Satellites Observe “Traffic Jams” in Antarctic Ice Stream Caused by Tides

A fascinating press release I want to pass along.  At first I thought it was maybe good news in that rising sea levels would slow glacier drainage into the oceans but the affect is the opposite: For the first time, researchers have closely observed how the ocean's tides can speed up or slow down the …

Caltech: Robotic Ocean Gliders Discover Why Antarctic Polar Ice is Melting

Dear Readers, Find below an interesting press release I may as well share verbatim: The rapidly melting ice sheets on the coast of West Antarctica are a potential major contributor to rising ocean levels worldwide. Although warm water near the coast is thought to be the main factor causing the ice to melt, the process …

A History of Climate Science

I have been remiss in not bringing this excellent resource to the attention of AFTIC readers earlier. From the invaluable Skeptical Science website comes a brilliant interactive history of climate science. Any comments on the choices for classification? I think it over counts skeptic and neutral papers.

The other carbon dioxide problem

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory there is a news article posted yesterday that discusses "the other carbon dioxide problem." That problem is, of course, ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is the result of CO2 released into the atmosphere finding its way into ocean waters. Estimates are that around one third of all human emissions of CO2 …

Good news, bad news

Well, the good news is a recent finding of 740,000 year old permafrost in the Canadian arctic. What this suggests is that the permafrost may be more resilient than previously thought. If this ice is 740Kyr old, then it did not melt during the last three inter-glacial cycles. The peak warmth of at least the …

The other Arctic sea ice loss

There has been lots of discussion of this year's arctic sea ice extent. Last year was a shocking 23% lower record breaker. That's 23% lower than the previous record, for which one had to go all the way back to....2005! That's not 23% below the 1979-2001 average, but 23% below the lowest previous measurement! 2005, …

Very cool map of rising sea levels

From NASA JPL's Global Climate Change website, here is a very cool map of sea level rise around the world. Despite what one might think at first, sea level, and sea level rise, is not uniform around the world. Local sea level is a surprisingly complicated function of wind, currents and temperature and globally sea …

Large Hadron Rap

Priceless! (and educational!) [h/t to ThingsBreak]

Don’t rely on secondary sources, educate yourself!

Fed up of trying to decide who to believe in the endless blog wars over climate science? Well, don't despair and don't rely on third parties you may know little about, instead educate yourself! That link is to a very handy page over at Things Break that lists some great resources for learning the science …

The intricacies of sea ice formation

A common misconception about global warming is that it means warming everywhere on the globe. This is an understandable, if too literal, interpretation of the phrase for a non-scientist and is something that is often played upon by less intellectually honest participants in the debate. This is one reason why "climate change" and "climate disruption" …