The Earth's glaciers are melting much faster than scientists thought. A new study shows they are losing 334 billion tonnes of snow and ice each year. The most comprehensive measurement of glaciers worldwide found that thousands of inland masses of snow compressed into ice are shrinking 18% faster than an international panel of scientists calculated in 2013. The world's glaciers are shrinking five times faster now than they were in the 1960s. Their melt is accelerating due to global warming, and adding more water to already rising seas, the study found. "Over 30 years suddenly almost all regions started losing mass at the same time," said lead author Michael Zemp, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the University of Zurich. "That's clearly climate change if you look at the global picture." The glaciers shrinking fastest are in central Europe, the Caucasus region, western Canada, the US Lower 48 states, New Zealand and near the tropics. Glaciers in these places on … [Read more...] about Global warming shrinking glaciers faster: study
Global warming and water
34 Ukrainian cities face flooding due to global warming by 2100, think tank says
Popular on social media French Donbas sniper heads ‘security’ for anti-government protests in Paris 1340 Ukraine recognizes sex without consent as rape, criminalizes domestic violence 716 UPDATE: Russian court extends detention of Ukrainian sailors until April 24 272 Up to 34 major Ukrainian coastal cities, including Odesa, Kherson, Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Berdiansk, and Kerch, face the threat of flooding by the end of the century due to rising sea levels, according to a study by Ekodia, a Kyiv-based ecology expert center. In a study presented on Jan. 16, it is predicted that the sea will also swallow 62 villages, 660 environmentally dangerous facilities, 200,000 hectares of agricultural lands and 98 natural parks, potentially displacing up to 74,000 people. In general, the rising water, due to global warning, could swallow up as much as 1 million hectares of Ukrainian land, the activists believe. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in late … [Read more...] about 34 Ukrainian cities face flooding due to global warming by 2100, think tank says
Global warming heats our oceans by the equivalent of an atomic bomb blast per SECOND
GLOBAL warming has heated Earth's oceans up by the equivalent of an atomic bomb explosion per second over the past 150 years. That's according to a shocking new study, which found the planet's waters have seen a worrisome temperature hike since the 19th Century. The jump has led to dangerous sea level rises, and made hurricanes and typhoons more deadly. And it's down to the energy sucked up by the oceans, say scientists at the University of Oxford. They found that a staggering 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases since 1871 has been absorbed by the seas. "We are putting a lot of excess energy into the climate system and a lot of that ends up in the ocean," study author Professor Laure Zanna told the Guardian. "There is no doubt.” The team measured how much Earth's oceans have heated up over the past 150 years. To do this, they combined readings of ocean surface temperatures stretching back to 1871 with state-of-the-art computer models of how heat shifts around oceans. … [Read more...] about Global warming heats our oceans by the equivalent of an atomic bomb blast per SECOND
Martina Devlin: ‘We have Sláintecare, now we need Climatecare. Ireland is a small country but we can set an example and others may follow in efforts to end global warming’
Political action is what's needed. Political action is what's missing - interventions at national and international levels. Let's start with national. Unfortunately, the Irish Government is on Santa's naughty list because window-dressing alone is not enough. The Government pays lip service to climate justice but has failed to fulfil its own commitments on increasing carbon tax. If it makes just one resolution for 2019 it should be to prioritise decarbonisation policies. What's happening currently feels like a moment in history that's being ignored. Superstorms, deadly heat waves, coastal floods and droughts are embedded in weather patterns now. But fingers remain jammed in ears - climate change deniers chanting "la-la-la I can't hear you" as the tsunami sweeps in. The global warming genie is out of its bottle and the window of opportunity for dealing with it is growing ever more narrow as countries prevaricate and hesitate. Nations are sitting on their hands - Ireland included. … [Read more...] about Martina Devlin: ‘We have Sláintecare, now we need Climatecare. Ireland is a small country but we can set an example and others may follow in efforts to end global warming’
One of world’s coldest cities, Russia’s Yakutsk could melt away, collapse due to global warming
One of the world's coldest inhabited cities, Yakutsk, the capital of Russia's Sakha Republic is warming up, damaging the city's settlements which were built on permafrost that currently face the risk of melting, experts say. The Siberian city, which sees temperatures as low as -35 to -50 degrees Celsius in winter, is warming up due to global warming which is threatening the city's ground material permafrost - a layer of soil cemented together by frozen water. The average annual temperatures of the city have already risen by 2 to 2,5 degrees Celsius over the past decades. "As a result of global warming we are witnessing the degradation and the destruction of our permafrost," regional lawmaker Vladimir Prokopyev told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). The ground beneath the buildings has started to be give way, causing the foundations of the houses to fall apart. Officials in the city have ordered emergency repairs for the buildings, which will only be effective for a short time … [Read more...] about One of world’s coldest cities, Russia’s Yakutsk could melt away, collapse due to global warming