Antarctica
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Secret Antarctic mountains will help us understand Earth’s climate history
Deep underneath the Antarctic ice sheet are the Gamburtsev mountains, a mountain range the size of the Alps. Scientists are finally piecing together the story of their creation, destruction, and re-creation, and it could help with modeling future climate conditions. The original Gamburtsev mountains, kicked up by continental drift, were eroded down to the root […]
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U.S. release of British nature doc skips the part about climate change
Global warming is too hot for TV in the U.S., even when the TV is really cold. Frozen Planet, the BBC miniseries about the Arctic and Antarctic, has an episode about climate change impacts — but that episode's not being aired in the United States. The BBC made seven episodes of Frozen Planet. Six feature […]
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This is going to be the greatest documentary on the Arctic and Antarctic EVER
This month the BBC is debuting Frozen Planet, a Planet Earth-style nature doc that focuses on the Arctic and Antarctic. This is going to be massive, gorgeous, and probably depressing: The last of its seven episodes is all about the effect of climate change on the stunning vistas and incredible animals you've met in the […]
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Meter-long king crabs invade Antarctic waters, eat everything
On the seafloors of Antarctic basins, the water has warmed by just 0.27 degrees C — but that’s enough to allow giant king crabs to take over the ecosystem and eat everything they find. These suckers are more than three feet across, and they're gobbling up sea urchins, sea lilies, sea cucumbers, and starfish. They're also messing with the make-up of the sea floor. Check out the (terrifyinggggg) video above: The crab looks like an invasive vehicle in a Star Wars movie that's launching a sneak attack on an unsuspecting, peaceful civilization.
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Penguins are losing ground in Antarctica
Although climate change guarantees that all penguins are screwed in the long term, some are more screwed than others. On the Antarctic peninsula, Adélie penguins have lost almost 90 percent of their population over the past three decades — while the population of gentoo penguins, which don't need ice to survive, has grown by 14,000 […]
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Melting glaciers make it more likely the coasts will be toast
Researchers working in Greenland and Antarctica say the meltdown of ice sheets in both places is only accelerating.
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How warm was this summer?
Let's look at the surface temperatures in the summer of 2010, which justifiably received a lot of attention.
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Satellite data suggests "that EAST Antarctica is losing mass"
The East Antarctic ice sheet has been losing mass for the last three years, according to an analysis of data from a gravity-measuring satellite mission. That’s from the BBC story. Nature Geoscience just published the study online, “Accelerated Antarctic ice loss from satellite gravity measurements.” It begins, “Accurate quantification of Antarctic ice-sheet mass balance and […]
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Nature: “Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet"
The most detailed satellite information available shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica are shrinking faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode, a new study found…. Using 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of […]