A view of Sand Mountain campground from the side of Sand Mountain at
Little Sahara Recreation Area in
Utah. The Little Sahara
sand dunes are remnants of a large river delta formed by the
Sevier River from about 12,500 to 20,000 years ago. The river emptied into ancient
Lake Bonneville near the present day mouth of Leamington Canyon. After Lake Bonneville receded, winds transported the sand from the river delta to the current location. The dunes are still moving 5 to 9 feet (1.5 to 3 m) per year. The area is home to typical Great Basin desert wildlife including mule deer, pronghorn antelope, snakes, lizards and birds of prey. Great horned owls make their home among juniper trees in the Rockwell Natural Area.
The effective rate of change in
glacier thickness, also known as the
glaciological mass balance, is a measure of the average change in a glacier's thickness after correcting for changes in
density associated with the compaction of
snow and conversion to
ice. The map shows the average annual rate of thinning since 1970 for the 173 glaciers that have been measured at least 5 times between 1970 and 2004. Larger changes are plotted as larger circles and towards the back.
All survey regions except
Scandinavia show a net thinning. This widespread glacier retreat is generally regarded as a sign of global warming.
During this period, 83% of surveyed glaciers showed thinning with an average loss across all glaciers of 0.31 m/yr. The most rapidly growing glacier in the sample is Engabreen glacier in
Norway with a thickening of 0.64 m/yr. The most rapidly shrinking was Ivory glacier in
New Zealand which was thinning at 2.4 m/yr. Ivory glacier had totally disintegrated by circa 1988.
[1]
This time series, based on
satellite data, shows the annual Arcticsea ice minimum since 1979. The September 2010 extent was the third lowest in the satellite record.
Warming Island,
Greenland: On January 16th, 2007, the New York Times reported that a new island had been found in Greenland. Warming Island was once thought to be an ice-covered peninsula, but it was exposed as an island when a
glacier melted to reveal the strait. This image shows satellite pictures of the island in 1985 when the glacier had firmly tied it to the mainland, in 2002 when there was only a thin bridge of ice, and in 2005 when the bridge of ice has broken to reveal an open water strait. More islands like this may be discovered if the
Greenland ice sheet continues to disappear.
the Arctic temperature trend between August 1981 and July 2009. Due to global warming, which is exacerbated at the
Arctic, there's a significant warming over this 28 year period.
Plant Productivity in a Warming World: The past decade is the warmest on record since instrumental measurements began in the 1880s. Previous research suggested that in the '80s and '90s, warmer global temperatures and higher levels of precipitation—factors associated with
climate change—were generally good for plant productivity. An updated analysis published this week in Science indicates that as temperatures have continued to rise, the benefits to plants are now overwhelmed by longer and more frequent
droughts. High-resolution data from the
Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, indicate a net decrease in net primary production (NPP) from 2000-2009, as compared to the previous two decades. This narrated video gives an overview of NPP and the
carbon cycle.
The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) is one of the primary reference compilations of temperature data used for
climatology, and is the foundation of the
GISTEMP Temperature Record. This map shows the 7,280 fixed temperature stations in the GHCN catalog color coded by the length of the available record. Sites that are actively updated in the database (2,277) are marked as "active" and shown in large symbols, other sites are marked as "historical" and shown in small symbols. In some cases, the "historical" sites are still collecting data but due to reporting and data processing delays (of more than a decade in some cases) they do not contribute to current temperature estimates.
As is evident from this plot, the most densely instrumented portion of the globe is in the
United States, while
Antarctica is the most sparsely instrumented land area. Parts of the
Pacific and other
oceans are more isolated from fixed temperature stations, but this is supplemented by volunteer observing ships that record temperature information during their normal travels. This image shows 3,832 records longer than 50 years, 1,656 records longer than 100 years, and 226 records longer than 150 years. The longest record in the collection began in
Berlin in 1701 and is still collected in the present day.
Animation of Modeled Climate-Induced
Glacier Change in
Glacier National Park, 1850- 2100. The simulation reflects the predicted exponential rise in atmospheric
carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, a 2xCO2 "global warming" scenario, with a concurrent warming of 2-3 degrees centigrade (4-5 degrees Fahrenheit) by the year 2050. In addition it assumes that
precipitation, primarily in the form of
rain, will increase over the same time period about 10 percent (based on the research of Dr. Steven Running, University of Montana).
Sea level trends between 1993 and 2010. Per the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "The following maps provide estimates of sea level rise based on measurements from satellite radar altimeters. The local trends were estimated using data from TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P), Jason-1, and Jason-2, which have monitored the same ground track since 1992.
An inverted barometer has been applied. The estimates of sea level rise do not include glacial isostatic adjustment effects on the geoid, which are modeled to be +0.2 to +0.5 mm/year when globally averaged."
