The GRL study took two years to complete and is co-authored by Moetasim Ashfaq, a former Stanford postdoctoral fellow now at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The study comes on the heels of a recent NASA report, which concluded that the previous decade, January 2000 to December 2009, was the warmest on record.

Source: ScienceDaily, July 9, 2010

Sea Ice in the Arctic Not Recovering: Another Critical Minimum Forecast

Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) in Bremerhaven and from KlimaCampus of the University of Hamburg have now published data in this context in the annual issue of Sea Ice Outlook. The online publication compares the forecasts on ice cover for September 2010 prepared by around a dozen international research institutes in a scientific "competition." The ice reaches its minimum area at this time every year.

Source: ScienceDaily, June 28, 2010

Glaciers in Tibet Were Never Really Large

The Tibetan Plateau is the largest and highest mountain region on Earth with glaciers whose meltwater provides the water supply for more than 1.3 billion people through several of the largest rivers in Asia. In a thesis in Physical Geography from Stockholm University, Jakob Heyman shows that the glaciers in Tibet have remained relatively small and have not been much larger than today for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years back in time.

Source: ScienceDaily, June 5, 2010

Ocean Stored Significant Warming Over Last 16 Years, Study Finds

The upper layer of the world's ocean has warmed since 1993, indicating a strong climate change signal, according to a new study. The energy stored is enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs per each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet.

Source: ScienceDaily, May 22, 2010

255 Members of the National Academy of Sciences Defend Climate Science Integrity

This statement, signed by 255 of the world's leading scientists, explains the scientific research process and confirms the fundamental conclusions about climate change based on the work of thousands of scientists worldwide. It specifically reaffirms the "compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend," and highlights that there is nothing identified in recent events that has changed the fundamental conclusions about climate change.

Source: ScienceDaily, May 6, 2010

Melting Sea Ice Major Cause of Warming in Arctic, New Study Reveals

"The sea ice acts like a shiny lid on the Arctic Ocean. When it is heated, it reflects most of the incoming sunlight back into space. When the sea ice melts, more heat is absorbed by the water. The warmer water then heats the atmosphere above it. "

Source: ScienceDaily, April 28, 2010

Geologist Connects Regular Changes of Earth's Orbital Cycle to Changes in Climate

Glaciation of Earth also occurs every 100,000 years. Lisiecki found that the timing of changes in climate and eccentricity coincided. "The clear correlation between the timing of the change in orbit and the change in the Earth's climate is strong evidence of a link between the two," said Lisiecki. "It is unlikely that these events would not be related to one another."

Source: ScienceDaily, April 7, 2010

Weathercasters Take on Role of Science Educators; Feel Some Uncertainty on Issue of Climate Change

"A recent survey showed that more than 96 percent of leading climate scientists are convinced that global warming is real and that human activity is a significant cause of the warming," says Maibach. "Climate scientists may need to make their case directly to America's weathercasters, because these two groups appear to have a very different understanding about the scientific consensus on climate change."

Source: ScienceDaily, March 29, 2010

Atlantic 'Conveyor Belt' Not Slowing, NASA Study Finds

The Atlantic overturning circulation is a system of currents, including the Gulf Stream, that bring warm surface waters from the tropics northward into the North Atlantic. There, in the seas surrounding Greenland, the water cools, sinks to great depths and changes direction. What was once warm surface water heading north turns into cold deep water going south. This overturning is one part of the vast conveyor belt of ocean currents that move heat around the globe.

Source: ScienceDaily, March 29, 2010

Mass Loss from Alaskan Glaciers Overestimated? Previous Melt Contributed a Third Less to Sea-Level Rise Than Estimated

The research team, led by Étienne Berthier of the Laboratory for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography at the Université de Toulouse in France, says that glacier melt in Alaska between 1962 and 2006 contributed about one-third less to sea-level rise than previously estimated.

