thermal expansion of warming ocean waters, university of arizona

*Melting ice sheets contributed much more to rising sea levels than thermal expansion of warming ocean waters during the Last Interglacial Period, a UA-led team of researchers has found. The results further suggest that ocean levels continue to rise long after warming of the atmosphere levels off.*

Thermal expansion of seawater contributed only slightly to rising sea levels compared to melting ice sheets during the Last Interglacial Period, a University of Arizona-led team of researchers has found.

The study combined paleoclimate records with computer simulations of atmosphere-ocean interactions and the team’s co-authored paper is accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. (more…)

Rising Seas Will Affect Major U.S. Coastal Cities by 2100

By Guest PostFebruary 19, 2011Environmentglobal average temperature, global warming, jonathan overpeck, national elevation dataset, new orleans, rising sea affect, rising sea levels, southern atlantic coasts, us coastal cities, virginia beach

*The Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts will be particularly hard hit, research predicts. Miami, New Orleans, Tampa, Fla., and Virginia Beach, Va. could lose more than 10 percent of their land area by 2100*

Rising sea levels could threaten an average of 9 percent of the land within 180 U.S. coastal cities by 2100, according to new research led by University of Arizona scientists. (more…)

Tag Archives: rising sea levels

With Fewer Hard Frosts, Tropical Mangroves Push North

Greenland Ice Stores Liquid Water Year-Round

NASA: Climate Change May Bring Big Ecosystem Changes

Rising Oceans – Too Late to Turn the Tide?

Rising Seas Will Affect Major U.S. Coastal Cities by 2100