A sharp spike in Greenland temperatures since 1995 showed the giant northern island 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) hotter than its 20th-century average, the warmest in more than 1,000 years, according to new ice core data. Until now Greenland ice cores -- a glimpse into long-running temperatures before thermometers -- hadn’t shown much of a clear signal of global warming on the remotest north central part of the island, at least compared to the rest of the world. But the ice cores also hadn’t been updated since 1995. Newly analyzed cores, drilled in 2011, show a dramatic rise in temperature in the previous 15 years, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature. “We keep on (seeing) rising temperatures between 1990s and 2011,” said study lead author Maria Hoerhold, a glaciol...
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New study connecting extreme thunderstorms and tree deaths suggests the tropics will see more major blowdown events in a warming world Tropical forests are crucial for sucking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But they’re also subject to intense storms that can cause “windthrow” – the uprooting or breaking of trees. These downed trees decompose, potentially turning a forest from a carbon sink into a carbon source. Members of NGEE-Tropics visit what they named “Blowdown Gardens,” an area that experienced windthrow near one of their field sites in the Amazon. Photo Credit: Jeff Chambers/Berkeley Lab A new study finds that more extreme thunderstorms from climate change will likely cause a greater number of large windthrow events in the Amazon rainforest. This is one of the fe...
Read MoreLast year was the world's joint fifth-warmest on record and the last nine years were the nine warmest since pre-industrial times, putting the 2015 Paris Agreement's goal to limit global warming to 1.5C in serious jeopardy, U.S. scientists have said. Last year tied with 2015 as the fifth-warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880, NASA said. That was despite the presence of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly. The world's average global temperature is now 1.1C to 1.2C higher than in pre-industrial times. FILE PHOTO: The sun rises behind the London skyline as a second heatwave is predicted for parts of the country, Richmond Park, London, Britain, August 8, 2022. REUTERS/Toby Melville The U.S. National Oceanic...
Read MoreRecord-high winter temperatures swept across parts of Europe over the new year, bringing calls from activists for faster action against climate change while offering short-term respite to governments struggling with high gas prices. Hundreds of sites have seen temperature records smashed in the past days, from Switzerland to Poland to Hungary, which registered its warmest Christmas Eve in Budapest and saw temperatures climb to 18.9 degrees Celsius (66.02°F) on Jan. 1. In France, where the night of Dec. 30-31 was the warmest since records began, temperatures climbed to nearly 25C in the southwest on New Year's Day while normally bustling European ski resorts were deserted due to a lack of snow. A cable car is seen on mountain Jahorina in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina January 4,...
Read MoreSkiing over Christmas holidays no longer guaranteed – even with snow guns
For many people, holidays in the snow are as much a part of the end of the year as Christmas trees and fireworks. As global warming progresses, however, white slopes are becoming increasingly rare. Researchers at the University of Basel have calculated how well one of Switzerland’s largest ski resorts will remain snow reliable with technical snowmaking by the year 2100, and how much water this snow will consume. The future for ski sports in Switzerland looks anything but rosy – or rather white. Current climate models predict that there will be more precipitation in winter in the coming decades, but that it will fall as rain instead of snow. Despite this, one investor recently spent several million Swiss francs on expanding the Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis ski resort. A short-sighted decis...
Read MoreNomad Tsering Angchuk vows to stay put in his remote village in India’s Ladakh region. His two sons and most of his fellow villagers have migrated to a nearby urban settlement but Angchuk is determined to herd his flock of fine cashmere-producing goats in the treeless Kharnak village, a hauntingly beautiful but unforgiving, cold mountainous desert. Dolma Angmo, wife of nomad Tsering Angchuk, attends her hardy Himalayan goats that produce cashmere in the remote Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan) The 47-year-old herds 800 sheep and goats and a flock of 50 Himalayan yaks in Kharnak. In 2013, he migrated to Kharnakling, an urban settlement in the outskirts of a regional town called Leh but returned a year later,...
Read MoreStudy highlights wide-scale carbon mitigation strategies to maintain snowpack throughout Americas Snowcapped mountains not only look majestic – They’re vital to a delicate ecosystem that has existed for tens of thousands of years. Mountain water runoff and snowmelt flows down to streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans – and today, around a quarter of the world depends on these natural “water towers” to replenish downstream reservoirs and groundwater aquifers for urban water supplies, agricultural irrigation, and ecosystem support. But this valuable freshwater resource is in danger of disappearing. The planet is now around 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial levels, and mountain snowpacks are shrinking. Last year, a study co-led by Alan Rhoades and ...
Read MoreMajor glaciers, including Dolomites and Yosemite, to disappear by 2050 – U.N. report
Some of the world's most famous glaciers, including in the Dolomites in Italy, the Yosemite and Yellowstone parks in the United States and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are set to disappear by 2050 due to global warming, whatever the temperature rise scenario, according to a UNESCO report. FILE PHOTO: Visitors near Glacier Point wait for the sun to rise in Yosemite National Park, California, U.S. July 2, 2021. REUTERS/Tracy Barbutes The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO monitors some 18,600 glaciers across 50 of its World Heritage sites and said that glaciers in one third of World Heritage sites will disappear by 2050 regardless of the applied climate scenario. While the rest can be saved by keeping global temperature rise below 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) relative to...
Read MoreFor decades, Konchok Dorjey grazed the world’s finest cashmere-producing goats in the arid, treeless Kharnak village in India’s Ladakh region, a high mountainous cold desert that borders China and Pakistan. But a decade ago, the 45-year-old nomad gave up his pastoral life in search of a better future for his family. He sold off his animals and migrated to an urban settlement in the outskirts of a regional town called Leh. Dorjey now lives with his wife, two daughters and a son in Kharnakling, where scores of other nomadic families from his native village have also settled in the last two decades. Nomadic women milk their hardy Himalayan goats that produce cashmere in the remote Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Kh...
Read MoreOctober 2022 is set to be the hottest month of October in France since records started in 1945, national weather agency Meteo-France said in a statement. With an average temperature close to or even just above 17 degrees Celsius (63 Fahrenheit) - three to four degrees above normal levels - last month was far warmer than the previous record in October 2001, when temperatures averaged 16.3C. People enjoy a warm and sunny autumn day on the beach of the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, France October 27, 2022. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard The second half of the month saw an exceptionally long and intense period of unseasonably high temperatures, with the southwestern city of Bordeaux registering on Oct. 16 the latest 30C since records started. Meteo-France said that due to climate ...
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