NASA climate model study: Arctic melting linear with temperature

Here’s another climate model study that challenges the Arctic tipping point idea. Arctic melting is still sensitive to temperature rise though and any further increase in atmospheric CO2 will keep translating to further ice loss. According to the new NASA … Continue reading

Climate model shows possibility of multiple years of Arctic sea ice growth – or faster decline

Computer simulations of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research indicate that the natural Arctic climate variability, like seasonal and annual variations in pressure systems, wind patterns and precipitation or cloud cover, could be larger than previously thought.

Fossil driftwood tells Danish scientists the Arctic sea ice variations during Holocene are larger than we thought

During the Holocene Climatic Optimum of 8,000 to 5,000 years ago, the Arctic sea ice was less than 50% [so <2.6 mln sq km] of the lowest extent on satellite record, the 2007 melting record, researchers of Copenhagen University stated … Continue reading

Melting Arctic ice releases persistent organic pollutants

Global temperatures are rising and as a result icecaps are melting. But as a study in Nature Climate Change shows icecaps don’t just discharge water when they melt. They also release a gift from generations past in the form of … Continue reading

Ongoing paleo study may help tune CO2 climate sensitivity

Here on Bitsofscience.org we’ve discussed the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) – that sudden CO2 and methane-induced peak climate warming (or ‘hyperthermal’) 55.8 million years ago of around 6 degrees over 20,000 years – on several occasions, because it offers an … Continue reading

NOAA’s analysis of climate records 2010: trend consistent with climate change

Here on Bitsofscience.org we hope to be your climate records reference point, so we try not to miss any of the major reports on temperature trends or Arctic melting records. That means we definitely could not ignore yesterday’s release by … Continue reading

Today’s paradox: current Arctic ozone depletion sign of global warming

The WMO today reports rapid and record-breaking thinning of the ozone layer over the Arctic region over the course of this winter and early spring – with now 40 percent of it gone. Unusually low temperatures in the stratosphere, even … Continue reading