Aurelia Butler

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    in Heart

    Can geoengineering plans save glaciers and slow sea level rise?

    Citations

    H. Seroussi et al. Evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the next three centuries from an ISMIP6 model ensemble. Earth’s Future. Vol. 12, September 4, 2024. doi: 10.1029/2024EF004561.

    M. Wolovick, J. Moore and B. Keefer. The potential for stabilizing Amundsen Sea glaciers via underwater curtains. PNAS Nexus. Vol. 2, April 2023, pgad103. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad103.

    B. Keefer, M. Wolovick and J.C. Moore. Feasibility of ice sheet conservation using seabed anchored curtains. PNAS Nexus. Vol. 2, March 2023, pgad053. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad053.

    K. Yamazaki et al. Multidecadal poleward shift of the southern boundary of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current off East Antarctica. Science Advances. Published online June 11, 2021. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf8755.

    R. DeConto et al. The Paris Climate Agreement and future sea-level rise from Antarctica. Nature. Vol. 593, May 6, 2021, p.83. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03427-0.

    A.K. Wåhlin et al. Pathways and modification of warm water flowing beneath Thwaites Ice Shelf, West Antarctica. Science Advances. Vol. 7, April 9, 2021, eabd7254. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abd7254.

    O. Gürses et al. A submarine wall protecting the Amundsen Sea intensifies melting of neighboring ice shelves. The Cryosphere. Vol. 13, September 6, 2019, p. 2317. doi: 10.5194/tc-13-2317-2019.

    M.J. Wolovick and J.C. Moore. Stopping the flood: Could we use targeted geoengineering to mitigate sea level rise? The Cryosphere. Vol. 12, September 20, 2018, p. 2955. doi: 10.5194/tc-12-2955-2018.

    J.C. Moore et al. Geoengineering polar glaciers to slow sea-level rise. Nature. Vol. 555, March 15, 2018, p. 303. doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-03036-4.

    I. Joughin et al. Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica. Science. Vol. 344, May 16, 2014, p. 735. doi: 10.1126/science.1249055.

    I. Joughin et al. Changes in west Antarctic ice stream velocities: Observation and analysis. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. Vol. 17, November 2002, p. EPM 3-1. doi: 10.1029/2001JB001029. More

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    in Physics

    Quantum mechanics was born 100 years ago. Physicists are celebrating

    A century ago, science went quantum. To celebrate, physicists are throwing a global, year-long party.

    In 1925, quantum mechanics, the scientific theory that describes the unintuitive rules of physics on very small scales, began to crystallize in the minds of physicists. Beginning in that year, a series of monumental papers laid out the theory’s framework. Quantum physics has since permeated a wide range of scientific disciplines — explaining the periodic table, the lives and deaths of stars and more — and enabled technologies from the laser to the smartphone. More

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    in Heart

    Hotter cities? Here come the rats

    If your city is getting rattier, climate change may be partially to blame.

    In an analysis of 16 cities around the world, those that saw the biggest temperature rises over the years also had more rat complaints over time, researchers report January 31 in Science Advances. Increased urbanization was also connected with more rat reports. The results suggest that higher temperatures may make rats — and the diseases they can spread — even harder to keep at bay. More

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    in Heart

    Another danger looms after the LA fires: Devastating debris flows

    The Los Angeles wildfires were still burning when scientists started scouting the freshly charred burn scars to search for signs of another danger that’s yet to come — roaring torrents of rock and mud and water that can sweep downhill with deadly momentum.

    Triggered by intense bouts of rainfall, these debris flows — as well as flash floods — become more likely to occur after an intense wildfire has scorched an area’s slopes and vegetation. While flash floods can be devastating, debris flows surge with even greater ferocity. At least half of their volume is sediment, and it’s mixed with burned trees, cars and boulders. More

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    in Heart

    Unearthed ice may be the Arctic’s oldest buried glacier remnant

    On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, researchers have discovered the remains of an ancient glacier that could be over a million years old. The discovery represents what may be the oldest glacier ice ever found buried in permafrost — ground that has been frozen for at least 2 years straight — in the Arctic, researchers report in the January 1 Geology. For researchers keen on studying the glacier, the clock is ticking, as human-caused climate change has exposed the long-preserved ice to melting.

