Glaciers – giant blocks of moving ice – along Antarctica’s coastline are flowing faster in the summer because of a combination of melting snow and warmer ocean waters, say researchers. On average, the glaciers travel at around one kilometre a year. But a new study has found a seasonal variation to the speed of the ice flow, which speeded up by up to 22 % in summer when temperatures are warmer. This gives an insight into the way climate change…
Data captured from seismic waves caused by earthquakes has shed new light on the deepest parts of Earth’s inner core, according to seismologists from The Australian National University (ANU). By measuring the different speeds at which these waves penetrate and pass through the Earth’s inner core, the researchers believe they’ve documented evidence of a distinct layer inside Earth known as the innermost inner core — a solid “metallic ball” that sits within the centre of the inner core. Not long…
… at the German Antarctic station Neumayer-III. Over the next 12 months, the vertical distribution of aerosol particles and clouds in the atmosphere above the German Neumayer III station of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) will be observed from the ground for the first time. These profile measurements are the first of their kind in Queen Maud Land on the Atlantic sector of Antarctica and thus in an area larger than Greenland. The measuring platform OCEANET-Atmosphere of the Leibniz Institute…
Thanks to a new method developed by researchers at the University of Bern and Empa, greenhouse gas concentrations in 1.5 million year old ice can be measured even more accurately. Ice cores are a unique climate archive. Thanks to a new method developed by researchers at the University of Bern and Empa, greenhouse gas concentrations in 1.5 million year old ice can be measured even more accurately. The EU project “Beyond EPICA” with the participation of the University of Bern…
The tropical oceans are home to the most diverse plankton populations on Earth, where they form the base of marine food chains. Modern plankton biodiversity in the tropics is a surprisingly recent development and the result of 8 million years of global cooling, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. The finding raises concerns that rapid ocean warming could force the plankton to move away from the tropics, which would negatively affect ocean…
New insight into the relationship between slow slip events and the build-up and release of tectonic strain. The Japanese archipelago is actively undergoing seismic shifts due to interactions between the oceanic plate and the continental plate. At the plate boundaries located directly beneath areas of Japan (especially the Bungo Channel, Tokai and Boso-Oki regions), slow slip events (SSEs *1) occur, which involve gradual aseismic slipping taking place at a recurrence interval of several years. However, it is still not clear…
Sea ice extent in the Southern Ocean now the lowest since the beginning of satellite observation forty years ago. There is currently less sea ice in the Antarctic than at any time in the forty years since the beginning of satellite observation: in early February 2023, only 2.20 million square kilometres of the Southern Ocean were covered with sea ice. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the University of Bremen analyse the situation for the Sea Ice Portal. January…
Rocks, rain and carbon dioxide help control Earth’s climate over thousands of years — like a thermostat — through a process called weathering. A new study led by Penn State scientists may improve our understanding of how this thermostat responds as temperatures change. “Life has been on this planet for billions of years, so we know Earth’s temperature has remained consistent enough for there to be liquid water and to support life,” said Susan Brantley, Evan Pugh University Professor and…
Volcanoes draw plenty of attention when they erupt. But new research led by the University of Washington shows that volcanoes leak a surprisingly high amount of their atmosphere- and climate-changing gases in their quiet phases. A Greenland ice core shows that volcanoes quietly release at least three times as much sulfur into the Arctic atmosphere than estimated by current climate models. The study, led by the University of Washington and published Jan. 2 in Geophysical Research Letters, has implications for…
Europe lacks groundwater – a lot of groundwater. The continent has already been suffering from a severe drought since 2018. This is confirmed by satellite data analysed at the Institute of Geodesy at TU Graz. Europe has been experiencing a severe drought for years. Across the continent, groundwater levels have been consistently low since 2018, even if extreme weather events with flooding temporarily give a different picture. The beginning of this tense situation is documented in a publication by Eva…
Mapping trees, finding heat islands: Research drones offer many new options for small-scale observation of the environment. Earth observation, also known as remote sensing, provides highly relevant information about the state and change of our planet every day via satellite data worldwide. The data can be used, for example, to gather information about heat islands in cities, droughts or the condition of forests. Earth observation is currently opening up additional data sources: With sensors installed on commercially available drones, it…
Environmental DNA analysis of microbial communities can help us understand how a particular region’s water cycle works. Basel hydrogeologist Oliver Schilling recently used this method to examine the water cycle on Mount Fuji. His results have implications for other regions worldwide. Where does the water come from that provides drinking water to people in a particular region? What feeds these sources and how long does it take for groundwater to make its way back up to the surface? This hydrological…
Long-term measurements in the urban area of Innsbruck, Austria, show that the fraction of ozone near the surface tends to be overestimated in atmospheric models. Consequently, a fundamental assumption for air quality forecasting has to be reinterpreted for urban areas. Measurements by an international team led by atmospheric scientist Thomas Karl of the University of Innsbruck also show that direct nitrogen dioxide emissions are overestimated. The 40-meter-high monitoring tower of the Innsbruck Atmospheric Observatory near the city center of Innsbruck…
At high elevations of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the years 2001 to 2011 were 1.5 °C warmer than in the 20th century and represent the warmest decade in the last thousand years. A temperature reconstruction from ice cores of the past 1,000 years reveals that today’s warming in central-north Greenland is surprisingly pronounced. The most recent decade surveyed in a study, the years 2001 to 2011, was the warmest in the past 1,000 years, and the region is now 1.5…
Expedition investigates shelf and fjord areas of Central and South America. On December 27, 2022, Germany’s second largest research vessel, the “SONNE”, will set off for several months on a research cruise to the East Pacific shelf regions of Central and South America. Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) will be in charge of two of the three expedition legs. The first examines human-induced trace substances and pollutants in the sea; the second focuses on…
Researchers have discovered a process that can contribute to the melting of ice shelves in the Antarctic. An international team of scientists found that adjacent ice shelves play a role in causing instability in others downstream. The study, led by the University of East Anglia in the UK, also identified that a small ocean gyre – a system of circulating ocean currents – next to the Thwaites Ice Shelf can impact the amount of glacial-meltwater flowing beneath it. When that gyre…
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