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antarctica

Climate Change: Greenland’s Dark Zone; Covid CO2 Drop Over; Company Pledges and More

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Mystery of Greenland’s expanding ‘dark zone’ finally solvedhttps://www.livescience.com/greenland-dark-zone-mystery-solved.htmlThe mystery of a growing “dark zone” on Greenland’s melting ice sheet has been solved. Researchers have found that phosphorus-rich dust blown across the ice may be the key to the phenomenon. Greenland’s ice sheet is the second largest in the world. It covers around 656,000 square miles (1.71 million square kilometers), an area three times the size of Texas, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). However, the ice sheet is now in a state of permanent retreat and is losing 500 gigatons (500 billion tons) of ice every … Read more

Researchers Find Traces of Martian Oceans in Antarctic Meteorite

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Mars

A bit of 4-billion-year-old rock blasted off the Martian surface about 15 million years ago and eventually landed in Antarctica, where explorers found it in 1984. In the decades since, organic compounds found in that meteorite have been sources of controversy: Did they come from Mars, or did the meteorites get contaminated on Earth? Now, a team of Japanese researchers has reexamined the meteorites, and say they found traces of ancient oceans, rich in useful carbon and nitrogen — key ingredients for life. The meteorite, known as Allan Hills 84001, after the location where it was first discovered, has long … Read more

Remains of Tropical Rainforest Discovered i Antarctica

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About 90 million years ago, West Antarctica was home to a thriving temperate rainforest, according to fossil roots, pollen and spores recently discovered there, a new study finds. The world was a different place back then. During the middle of the Cretaceous period (145 million to 65 million years ago), dinosaurs roamed Earth and sea levels were 558 feet (170 meters) higher than they are today. Sea-surface temperatures in the tropics were as hot as 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius). This scorching climate allowed a rainforest — similar to those seen in New Zealand today — to take root … Read more

Climate Change Updates

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One of Antarctica’s Glaciers Lost an Iceberg Twice the Size of Washington, D.C.Pine Island Glacier, one of the fastest-shrinking glaciers in Antarctica, has just lost another huge chunk of ice to the sea, continuing a troubling trend that has become a near-annual occurrence in the last decade. Scientists at Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth observation program, have been closely monitoring the glacier since large cracks appeared near its edge in October 2019. Yesterday, those cracks finally cut a chunk of the glacier away (a process known as calving), releasing a giant jigsaw puzzle of fresh icebergs into the nearby Amundsen … Read more

A Quarter of West Antarctic Ice Might Collapse – Live Science

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Glaciers and ice sheets in Antarctica have thinned and weakened dramatically over the past quarter-century, leaving 24% of the ice in the western part of the continent seriously weakened and in danger of collapse. In some places on Antarctica, glaciers have thinned by approximately 400 feet (122 meters). This staggering loss has little to do with weather fluctuations; rather, it unfolded over decades as Earth’s climate warmed, scientists reported in a new study. And that ice loss is accelerating. The researchers found that West Antarctica’s two biggest glaciers — Thwaites and Pine Island — are melting away five times faster … Read more

SCIENCE: Hidden Under the Ice

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Antarctica - pixabay

A huge, trillion-ton iceberg about the size of Delaware broke free from Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf in July 2017. As it moved away from its chilly birth mom and into the Weddell Sea, a vast expanse of water saw the light for the first time in up to 120,000 years. And this month, a team of scientists will venture to the long-ice-buried expanse to investigate the mysterious ecosystem that was hidden beneath the Antarctic ice shelf for so long. The newly exposed seabed stretches across an area of about 2,246 square miles (5,818 square kilometers), according to the British … Read more