Space and astronomy news
It’s time to take a thorough, more serious look at using geoengineering to protect the planet’s icesheets, according to a group of scientists who have released a new report examining the issue. Glacial geoengineering is an emerging field of study that holds some hope for Earth’s diminishing glaciers and ice sheets.
Continue reading “Can Geoengineering Protect Earth’s Icesheets?”
Climate change is the single greatest threat facing our planet today. Thanks to excess carbon emissions that have been growing steadily since the mid-20th century, average temperatures continue to rise worldwide. This leads to feedback mechanisms, such as rising sea levels, extreme weather, drought, wildfires, and glacial melting. This includes the Arctic Ice Pack, the East Antarctic glacier, and the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), which are rapidly melting and increasing global sea levels.
Worse than that, the disappearance of the world’s ice sheets means that Earth’s surface and oceans absorb more heat, driving global temperatures even further. According to a new NASA-supported study by an international team of Earth scientists and glaciologists, the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting at an accelerating rate, much faster than existing models predict. According to these findings, far more ice will be lost from Greenland during the 21st century, which means its contribution to sea-level rise will be significantly higher.
Continue reading “Greenland’s ice Loss is Worse Than We Thought”
Many regions on Earth are temperate, nutrient-rich, stable environments where life seems to thrive effortlessly. But not all of Earth. Some parts, like Greenland’s ice sheet, are inhospitable.
In our nascent search for life elsewhere in the Solar System, it stands to reason that we’ll be looking at worlds that are marginal and inhospitable. Icy worlds like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus are our most likely targets. These frozen worlds have warm oceans under layers of ice.
What can Greenland’s cryo-ecosystems tell us about searching for life on icy bodies like Europa and Enceladus?
Continue reading “Greenland’s Ice Sheet is Similar in Many Ways to the Solar System’s Icy Worlds and Can Teach Us How to Search for Life”
Great news! Humankind’s greatest-ever engineering project is nearing completion. Soon we will have warmed the Earth enough to get rid of all those pesky ice sheets and other frozen areas. The finish line is in sight.
If we all work together for the next thousand years, we’ll finally reach our goal!
Continue reading “NASA Model Shows Greenland’s Ice Sheet Will Disappear Over the Next 1000 Years, Raising Sea Levels by 7 Meters”
The rate at which Greenland is losing its ice is accelerating. This unsurprising conclusion comes from a new study based on 25 years of satellite data from the European Space Agency. The new study was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Continue reading “Ice loss in Greenland is Accelerating”