To better predict sea level rise, Rebecca Jackson wants to describe exactly what happens where liquid ocean meets the icy underside of glaciers. But how do you study a glacier that could calve a dangerous iceberg at any moment?
See highlights from the 2017 issue of the planet's most comprehensive annual physical, the American Meteorological Society's State of the Climate report.
The author of the glacier chapter of the 2015 State of the Climate report and his daughter talk about how family connections brought them together scientifically, and how science keeps bringing their family together.
In 2012—for the 23rd consecutive year—mountain glaciers worldwide lost more mass through melting than they gained through new snow accumulation. The retreat of the majority of mountain glaciers worldwide is one of the clearest signs that climate is warming over the long term.
Why on Earth are climate scientists so interested in the West Antarctic ice sheet? This remote region of the seventh continent has been the subject of many recent research explorations--the results of which have been described in the news with words like “collapse,” “irreversible,” and “huge.”
Glacier mass balance in 2011 (the most recent year for which worldwide analysis is complete) was negative, and preliminary data indicate that 2012 will probably be the 22nd consecutive year of net losses in glacier mass. Between 1980 and 2011, glaciers around the world lost the water equivalent of 15.7 meters. That would be like slicing a roughly 17-meter-thick slab off the top of the average glacier and repeating that exercise worldwide.
Present since the last ice age, most of the world's glaciers are now shrinking or disappearing altogether as the climate gets warmer.