Greenland lost record-breaking 0.5 trillion tons of ice in 2010 – to surface melting only

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

In 2010 Greenland lost more surface ice mass than in any other year since modern observations began, researchers of City College New York reported on Friday.

NASA GISS leading dataset shows 2010 temperature record

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

With all 2010 data collected and analysed, research groups are bombarding reports about climate record breaking year 2010.

WMO confirms 2010 hottest year

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

2010 was 0.01 degrees Celsius hotter than the number two hottest year 2005 and 0.02 degrees Celsius hotter than the third hottest year, 1998. Having combined the datasets of Met Office’s Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit (HadCRU), NOAA’s National Climatic Data … Continue reading →

Floods & La Niña: direct, indirect and other causes to heavy rains around the world

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

Extreme rainfalls and floods across different continents dominate the global news. A connection to La Niña has been suggested. But to what extent can the floods in Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, the Philippines and north-western Europe be … Continue reading →

Snowball Earth was partly sleet

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Stefan Engels

Sedimentary structures encountered in South Australian rocks indicate that parts of the sea in which they were formed were open, and therefore unfrozen, during at least part of the Cryogenian, or ‘Snowball Earth’.

NOAA: 2010 hottest year on record

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

Indeed. Last year’s land surface temperature record is shared down to the second decimal with the year 2005, today’s NOAA report states.

Methane burps important, but sometimes eaten

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

Fast forward through last week’s methane news: Wetland methane is probably bigger GHG source than previously thought That one big BP methane burp never made it to the surface

Hydroxyl proves stable atmospheric cleaner

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

Good news in Science from an international team of atmospheric chemists, including researchers from NOAA and the Dutch universities of Wageningen and Utrecht. Hydroxyl, atmosphere’s enthusiastic cleaning agent, proves to be produced in quite stable quantities from year to year.

Tibetan dust could lower Himalayan glacier albedo

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

Changing wind patterns due to current climate changes sweep up more dust from the Tibetan Plateau, lake sediment measurements show. Jessica Conroy, a graduate student in paleoclimatology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, presented a dust record dating back … Continue reading →

GCM study finds no Arctic albedo tipping point

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Rolf Schuttenhelm

The albedo effect still acts as a positive feedback to warming and melting. In fact the general circulation model study shows Arctic sea ice melting will speed up over recent years. From 2020 to 2030 more than 2.5 million square … Continue reading →

Bits of Science

Bits of Climate