glaciers14
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Tiny Losses of Ice at Antarctica’s Fringes May Hasten Declines in Interior
A new study shows that even minor deterioration of ice shelves can instantaneously hasten the decline of ice hundreds of miles landward.
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Christine McCarthy: A Cheerleader for the Physics of Ice
Christine McCarthy, a geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, scrunches blocks of ice between hunks of rock to study how ice behaves under pressure. Her work provides an important piece of the puzzle of how glaciers move, what makes them speed up, and how they are contributing to sea level rise as the climate warms.
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Iron Chemistry Matters for Ocean Carbon Uptake
An interdisciplinary team of scientists has discovered that, contrary to general scientific belief, iron in nondissolved particle form can stimulate phytoplankton growth, and that the chemical form that particulate iron takes is critical to ocean photosynthesis.
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Palcacocha Icefalls Demonstrate Hazard Vulnerabilities in Peru
In the last week, calving events at Lake Palcacocha in the Peruvian Andes released masses of ice from a glacier on Mount Pucaranra, showing the weakness of the existing infrastructure designed to protect the region from floods.
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Meltwater Lakes Existed Under Antarctic Ice in Ancient Times
In recent years, scientists have discovered hundreds of lakes lying hidden deep beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Now a team of researchers has found the remains of at least one sub-ice lake that existed when the ice was far more extensive, in sediments on the Antarctic continental shelf.
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The Glaciers Are Going
Glaciers around the world have retreated at unprecedented rates and some have disappeared altogether. The melting of glaciers will affect drinking water supplies, water needed to grow food and supply energy, as well as global sea levels.
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Water Is Streaming Across Antarctica
In the first such continent-wide survey, scientists have found extensive drainages of meltwater flowing over parts of Antarctica’s ice during the brief summer. Many of the newly mapped drainages are not new, but the fact they exist at all is significant; they appear to proliferate with small upswings in temperature, so warming projected for this…
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Spy Satellites Reveal the Himalayas’ Changing Glaciers – in 3D
Declassified spy satellite images are beginning to provide the first consistent look at how glaciers across the Himalayas are changing and what future water supplies might look like for millions of people.
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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…
