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A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as crevasses and seracs, as it slowly flows and deforms under stresses induced by its weight. As it moves, it abrades rock and debris from its substrate to create landforms such as cirques, moraines, or fjords. Although a glacier may flow into a body of water, it forms only on land and is distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water.
The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. The continent is also extremely dry, averaging 166 mm (6.5 in) of precipitation per year. Snow rarely melts on most parts of the continent, and, after being compressed, becomes the glacier ice that makes up the ice sheet. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent, because of the katabatic winds. Most of Antarctica has an ice-cap climate with very cold, generally extremely dry weather.
In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi). The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at Last Glacial Maximum, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of North America, the Weichselian ice sheet covered Northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America.
The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) is a polar, alpine, and climate research center at The Ohio State University founded in 1960.
The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering 1,710,000 square kilometres (660,000 sq mi), roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term inland ice, or its Danish equivalent, indlandsis. An acronym, GIS, is frequently used in the scientific literature.
Ice algae are any of the various types of algal communities found in annual and multi-year sea or terrestrial ice. On sea ice in the polar oceans, ice algae communities play an important role in primary production. The timing of blooms of the algae is especially important for supporting higher trophic levels at times of the year when light is low and ice cover still exists. Sea ice algal communities are mostly concentrated in the bottom layer of the ice, but can also occur in brine channels within the ice, in melt ponds, and on the surface.
Melt ponds are pools of open water that form on sea ice in the warmer months of spring and summer. The ponds are also found on glacial ice and ice shelves. Ponds of melted water can also develop under the ice.
Meltwater is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found during early spring when snow packs and frozen rivers melt with rising temperatures, and in the ablation zone of glaciers where the rate of snow cover is reducing. Meltwater can be produced during volcanic eruptions, in a similar way in which the more dangerous lahars form.
Camp Century was an Arctic United States military scientific research base in Greenland. situated 240 km (150 mi) east of Thule Air Base. When built, Camp Century was publicized as a demonstration for affordable ice-cap military outposts and a base for scientific research.
Major environmental issues caused by contemporary climate change in the Arctic region range from the well-known, such as the loss of sea ice or melting of the Greenland ice sheet, to more obscure, but deeply significant issues, such as permafrost thaw, social consequences for locals and the geopolitical ramifications of these changes. The Arctic is likely to be especially affected by climate change because of the high projected rate of regional warming and associated impacts. Temperature projections for the Arctic region were assessed in 2007: These suggested already averaged warming of about 2 °C to 9 °C by the year 2100. The range reflects different projections made by different climate models, run with different forcing scenarios. Radiative forcing is a measure of the effect of natural and human activities on the climate. Different forcing scenarios reflect things such as different projections of future human greenhouse gas emissions.
The climate of the Arctic is characterized by long, cold winters and short, cool summers. There is a large amount of variability in climate across the Arctic, but all regions experience extremes of solar radiation in both summer and winter. Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice year-round, and nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice on the surface.
Greenland's climate is a tundra climate on and near the coasts and an ice cap climate in inland areas. It typically has short, cool summers and long, moderately cold winters.
The climate of the Nordic countries is that of a region in Northern Europe that consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, which include the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland. Stockholm, Sweden has on average the warmest summer of the Nordic capitals, with an average maximum temperature of 23 °C (73 °F) in July; Copenhagen, Oslo and Helsinki have an average July maximum temperature of 22 °C (72 °F).
An ice cap climate is a polar climate where no mean monthly temperature exceeds 0 °C (32 °F). The climate covers areas in or near the high latitudes to polar regions, such as Antarctica, some of the northernmost islands of Canada and Russia. Most of Greenland is covered of Ice cap climate, only the coasts are mostly ET climate. Some regions and islands of Norway's Svalbard Archipelago that have vast deserts of snow and ice. Areas with ice cap climates are normally covered by a permanent layer of ice and have no vegetation. There is limited animal life in most ice cap climates, usually found near the oceanic margins. Although ice cap climates are inhospitable to human life, there are some small research stations scattered in Antarctica and interior Greenland.
In earth science, global surface temperature is calculated by averaging the temperature at the surface of the sea and air temperature over land. In technical writing, scientists call long-term changes in GST global cooling or global warming. Periods of both have happened regularly throughout earth's history.
Peter Sinclair from Midland, Michigan, is an environmental activist whose focus is on climate change. He is a YouTube blogger, explorer and founder of the ClimateCrocks.com website. Together with climate researchers he's traveled to hot spots of climate change, for instance to Greenland as part of the Dark Snow Project. Sinclair is perhaps best known for producing the Climate Denial Crock of the Week series on his YouTube channel. Videos have received praise from climate scientists such as Gavin Schmidt, Michael E. Mann, and the late Stephen Schneider. In 2012, he launched another YouTube series, entitled This is not Cool, for the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
Jason Eric Box is professor in glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. For 10 years (2002-2012) he worked at Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, eventually a tenured physical climatology and geography associate professor in the department of geography.
Arctic sea ice decline has occurred in recent decades due to the effects of climate change on oceans, with declines in sea ice area, extent, and volume. Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been melting more in summer than it refreezes in the winter. Global warming, caused by greenhouse gas forcing is responsible for the decline in Arctic sea ice. The decline of sea ice in the Arctic has been accelerating during the early twenty‐first century, with a decline rate of minus 4.7% per decade. It is also thought that summertime sea ice will cease to exist sometime during the 21st century. This sea ice loss is one of the main drivers of surface-based Arctic amplification. Sea ice area means the total area covered by ice, whereas sea ice extent is the area of ocean with at least 15% sea ice, while the volume is the total amount of ice in the Arctic.
The cold blob in the North Atlantic describes a cold temperature anomaly of ocean surface waters, affecting the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) which is part of the thermohaline circulation, possibly related to global warming-induced melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
Marco Tedesco is an Italian climate scientist at the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.
References
- 1 2 "Dark Snow Project" . Retrieved 14 May 2015.
- ↑ 'Dark snow' project turns to crowdfunding for Greenland expedition feat maxence guillbaud
- ↑ Bill McKibben to Join Dark Snow Project in Greenland
- ↑ Greenland Melting
- 1 2 Dark Snow Project on The Weather Channel
- 1 2 "Dark Snow Project's Crowdfunded Climate Science Experiment". Archived from the original on 2013-02-14. Retrieved 2013-07-04.
- ↑ Scientist Seeks Connection Between Fire and Ice in Greenland
- ↑ "About the August, 2014 dark Greenland photos". 27 October 2014.
- ↑ "Shocking" Greenland Ice Melt: Global Warming or Just Heat Wave?