Ten Coastal Kids’ Books Offer an Ocean of Adventure – Hakai Magazine
From the poles to puddles, this season’s selection of books wanders our fascinating world…
Two Studies on Greenland Reveal Ominous Signs for Sea Level Rise – the New York Times
Greenland’s mountain glaciers and floating ice shelves are melting faster than they were just a few decades ago and becoming destabilized, according to two separate studies published this week. The island’s peripheral glaciers, located mostly in coastal mountains and not directly connected to the larger Greenland ice sheet, retreated twice as fast between 2000 and 2021 as they did before the turn of the century, according to a study published on Thursday. “It got a lot harder to be a glacier in Greenland in the 21st century than it had been even in the 1990s,” said Yarrow Axford, a professor of geological sciences at Northwestern University and a co-author of the paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change…
What the Melting of Antarctic Ice Shelves Means for the Planet – Inside Climate News
Antarctica’s ice shelves are the gatekeepers between the continent’s glaciers and the open ocean. As the planet warms, these shelves shrink, exposing more and more ice, which leads to more melting. This frozen continent rests under a massive ice sheet averaging more than a mile thick. But a recent study in Science Advances found that Antarctica had 68 ice shelves that shrunk significantly between 1997 and 2021, adding up to about 8.3 trillion tons lost during that time…
West Antarctic ice sheet faces ‘unavoidable’ melting, a warning for sea level rise – the Washington Post
Accelerating ice losses are all but “unavoidable” this century in vulnerable West Antarctic ice shelves as waters warm around them, according to new research. And the analysis could mean scientists were too conservative in predicting about one to three feet of sea level rise by 2100…
Greenland’s ice shelves hold back sea level rise. There are just 5 left – the Washington Post
And now there are only five large shelves left, stretching out from their fjords toward the Greenland Sea and the Arctic Ocean. That includes three major ones — Petermann, Ryder and Nioghalvfjerdsbrae (often referred to as 79 North for its location in degrees latitude) — whose respective glaciers could ultimately account for 3.6 feet of sea level rise if they were to melt entirely — a process that would take centuries to play out…
These Haunting Underwater Photos Portray Climate Change in a New Way – CNN Interactive
Akessa stares strait ahead with a look of fierce indignation. The 15-year-old is sitting in a rickety chair. Her hand are clasped in her lap. Her white skirt is billowing ever so slightly in what, at first glance, you might assume is the wind….There is no breeze blowing here. This girl and her searing gaze are underwater…
Can Seawalls Save Us? – the New Yorker
Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco, is the kind of beachfront community that longtime residents compare to Heaven…Pacifica embodies one of the central disagreements about rising seas. Fight or flight? Stay or go? Flight can seem unimaginable. But, if we try to fight the ocean with rock and concrete, it will cost us—and it may not work…
West Papua, Indonesia from the Air – Planet Labs PBC
If every image tells a story, high resolution satellite imagery of the earth is the ultimate treasure trove where natural processes is the artist creating works of transcendent beauty that are at once abstract and realistic.
Research Confirms Link Between Snow Crab Decline and Marine Heatwave – NOAA Fisheries
“During the marine heatwave, snow crabs faced a triple threat,” said lead author and Alaska Fisheries Science Center stock assessment scientist Cody Szuwalski. “Their metabolism increased, so they needed more food; their habitat was reduced so there was less area to forage; and crabs caught in our survey weighed less than usual. These conditions likely set them up for the dramatic decline we saw in 2021…”