global warming – Page 2

Climate warming shifts lightning-caused forest fires farther north

Written on June 26, 2017.

Extreme lightning storms are the main driver of recent massive fire years in Alaska and Canada, and these storms are likely to move farther north with climate warming, potentially altering landscapes, according to findings in Nature Climate Change by researchers from UCI, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and elsewhere. Analyzing satellite images and data from ground-based networks, they discovered increases of 2 to 5 percent a year in lightning-ignited fires since 1975. In addition, the scientists...

Canadian glaciers now major contributor to sea level change, UCI study shows

Written on February 14, 2017.

Nine times more ice is melting annually due to warmer temperatures Irvine, Calif., Feb. 14, 2017 — Ice loss from Canada’s Arctic glaciers has transformed them into a major contributor to sea level change, new research by University of California, Irvine glaciologists has found. From 2005 to 2015, surface melt off ice caps and glaciers of the Queen Elizabeth Islands grew by an astonishing 900 percent, from an average of three gigatons to 30 gigatons per year, according to results published...

UCI expert among group urging accelerated reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

Written on December 8, 2015.

Article in Nature Climate Change casts doubt on carbon-capture technologies Irvine, Calif., Dec. 8, 2015 – At the beginning of week two of the Paris climate talks, an international group of scientists is calling on the world’s industrial powers to aggressively and immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stressing that overreliance on so-called negative emissions technologies may prove too costly and disruptive to keep Earth from overheating. In an article published today in Nature...

Greenland’s fjords are far deeper than previously thought, and glaciers will melt faster, researchers find

Written on July 14, 2015.

West Greenland’s fjords are vastly deeper than rudimentary models have shown, allowing intruding ocean water to badly undercut glacier faces, which will raise sea levels around the world much faster than previously estimated, a UCI-led research team has found. Janet Wilson, UC Irvine West Greenland’s fjords are vastly deeper than rudimentary models have shown, allowing intruding ocean water to badly undercut glacier faces, which will raise sea levels around the world...

Measuring Earth’s Meltdown

Written on April 1, 2015.

An expedition to Greenland with UCI glaciologists reveals ‘time bomb’ effects of global warming Janet Wilson | UCI Magazine “Come quickly – look at the glacier!” urges UC Irvine researcher Isabella Velicogna, running to the bow of the Cape Race to gaze at the massive, crumbling face of Eqip Sermia. She’s stunned by what she sees. “So much is gone since a year ago. All that land over there was covered with ice last time.” It’s mid-August in Greenland’s North Atlantic fjords. UCI glaciologists...

Antarctic’s Ice Shelves Melting From the Bottom Up

Written on June 13, 2013.

Ice shelves lose more mass where the ice meets the sea than previously thought. Jane J. Lee, National Geographic Antarctica’s ice shelves are losing it. Conventional wisdom holds that ice shelves—the seaward extension of glaciers on land—lose most of their mass by shedding icebergs. But new research finds that there’s another weight-loss program at work—many of Antarctica’s ice shelves are melting away from the bottom up. Glacier experts have known for years that...

UC Irvine Scientist: Climate Change Policies Not Working Fast Enough

Written on January 10, 2013.

Molly Peterson, Southern California Public Radio A scientist at UC Irvine is calling for greater urgency in the effort to control greenhouse gases. In a study published in Environmental Research Letters, earth systems scientist Steven J. Davis and three co-authors said carbon emissions are growing faster than ever, prompting them to re-think a strategy on reversing climate change. “After eight years of mostly delay, the action now required is significantly greater,” the...

2012 Hottest Year on Record in Contiguous U.S., NOAA Says

Written on January 8, 2013.

Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post Temperatures in the contiguous United States last year were the hottest in more than a century of record-keeping, shattering the mark set in 1998 by a wide margin, the federal government announced Tuesday. The average temperature in 2012 was 55.3 degrees, one degree above the previous record and 3.2 degrees higher than the 20th-century average, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. They described the data as part of...

Sudden Ice Melt Seen on 97% of Greenland

Written on July 25, 2012.

Pat Brennan, The Orange County Register Nearly the entire Greenland ice sheet experienced surface melting over just a few days in mid July, an extremely rare event that has not occurred since 1889, according to measurements reported by NASA scientists. And while the melting episode cannot be linked directly to global warming, it appears to fit into a dramatic trend: a long-term warming of the Arctic that is two to three times faster than the global average. “This is more like weather,”...

It’s Not Just Summer, World Keeps Warming

Written on June 19, 2012.

Eric Niiler, Discovery News The world’s political and environmental leaders gather in Rio de Janeiro tomorrow to assess the state of the planet’s health 20 years after the first such gathering in 1992. But if science is any guide, Earth still needs some help. Several new climate studies reveal various aspects of the same foreboding problem: the atmosphere continues to warm, glaciers continue melting and seas keep rising. But there is a tiny bit of good news — the United...

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