Antarctica10
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Ancient Leaves Link Loss of Antarctic Ice to a CO2 Spike
Twenty-three million years ago, the Antarctic Ice Sheet began to shrink, going from an expanse larger than today’s to one about half its modern size. Ancient fossilized leaves retrieved from a lake bed in New Zealand now show for the first time that carbon dioxide levels increased dramatically over a relatively short period of time…
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Wind-Blown Antarctic Sea Ice Helps Drive Ocean Circulation
Antarctic sea ice is constantly on the move as powerful winds blow it away from the coast and out toward the open ocean. A new study shows how that ice migration may be more important for the global ocean circulation than anyone realized.
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Pump Meltwater Back on Antarctica? Do You Have 850,000 Wind Turbines?
A new study that looked at the feasibility of lowering sea levels by pumping water onto icy Antarctica offers a warning about the costs today’s greenhouse gas emissions may be creating for future generations.
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In the Southern Ocean, a Carbon-Dioxide Mystery Comes Clear
Twenty thousand years ago, low concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere allowed the earth to fall into the grip of an ice age. But despite decades of research, the reasons why levels of the greenhouse gas were so low then have been difficult to piece together. New research, published today in the leading journal…
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Antarctica’s Ice: the Big Picture
The impacts of climate change are being felt around the world, but the changes in the polar regions have been more pronounced. The world began to take notice to these changes when an ice shelf roughly the size of Rhode Island collapsed into the ocean in 2002.
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Using LiDAR to Shine a Light on Ross Ice Shelf
LiDar (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technique that uses light to develop an elevation image of the surface of the Earth. It is sensitive enough to image small items such as seals lying on the ice surface.
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American Geophysical Union 2015: Key Earth Institute Events
Scientists at Columbia University’s Earth Institute will present important findings at the American Geophysical Union fall 2015 meeting, Dec. 14-18–the world’s largest gathering of earth and space scientists.
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The Compact Efficiency of New Airborne Science
The latest team celebration is around the magnetometer data. Magnetics has evolved quite a bit over the years of geophysical sampling. Lamont scientist Robin Bell recalls when in the 1990s working on a project in West Antarctica that the magnetometer was towed on a winch ~100 meters behind the aircraft – now it is nearly…
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Exploring Beneath Earth’s Changing Ice Sheets
If just the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt, it would raise global sea level by 6 meters. That’s more than a theoretical problem. West Antarctica is losing ice mass, and scientists are worried.
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