Source: ScienceDaily, March 3, 2010

Temperature Trackers Watch Our Watery World Wax and Wane

"The vast amount of heat stored in the ocean regulates Earth's temperature, much as a flywheel regulates the speed of an engine," said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The ocean has a long history of capturing and giving up heat generated by both human activities and natural cycles; it is the thermal memory of the climate system."

Source: ScienceDaily, February 24, 2010

Ice Shelves Disappearing on Antarctic Peninsula: Glacier Retreat and Sea Level Rise Are Possible Consequences

Research by the U.S. Geological Survey is the first to document that every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula has been retreating overall from 1947 to 2009, with the most dramatic changes occurring since 1990. The USGS previously documented that the majority of ice fronts on the entire Peninsula have also retreated during the late 20th century and into the early 21st century.

Source: ScienceDaily, February 22, 2010

Amplification of Global Warming by Carbon-Cycle Feedback Significantly Less Than Thought, Study Suggests

A new estimate of the feedback between temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has been derived from a comprehensive comparison of temperature and CO2 records spanning the past millennium.

Source: ScienceDaily, January 28, 2010

Ice Is 'Rotten' in the Beaufort Sea

However, in situ observations made in September 2009 by Barber et al. show that much of the ice was in fact "rotten" ice -- ice that is thinner, heavily decayed, and structurally weak due to a uniform temperature throughout.

Source: ScienceDaily, January 23, 2010

Last Decade Was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years, NASA Research Finds

"There's always interest in the annual temperature numbers and a given year's ranking, but the ranking often misses the point," said James Hansen, GISS director. "There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated."

Source: ScienceDaily, January 22, 2010

Why Hasn't Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? New Report on Climate Change Explores the Reasons

According to current best estimates of climate sensitivity, the amount of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases added to Earth's atmosphere since humanity began burning fossil fuels on a significant scale during the industrial period would be expected to result in a mean global temperature rise of 3.8°F -- well more than the 1.4°F increase that has been observed for this time span. Schwartz's analysis attributes the reasons for this discrepancy to a possible mix of two major factors: 1) Earth's climate may be less sensitive to rising greenhouse gases than currently assumed and/or 2) reflection of sunlight by haze particles in the atmosphere may be offsetting some of the expected warming.

Source: ScienceDaily, January 19, 2010

No Rise of Airborne Fraction of Carbon Dioxide in Past 150 Years, New Research Finds

However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

Source: ScienceDaily, December 31, 2009

First Comprehensive Review of the State of Antarctica's Climate

Key findings from the review are highlighted in 85 key points, which you can see in full at: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/SCAR_ssg_ps/ACCE.htm

Source: ScienceDaily, December 1, 2009

Arctic Sediments Show That 20th Century Warming Is Unlike Natural Variation

The possibility that climate change might simply be a natural variation like others that have occurred throughout geologic time is dimming, according to evidence in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper published October 19.

Source: ScienceDaily, October 25, 2009

When Arctic Sea Ice Melts, Shippers Win and Walruses Lose

Arctic sea ice melting, which scientists have linked to global warming, may be a boon for the shipping industry. As the sea ice continues to melt a shipping passage to Russia’s north is becoming more navigable, and now two German ships are close to completing the first trip from Asia to Europe via the Arctic shortcut. However, walruses that live in the Arctic could care less, since their sea ice habitat is rapidly disappearing.

Source: Discover Blogs, September 2009

The Climate's Warm Future Is Now in the Arctic

"Sea ice is like rainforest in the tropics. There are species that can't live without it," says ecologist Eric Post of The Pennsylvania State University, lead author of a paper in the September 11 Science that lays out a broad review of climate change's impact on the Arctic. "It's melting earlier, freezing up later, the contiguous extent is diminishing, and it's happening faster than anyone expected it to happen 10 years ago."

Source: Scientific American, September 10, 2009

Global Warming Reverses Long-Term Arctic Cooling

Based on its long-term orbit, Earth should be heading into an ice age. But instead of continuing to cool—as it had been for at least the past 2,000 years—the Arctic has started to warm. And the reason is humans' impact on the composition of the atmosphere, new research suggests.