A view of Sand Mountain campground from the side of Sand Mountain at
Little Sahara Recreation Area in
Utah. The Little Sahara
sand dunes are remnants of a large river delta formed by the
Sevier River from about 12,500 to 20,000 years ago. The river emptied into ancient
Lake Bonneville near the present day mouth of Leamington Canyon. After Lake Bonneville receded, winds transported the sand from the river delta to the current location. The dunes are still moving 5 to 9 feet (1.5 to 3 m) per year. The area is home to typical Great Basin desert wildlife including mule deer, pronghorn antelope, snakes, lizards and birds of prey. Great horned owls make their home among juniper trees in the Rockwell Natural Area.
The effective rate of change in
glacier thickness, also known as the
glaciological mass balance, is a measure of the average change in a glacier's thickness after correcting for changes in
density associated with the compaction of
snow and conversion to
ice. The map shows the average annual rate of thinning since 1970 for the 173 glaciers that have been measured at least 5 times between 1970 and 2004. Larger changes are plotted as larger circles and towards the back.
All survey regions except
Scandinavia show a net thinning. This widespread glacier retreat is generally regarded as a sign of global warming.
During this period, 83% of surveyed glaciers showed thinning with an average loss across all glaciers of 0.31 m/yr. The most rapidly growing glacier in the sample is Engabreen glacier in
Norway with a thickening of 0.64 m/yr. The most rapidly shrinking was Ivory glacier in
New Zealand which was thinning at 2.4 m/yr. Ivory glacier had totally disintegrated by circa 1988.
[1]
This time series, based on
satellite data, shows the annual Arcticsea ice minimum since 1979. The September 2010 extent was the third lowest in the satellite record.
Warming Island,
Greenland: On January 16th, 2007, the New York Times reported that a new island had been found in Greenland. Warming Island was once thought to be an ice-covered peninsula, but it was exposed as an island when a
glacier melted to reveal the strait. This image shows satellite pictures of the island in 1985 when the glacier had firmly tied it to the mainland, in 2002 when there was only a thin bridge of ice, and in 2005 when the bridge of ice has broken to reveal an open water strait. More islands like this may be discovered if the
Greenland ice sheet continues to disappear.
the Arctic temperature trend between August 1981 and July 2009. Due to global warming, which is exacerbated at the
Arctic, there's a significant warming over this 28 year period.
Plant Productivity in a Warming World: The past decade is the warmest on record since instrumental measurements began in the 1880s. Previous research suggested that in the '80s and '90s, warmer global temperatures and higher levels of precipitation—factors associated with
climate change—were generally good for plant productivity. An updated analysis published this week in Science indicates that as temperatures have continued to rise, the benefits to plants are now overwhelmed by longer and more frequent
droughts. High-resolution data from the
Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, indicate a net decrease in net primary production (NPP) from 2000-2009, as compared to the previous two decades. This narrated video gives an overview of NPP and the
carbon cycle.
The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) is one of the primary reference compilations of temperature data used for
climatology, and is the foundation of the
GISTEMP Temperature Record. This map shows the 7,280 fixed temperature stations in the GHCN catalog color coded by the length of the available record. Sites that are actively updated in the database (2,277) are marked as "active" and shown in large symbols, other sites are marked as "historical" and shown in small symbols. In some cases, the "historical" sites are still collecting data but due to reporting and data processing delays (of more than a decade in some cases) they do not contribute to current temperature estimates.
As is evident from this plot, the most densely instrumented portion of the globe is in the
United States, while
Antarctica is the most sparsely instrumented land area. Parts of the
Pacific and other
oceans are more isolated from fixed temperature stations, but this is supplemented by volunteer observing ships that record temperature information during their normal travels. This image shows 3,832 records longer than 50 years, 1,656 records longer than 100 years, and 226 records longer than 150 years. The longest record in the collection began in
Berlin in 1701 and is still collected in the present day.
Animation of Modeled Climate-Induced
Glacier Change in
Glacier National Park, 1850- 2100. The simulation reflects the predicted exponential rise in atmospheric
carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, a 2xCO2 "global warming" scenario, with a concurrent warming of 2-3 degrees centigrade (4-5 degrees Fahrenheit) by the year 2050. In addition it assumes that
precipitation, primarily in the form of
rain, will increase over the same time period about 10 percent (based on the research of Dr. Steven Running, University of Montana).
Sea level trends between 1993 and 2010. Per the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "The following maps provide estimates of sea level rise based on measurements from satellite radar altimeters. The local trends were estimated using data from TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P), Jason-1, and Jason-2, which have monitored the same ground track since 1992.
An inverted barometer has been applied. The estimates of sea level rise do not include glacial isostatic adjustment effects on the geoid, which are modeled to be +0.2 to +0.5 mm/year when globally averaged."