In what can be seen as a positive impact of global warming, large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton that can absorb carbon dioxide from atmosphere are flourishing in the area opened up by massive ice melting in Antarctica.
Analyses of boron isotopes in ancient marine carbonate sediments provide an enlightening perspective on the links between carbon dioxide and ice-cap cover at a climatically momentous time in Earth's history.
Mass loss from the glaciers along the margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is increasingly contributing to sea level rise. However, ice loss as a result of accelerated flow, known as dynamic thinning, is so poorly understood that its potential future contribution to sea level remains unpredictable.
About 34 million years ago, the first major Antarctic ice sheets appeared, suggesting that major cooling had taken place; however, the global transition into this icehouse climate remains poorly constrained.
Antarctic ice cores can be used to reconstruct atmospheric CO2 concentrations, revealing significant changes during the Holocene epoch which started 11,000 years ago. Here, a highly resolved delta13C record is presented for the past 11,000 years from measurements on atmospheric CO2 trapped in an Antarctic ice core.
The ozone hole, which had caused serious environmental concerns, is shrinking and it could fully heal by the end of the century, bringing more rain to eastern Australia, scientists said on Wednesday.
