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Long-lost landscapes, frozen for 40,000 years, exposed by melting Arctic ice
December 20th, 2019Parts of Baffin Island haven't seen the light of day for millennia — but that's rapidly changing. A study published January 2019 in Nature Communications describes what the emerging landscape looks like now — and what it means for the rest of the world. This is #16 on Inverse’s 20 most incredible stories about our planet from 2019.
Wildfire residue may contribute to climate change
December 18th, 2019The charred remains of wildfires in waterways could release carbon dioxide long after the blaze has died. A new study by Jessica Egan, presented at AGU’s Fall Meeting, shows that burned leaf litter and other biomaterials can leach pyrogenic carbon into fresh water where it reacts with sunlight. That means pyrogenic carbon in our waterways could degrade into carbon dioxide faster than previously suggested, providing an unexpected source of this greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
The Arctic may have crossed key threshold, emitting billions of tons of carbon into the air
December 10th, 2019The Arctic is undergoing a profound, rapid and unmitigated shift into a new climate state, one that is greener, features far less ice and emits greenhouse gas emissions from melting permafrost, according to a major new federal assessment of the region released Tuesday. The consequences of these climate shifts will be felt far outside the Arctic in the form of altered weather patterns, increased greenhouse gas emissions and rising sea levels from the melting Greenland ice sheet and mountain glaciers. The findings are contained in the 2019 Arctic Report Card, a major federal assessment of climate change trends and impacts throughout the region. The study paints an ominous picture of a region lurching to an entirely new and unfamiliar environment.
With sea level rise, we’ve already hurtled past a point of no return
December 7th, 2019"We’ve already baked in 20 meters of sea level rise,” says James White, a University of Colorado scientist who has studied ancient climates to gain insights about the future. "The coast is toast."
Warming at the poles will have global consequences
December 4th, 2019With 2019 on pace as one of the warmest years on record, a major new study from an international team of researchers reveals how rapidly the Arctic is warming and examines global consequences of continued polar warming. The study, published today in the journal Science Advances and led by the University of California, Davis, reports that the Arctic has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius in the last decade alone. By comparison, the Earth as a whole has warmed by nearly the same amount, 0.8 degrees Celsius, over the past 137 years. Michael Gooseff is a coauthor on the paper.
What happens when the roof of the world melts?
November 19th, 2019The ice that has long defined South Asia's mountain ranges is dissolving into massive new lakes, raising the specter of catastrophic flooding. This National Geographic feature story includes the work of Alton Byers.