Scientific American, September 4, 2009

The findings, detailed in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Science, also suggest that if it weren’t for these manmade pollutants, temperatures around the North Pole would actually be cooling as a result of natural climate patterns.

Source: LiveScience, September 3, 2009

Sun's Cycle Alters Earth's Climate

The amount of energy the sun puts out varies over an 11-year cycle (this cycle also governs the appearance of sunspots on the sun's surface as well as radiation storms that can knock out satellites), but that cycle changes the total amount of energy reaching Earth by only about 0.1 percent. A conundrum for meteorologists was explaining whether and how such a small variation could drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth.

Source: LiveScience, August 27, 2009

Arctic Climate Under Greenhouse Conditions In The Late Cretaceous

New evidence for ice-free summers with intermittent winter sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during the Late Cretaceous – a period of greenhouse conditions - gives a glimpse of how the Arctic is likely to respond to future global warming.

Source: ScienceDaily, July 17, 2009

Ocean Current Shutdown May Be Gradual, Not Sudden

The findings do not change broader concerns about global warming. Temperatures are still projected to increase about four to 11 degrees by the end of this century, and the study actually confirms that some of the world's most sophisticated climate models are accurate.

Source: ScienceDaily, July 17, 2009

Solar Cycle Linked To Global Climate

Establishing a key link between the [11 year] solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Source: ScienceDaily, July 17, 2009

Global Warming: Scientists' Best Predictions May Be Wrong

The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past. The study, which was published online July 13, contains an analysis of published records from a period of rapid climatic warming about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.

Source: ScienceDaily, June 15, 2009

New NASA Satellite Survey Reveals Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning

The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and intense cold ensues. In the summer, wind and ocean currents cause some of the ice naturally to flow out of the Arctic, while much of it melts in place. But not all of the Arctic ice melts each summer; the thicker, older ice is more likely to survive. Seasonal sea ice usually reaches about 2 meters (6 feet) in thickness, while multi-year ice averages 3 meters (9 feet).

Source: ScienceDaily, July 8, 2009

How Humans Have Disrupted The Nitrogen Cycle

Researchers from Brown University and the University of Washington have found a new way to make the link. The scientists show that comparing nitrogen isotopes in their deposited form — nitrates — can reveal the sources of atmospheric nitric oxide. In a paper published June 5 in Science, the group traces the source of nitrates to nitric oxides released through fossil fuel burning that parallels the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The group also reveals that the greatest change in nitrogen isotope ratios occurred between 1950 and 1980, following a rapid increase in fossil fuel emissions.

Source: ScienceDaily, June 5, 2009

Changes In The Sun Are Not Causing Global Warming, New Study Shows

The hypothesis they tested was that increased solar activity reduces cloudiness by changing cosmic rays. So, when clouds decrease, more sunlight is let in, causing the earth to warm. Some climate change skeptics have tried to use this hypothesis to suggest that greenhouse gases may not be the global warming culprits that most scientists agree they are.

Source: ScienceDaily, May 12, 2009

Greenhouse Gases Continue To Climb Despite Economic Slump

Researchers measured an additional 16.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) — a byproduct of fossil fuel burning — and 12.2 million tons of methane in the atmosphere at the end of December 2008. This increase is despite the global economic downturn, with its decrease in a wide range of activities that depend on fossil fuel use.

Source: ScienceDaily, April 26, 2009

By sampling clouds -- and making their own -- researchers have shown for the first time a direct relation between lead in the sky and the formation of ice crystals that foster clouds. The results suggest that lead generated by human activities causes clouds to form at warmer temperatures and with less water. This could alter the pattern of both rain and snow in a warmer world.

Source: ScienceDaily, April 24, 2009

Cuts In Greenhouse Gas Emissions Would Save Arctic Ice, Reduce Sea Level Rise

The threat of global warming can still be greatly diminished if nations cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 70 percent this century, according to a new analysis. While global temperatures would rise, the most dangerous potential aspects of climate change, including massive losses of Arctic sea ice and permafrost and significant sea level rise, could be partially avoided.

