Weather-Related

NASA has released what it calls the “coolest, most illustrative video” of its kind ever.  The video shows stunning new images of earth, highlighting climate changes and how the weather in one part of the planet impacts the rest of us. 

The cryosphere is the part of the Earth’s surface where water is found in solid form.  This includes areas of snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets and icebergs.  In these areas, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year.  Since ice and snow exist relatively close to their melting point, they frequently change from solid to liquid and back again due to fluctuations in surface temperature. 

Although direct measurements of the cryosphere are often difficult due to remote locations of these areas, scientists can use satellites to monitor changes in the global and regional climate by observing how regions of the Earth’s cryosphere shrink and expand.

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A 2003 study predicted that glaciers will disappear from Glacier National Park by 2030.  But because temperatures are warming even faster than just a few years ago, glaciers are now expected to disappear by 2020.

Glaciers are created when snow doesn’t completely melt in summer and over time is compacted into ice.  To be classified as a glacier, an ice field must be at least 25 acres, moving, and sculpting the landscape.

In 1900, there were about 150 glaciers in what is now Glacier National Park.  Today only 25 glaciers remain.

Although the quantity and size of glaciers have been decreasing over the past century, glaciers are now shrinking four times as fast as they were in the 1960s.  The reason is warmer climate.  Although Glacier National Park is colder than many other parts of the world, temperatures in the park have increased three times as fast as average global temperatures.

There may be some debate as to whether the warming climate is a natural cycle or the result of man-made pollutants.  But there is no debate that temperatures in Glacier National Park are getting warmer, the glaciers are getting smaller, and this is all happening even faster than previously predicted.

Story at USA News
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The frozen interior of Antarctica had long been the counter-example to global warming, with some areas getting even colder as the rest of the world warmed rapidly.

But climate researchers have now proven this to be false.  A study by Penn State University shows that the entire continent has actually been warming for the past 50 years.  "Antarctica is warming, and it’s warming at the same rate as the rest of the planet," said study co-author Michael Mann.

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