
Closing Out Climate Week: Why 2 Degrees is Too High for the Cryosphere
Experts say that snow and ice loss will create conditions beyond the limits of adaptation for billions of people if climate warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius.
Greenland ice sheet. Photo: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute
Experts say that snow and ice loss will create conditions beyond the limits of adaptation for billions of people if climate warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius.
A study adds evidence that the Greenland Ice Sheet will be vulnerable to human-induced climate change in coming centuries.
A new study links climate change to increasing stalling of the jet stream, but also highlights uncertainties in climate models.
Will overshooting 1.5°C of warming push us over climate tipping points, triggering irreversible and abrupt changes?
Scientists have found that Greenland’s bedrock is rich with mercury in some areas — and as the ice sheet rapidly melts, that mercury is being released into local waters.
The discovery of fossil plants below a mile of Greenland ice indicates that the ice sheet completely melted in the past, and suggests it could rapidly do so again.
Using radar and other techniques, researchers have mapped out the sediments left by a lake that apparently existed before Greenland was glaciated. Next step: drilling through the ice to see what they contain.
To measure algal blooms across large regions of the Greenland ice, and understand their effects on melting over time, scientists are turning to space.
If human societies don’t sharply curb emissions of greenhouse gases, Greenland’s rate of ice loss this century is likely to greatly outpace that of any century since shortly after the end of the last ice age, a new study concludes.
The massive ice sheet is now locked into a certain amount of decline. But reducing emissions remains critical to preventing catastrophic loss of the entire ice sheet.