State of the Climate in Asia 2024
<p>The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing
Glacial Melt
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Stronger evidence of global warming
With more recent data on the Himalayan glaciers from the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites, scientists of the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisaation (ISRO) at Ahmedabad now have much stronger evidence of the finger print of global warming in the observed alarming retreat of these glaciers. The new results were presented at the ongoing National Space Science Symposium (NSSS-2008) here by Dr. Anil V. Kulkarni of SAC. In 2004 Dr. Kulkarni and his colleagues investigated the spatial extent of 466 glaciers in the basins of Chenab, Parbati and Baspa using remote sensed data and compared them with the 1962 topographic data of the Survey of India. They found an overall reduction of 21 per cent in the glacial surface area. They had also found that the process of deglaciation had led to the fragmentation of large glaciers resulting in the reduction in the mean surface area of glacial extent from 1 sq. km. to 0.32 sq. km. during 1962-2004. The new data pertains to two additional basins of Warwan and Bhut comprising 253 and 189 glaciers respectively. Together with the earlier data on 466 glaciers, the cumulative area of these 908 Himalayan glaciers has been found to have reduced from 3391 sq. km. to 2721 sq. km., implying a total area reduction of 20 per cent. Another new finding is that the snow line
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MIRROR OF OUR TIMES (Editorial)
The Arctic reflects what ails a world gripped by global warming. As the ice melts and nations vie for rich mineral resources once hidden under the snow, the writing on the wall is often ignored, says Fatima Chowdhury Thousands of miles away in the Arctic region, fate stands delicately balanced at the edge of time. Located at the North Pole, the region includes the Arctic Ocean surrounded by the five Arctic states
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Quite shocking!
In future, climate change is likely to be the single most significant cause of biodiversity loss, writes Sanjay Gubbi, assessing its overall impact.
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Natural rifts may have weakened Antarctic ice shelf
When it comes to Antarctica's disintegrating ice shelves, climate change often gets fingered as the cause. But it turns out global warming was not the only culprit behind the continent's biggest ice break-up in recent years.
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The big thaw reaches Mongolia's pristine north
Global warming is not a uniform process. Mongolia, particularly at the high altitudes around Lake Hovsgol, has been warming more than twice as fast as the global average. Unique ecosystems are feeling the heat. Here at the transition between the steppe grassland and taiga, plants and animals are confronted with a changing environment-and the outlook is not good for the herders who are crowding up from the south.
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A closer look at the IPCC report
In their policy forum ("The limits of consensus," 14 September 2007, P. 1505), M. Oppenheimer et al, make several misleading statements. They suggest that a premature drive for consensus led Working Group I to understate the risk of large future sea-level rise in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (WGI-AR4). (Letters)
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Isotopic evidence for glaciation during the Cretaceous supergreenhouse
The Turonian (93.5 to 89.3 million years ago) was one of the warmest periods of the Phanerozoic eon. It has been argued that there may have been several stages of continental ice growth during the period, reflected in both erosional surfaces and geochemical records associated with possible glaciation-induced sea-level falls.
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Reduced North Atlantic deep water coeval with the glacial lake Agassiz freshwater outburst
An outstanding climate anomaly 8200 years before the present (B.P.) in the North Atlantic is commonly postulated to be the result of weakened overturning circulation triggered by a freshwater outburst. New stable isotopic and sedimentological records from a northwest Atlantic sediment core reveal that the most prominent Holocene anomaly in bottom water chemistry and flow speed in the deep limb of the Atlantic overturning circulation begins at '8.38 thousand years B.P., coeval with the catastrophic drainage of Lake Agassiz.
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Meltdown
<b>Survival questions</b><br> Are glaciers in the Himalayas melting faster than the natural rate? What will be the impact on hydrology