It's getting warmer down at the bottom of the world.
As the global climate heats up, some of the great ice sheets and glaciers in Antarctica are melting, a few of them rapidly. One, East Antarctica’s Denman glacier, has retreated nearly 3 miles in just the past 22 years, according to a new study.
The more the glacier’s grounding line backs down the slope, the thicker the ice becomes. This means the ice can flow outward faster and also that more of it will be exposed to ocean waters capable of melting it. “In this configuration, it means that once the glacier starts retreating, it’s very hard to stop it,” said [Earth system science Professor] Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, one of the study’s authors. “You sort of open the floodgates.”
“We knew this past summer had been particularly warm in Greenland, melting every corner of the ice sheet, but the numbers are enormous,” said lead author Isabella Velicogna, an Earth system science professor at the University of California at Irvine and a senior scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a news release. The mass loss from Greenland alone was enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2 millimeters, the study found.
If you live in or visited Southern California during the winter, you have likely caught a beautiful sunset or two. They can be mesmerizing, but what makes them look so beautiful?
A professor from a local university spends his time enjoying sunsets.
“They can be glorious.”
University of California Irvine Professor Charlie Zender says you will find the most glorious SoCal sunsets during the winter.
Machine learning Earth system model projects growth in lower latitudes by 2100
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