With only one-quarter of the sea floor mapped with sonar, it is impossible to know how many seamounts there are. However, radar satellites that measure ocean height can also find them, by looking for subtle signs of seawater mounding above a hidden seamount, tugged by its gravity. A 2011 study using the method found more …
Sixty percent of the world’s freshwater is stored in Antarctica’s ice sheets. This equates to thirty million cubic kilometers of ice. If all of this ice was to melt, the seas would rise by 58 meters.
A new study shows that climate change may undermine forests’ ability to store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. They found a wide range of estimates of potential carbon gains or losses in different regions, with some regions most at risk of losing forest carbon coinciding with locations of many forest carbon offset …
It has long been believed that the thawing of permafrost in the Arctic would lead to runaway greenhouse gas emissions. However, extensive analysis of data from satellites and field sensors has found no sign of this. On the contrary, permafrost areas in the far north have to date actually absorbed more carbon than they have …
The Drake Passage is well known for its violent seas, with waves that can top 12 meters and powerful converging currents, some flowing as fast as 150 million cubic meters per second. Cold water from the Southern Ocean and warmer water from the north collide here, producing powerful and energetic eddies.
New research shows that although methane traps large amounts of heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, it also creates cooling clouds that offset 30% of the heat.
Long before the dinosaurs there existed many other types of animals including buffalo sized reptiles. Many died out in a mass extinction during the Capitanian Age roughly 260 million years ago. A new study suggests that this mass extinction was actually not one event but two, separated by nearly 3 millions years. Both were caused …
The Earth is not on track to avoid the worst effects of climate change according to a new study. “Our plans are not adequate to meet the goal of limiting the Earth’s temperature increase to no more than 1.5℃ by 2050,” said lead author Holly Jean Buck of the University of Buffalo.
The Greenland Ice Sheet covers roughly 1.7 million square kilometers in the Arctic. If the ice sheet melts entirely, global sea level would rise about 7 meters, but scientists don’t know how quickly it could melt.
According to scientists, the deep ocean circulation that forms around Antarctica could be headed for collapse. A decline of this ocean circulation will stagnate the bottom of the oceans and affect climate and marine ecosystems for centuries to come.
