The sea along the Tasmanian east coast is a global heating hotspot -- temperatures there have risen at nearly four times the global average. One man has watched entire sea forests disappear in his lifetime
Continue reading...Category Archives: Sea level
Giant dams enclosing North Sea could protect millions from rising waters
Dams between Scotland, Norway, France and England ‘a possible solution’ to problem
A Dutch government scientist has proposed building two mammoth dams to completely enclose the North Sea and protect an estimated 25 million Europeans from the consequences of rising sea levels as a result of global heating.
Sjoerd Groeskamp, an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said a 475km dam between north Scotland and west Norway and another 160km one between west France and south-west England was “a possible solution”.
Continue reading...Submarine to explore why Antarctic glacier is melting so quickly
Scientists reach remote Thwaites glacier, vanishing at increasing rate, for mission
An international team of scientists has reached the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica and is preparing to drill through more than half a kilometre of ice into the dark waters beneath.
The 600-metre deep borehole will allow researchers to lower down a torpedo-shaped robotic submarine that will explore the underside of the ice shelf to better understand why it is melting so fast.
Continue reading...Greenland’s ice sheet melting seven times faster than in 1990s
Scale and speed of loss much higher than predicted, threatening inundation for hundreds of millions of people
Greenland’s ice sheet is melting much faster than previously thought, threatening hundreds of millions of people with inundation and bringing some of the irreversible impacts of the climate emergency much closer.
Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, and the scale and speed of ice loss is much higher than was predicted in the comprehensive studies of global climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to data.
Continue reading...Rising sea levels pose threat to homes of 300m people – study
Figure based on new analysis of coastlines is more than three times previous estimate
More than three times more people are at risk from rising sea levels than previously believed, research suggests.
Land that is currently home to 300 million people will flood at least once a year by 2050 unless carbon emissions are cut significantly and coastal defences strengthened, says the study, published in Nature Communications. This is far above the previous estimate of 80 million.
Continue reading...Glacial melting in Antarctica may become irreversible
Thwaites glacier is likely to thaw and trigger 50cm sea level rise, US study suggests
Antarctica faces a tipping point where glacial melting will accelerate and become irreversible even if global heating eases, research suggests.
A Nasa-funded study found instability in the Thwaites glacier meant there would probably come a point when it was impossible to stop it flowing into the sea and triggering a 50cm sea level rise. Other Antarctic glaciers were likely to be similarly unstable.
Continue reading...Seas rise, hope sinks: Tuvalu’s vanishing islands – in pictures
One of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries is already suffering floods, droughts and coral bleaching
All photographs by Sean Gallagher
Continue reading...‘Extraordinary thinning’ of ice sheets revealed deep inside Antarctica
New research shows affected areas are losing ice five times faster than in the 1990s, with more than 100m of thickness gone in some places
Ice losses are rapidly spreading deep into the interior of the Antarctic, new analysis of satellite data shows.
The warming of the Southern Ocean is resulting in glaciers sliding into the sea increasingly rapidly, with ice now being lost five times faster than in the 1990s. The West Antarctic ice sheet was stable in 1992 but up to a quarter of its expanse is now thinning. More than 100 metres of ice thickness has been lost in the worst-hit places.
Continue reading...Cavity two-thirds the size of Manhattan discovered under Antarctic glacier
Disintegration of rapidly melting Thwaites ice mass could threaten coastal communities worldwide
Scientists have discovered a giant cavity at the bottom of a disintegrating glacier in Antarctica, sparking concerns that the ice sheet is melting more rapidly than expected.
Researchers working as part of a Nasa-led study found the cavern, which they said was 300 metres tall and two-thirds the size of Manhattan, at the bottom of the massive Thwaites glacier.
Continue reading...Global warming of oceans equivalent to an atomic bomb per second
Seas absorb 90% of climate change’s energy as new research reveals vast heating over past 150 years
Global warming has heated the oceans by the equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years, according to analysis of new research.
More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the seas, with just a few per cent heating the air, land and ice caps respectively. The vast amount of energy being added to the oceans drives sea-level rise and enables hurricanes and typhoons to become more intense.
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