This is the 33rd issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status
the Antarctic ice cap is melting fast. The melt is attributed mainly to global warming. Now there is evidence of a volcano beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Scientists say it would also be
Increased carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere also could worsen air pollution worldwide and lead to the deaths of up to 22,000 people a year, a new study shows. Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels from burning fossil fuels have been linked to sea-level changes, snowmelt, disease, heat stress, severe weather, and ocean acidification, but this is the first study to link CO2 rise to pollution. Because carbon dioxide doesn't directly affect respiration, it hasn't been classified as an air pollutant. But the study, led by Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, predicts that as temperatures and water vapor rise because of extra atmospheric CO2, ozone pollution levels also will rise. Using a high-resolution model that correlates pollution levels to human health, Jacobson found that each 1.8-degree rise in temperature could increase yearly air pollution deaths in the USA by about 1,000, which he extrapolated to 22,000 worldwide. Jacobson notes that many of these deaths would likely occur in smoggy urban areas.
British scientists in Antarctica have found evidence of glaciers the size of Texas surging towards the ocean, BBC reported. If the trend continues, they say, it could lead to a significant rise in global sea level. The new evidence comes from a group of glaciers in a remote and seldom visited part of west Antarctica. The "rivers of ice' have surged sharply in speed towards the ocean. David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey, explained: "It has been called the weak underbelly of the west Antarctic ice sheet, and the reason for that is that this is the area where the bed beneath the ice sheet dips down steepest towards the interior. "If there is a feedback mechanism to make the ice sheet unstable, it will be most unstable in this region.' There is good reason to be concerned. Satellite measurements have shown that three huge glaciers here have been speeding up for more than a decade. The biggest of the glaciers, the Pine Island Glacier, is causing the most concern. Julian Scott has just returned from there. He told BBC: "This is a very important glacier; it's putting more ice into the sea than any other glacier in Antarctica. "It's a couple of kilometres thick, its 30 km wide and it's moving at 3.5km per year, so it's putting a lot of ice into the ocean.' It is a very remote and inhospitable region. It was visited briefly in 1961 by American scientists but no one had returned until this season when Julian Scott and Rob Bingham and colleagues from the British Antarctic survey spent 97 days camping on the flat, white ice. At times, the temperature got down to minus 30
Sydney: Scientists studying Antarctic waters have filmed and captured giant sea creatures, like sea spiders the size of dinner plates and jelly fish with six-m eter-long tentacles.
Scientists gather mysterious creatures from icy Antarctic waters Organisms that are stalk-like in structure and resemble glass tulips, spotted in Antarctic waters in January, among others. SYDNEY: Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said on Tuesday they had collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths.
Seabirds are sensitive indicators of changes in marine ecosystems and might integrate and/or amplify the effects of climate forcing on lower levels in food chains. Current knowledge on the impact of climate changes on penguins is primarily based on Antarctic birds identified by using flipper bands.
When it comes to Antarctica's disintegrating ice shelves, climate change often gets fingered as the cause. But it turns out global warming was not the only culprit behind the continent's biggest ice break-up in recent years.
Antarctica is losing ice much faster than thought, say scientists who have built the most complete picture of Antarctica's glaciers showing exactly how fast the ice sheets are cracking. The mass of
One of the emblems of the Antarctic, the king penguin, could be driven to extinction by climate change, a French study warns. In a long-term investigation on the penguins' main breeding grounds, investigators found that a tiny warming of the Southern Ocean by the El Nino effect caused a massive fall in the birds' ability to survive. If predictions by UN scientists of ever-higher temperatures in coming decades prove true, the species faces a major risk of being wiped out, they say.
Following intense pressure from the International Whaling Commission (iwc), Japan has dropped plans to hunt humpback whales during this year's annual whaling expedition, which is underway in the