Source: ScienceDaily, April 15, 2009

Is Global Warming a Myth?

A raft of recent peer reviewed studies -- many which take advantage of new satellite data -- back up claims that it is emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing global warming. A growing cadre of so-called "global warming skeptics," however, deny these connections and chalk it up to natural cycles.

Source: Scientific American, April 8, 2009

Arctic Literally On Thin Ice, According To New Satellite Data

Until recent years, measurements have shown most Arctic ice has survived at least one summer and often several, said Meier. But the balance has now flipped, and seasonal ice -- which melts and re-freezes every year -- now comprises about 70 percent of Arctic sea ice in winter, up from 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, he said. Thicker ice that has survived two or more years now comprises just 10 percent of ice cover, down from 30 to 40 percent in years past.

Source: ScienceDaily, April 6, 2009

Polar regions found warming fast, raising sea levels

The Arctic and Antarctic regions are warming faster than previously thought, raising world sea levels and making drastic global climate change more likely than ever, international scientists said on Wednesday.

Source: NewsDaily, February 25, 2009

Glaciers In China And Tibet Fading Fast

A three-year study, to be used by the China Geological Survey Institute, shows that glaciers in the Yangtze source area, central to the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in south-western China, have receded 196 square kilometres over the past 40 years.

Glaciers at the headwaters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, now cover 1,051 square kilometres compared to 1,247 square kilometres in 1971, a loss of nearly a billion cubic metres of water, while the tongue of the Yuzhu glacier, the highest in the Kunlun Mountains fell by 1,500 metres over the same

Source: ScienceDaily, February 22, 2009

Glaciers Around The Globe Continue To Melt At High Rates

The new still tentative data of more than 80 glaciers confirm the global trend of fast ice loss since 1980. Glaciers with long-term observation series (30 glaciers in 9 mountain ranges) have experienced a reduction in total thickness of more than 11 m w.e. until 2007. The average annual ice loss during 1980-1999 was roughly 0.3 m w.e. per year. Since 2000, this rate has increased to about 0.7 m w.e. per year.

Source: ScienceDaily, February 4, 2009

Fewer Days Of Extreme Cold And More Days Of Extreme Heat In Europe

Scientists from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) have selected 262 European observatories which analysed the series of minimum and maximum daily temperatures from 1955 to 1998 to estimate trend variations in extreme temperature events. According to the study, in Europe days of extreme cold are decreasing and days of extreme heat increasing. From 0.5ºC to 1ºC in the average minimum temperature, and from 0.5ºC to 2ºC in the average maximum temperature.

Source: ScienceDaily, January 31, 2009

Antarctica is warming, not cooling: study

A review by U.S. scientists of satellite and weather records for Antarctica, which contains 90 percent of the world's ice and would raise world sea levels if it thaws, showed that freezing temperatures had risen by about 0.5 Celsius (0.8 Fahrenheit) since the 1950s.

Source: NewsDaily, January 21, 2009

Scientists Agree Human-induced Global Warming Is Real, Survey Says

A group of 3,146 earth scientists surveyed around the world overwhelmingly agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising, and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

Source: ScienceDaily, January 21, 2009

New Tool Improves Reliability Of Climate Models

Project MARGO offers more exhaustive data than that available at present and will serve to represent more exact models of the past and predict the climate's evolution in the future. In addition, MARGO has enabled researchers to discover new aspects of the Last Glacial Maximum, such as the fact that the ice covering the Northern Atlantic Ocean and extending down to the British Isles was not permanent but actually melted in the warmer months to a much larger extent than it does now.

Source: ScienceDaily, January 21, 2009

Scientists Refute Argument Of Climate Skeptics

Scientists at the GKSS Research Centre of Geesthacht and the University of Bern have investigated the frequency of warmer than average years between 1880 and 2006 for the first time. The result: the observed increase of warm years after 1990 is not a statistical accident.

Soucrce: ScienceDaily, January 10, 2009