    Like notes in the pages of a logbook, the gas bubbles, compounds and particulates trapped in a glacier’s icy layers can yield information about the atmospheres and climates of bygone millennia. But there are precious few reports of such ice older than the last great expansion of the ice sheets, 26,000 to 20,000 years ago. The newfound ice could thus provide researchers with a rare chance to study the climate of the early Pleistocene epoch, during which the Earth underwent episodic ice ages separated by warm periods known as interglacial periods. “These [Pleistocene climate shifts] are analogs for what we can see in the future,” says geomorphologist Daniel Fortier of the University of Montreal.

    In 2009, Fortier and colleagues were studying a buried fossilized forest on Bylot Island, in Canada’s Nunavut Territory, when they stumbled across the sites of some recent landslides that had been triggered by the thawing of permafrost. The slides had exposed translucent, layered bodies of ice that had been buried a few meters underground, just above the fossil forest. Much to Fortier’s surprise, radiocarbon dating of organic matter in the ice revealed it was over 60,000 years old. “I was not expecting that at all,” he says.

    Researchers are shown digging into the remnant glacier ice, which became exposed by the thawing and slumping of previously frozen ground.Stéphanie Coulombe

    What’s more, in the sediment layers overlying the ice, the researchers discovered a flip in the alignment of magnetic minerals that corresponded with a reversal of Earth’s magnetic field roughly 770,000 years old, indicating the ice was at least that old. And previous research had dated the fossil forest upon which the glacier rested to around 2.8 to 2.4 million years ago, providing a maximum possible age for the ice.

    The discovery is a testament to the resilience of permafrost, Fortier says. While climate projections suggest permafrost will completely thaw in many regions by the end of the century, this preserved glacier has persisted through interglacial periods that were warmer than today, he notes. “I don’t think permafrost will disappear so fast. The system is more resilient than we think.” More

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    in Heart

    A podcast challenges us to reassess our relationship with wildfires

    United by FireDenver Museum of Nature & ScienceAvailable wherever you get your podcasts

    For hundreds of millions of years, wildfires were directed solely by the weather, vegetation and terrain. But in the last century in the United States, people have sought to suppress even those beneficial fires that would otherwise clear out dead vegetation, which can fuel wildfires, and stimulate new growth. Now, catastrophic megafires erupt each year, and in some places, climate change has extended the fire season. Clearly something has to give — our society must change its relationship with fire. More

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    in Heart

    Humans, not climate change, may have wiped out Australia’s giant kangaroos

    The demise of most of Australia’s kangaroo species by 40,000 years ago may have had less to do with climate-caused dietary pressures and more to do with human hunters.

    Dental analyses of ancient kangaroos reveal they weren’t such picky eaters as once thought, researchers report in the Jan. 10 Science. Instead, when it came to climate-related changes in food availability, the animals might have rolled with the punches, the scientists suggest.

    Between 65,000 and 40,000 years ago, more than 90 percent of Australia’s large animal species went extinct. Over half were kangaroos. The primary suspects behind these extinctions were thought to be human hunters, who had arrived sometime between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, and rapid changes in the climate, which may have dramatically reduced the animals’ dietary options. More

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    in Heart

    California wildfire season should be over. So why is L.A. burning?

    Unusually dry conditions and hurricane-force seasonal winds are fueling multiple fast-moving and destructive wildfires in Los Angeles County. Gusts that reached over 145 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) quickly drove the blazes into urban areas, forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate from their homes and killing at least two people as of January 8.

    The largest of the blazes, known as the Palisades fire, erupted the morning of January 7 on the west side of Los Angeles and has since burned more than 6,400 hectares (15,800 acres) and destroyed around 1,000 structures. The second largest, called the Eaton fire, ignited near Pasadena that night and had burned more than 4,290 hectares by the next morning. A third blaze, the Hurst fire near Sylmar, has burned more than 200 hectares. More