Archive by category | Anna Barnett

Timeline: Ice memory

Some of scientists’ gravest concerns about future climate change are rooted in the past. Records studied by paleoclimatologists reveal that the more extreme possibilities for this century and beyond — temperatures soaring, ice sheets vanishing, fertile lands withering into deserts — were realized previously on Earth when atmospheric greenhouse gas levels surged. At this summer’s AGU Chapman Conference on Abrupt Climate Change, researchers described this turbulent history through all manner of proxies – ice, tree rings, corals, marine and lake sediments, among others. But few talks went without a slide showing the wiggly line of a deep ice core.  Read more

Unknown climate culprit for Palaeocene-Eocene warming

Unknown climate culprit for Palaeocene-Eocene warming

A reconstruction of the Earth’s climatic history during a key hot period 55 million years ago has highlighted a yawning gap in our understanding: this period’s rise in carbon dioxide accounts for just half of its warming. Some as-yet-unidentified climate feedbacks could be at work, the scientists behind the research conclude.  Read more

Interview: Lonnie Thompson

Interview: Lonnie Thompson

At the AGU Chapman Conference last month I met up with Lonnie Thompson, the alpine glaciologist who has spent more time above 20,000 feet than any other human. Despite being interrupted by last-minute demands from Peruvian customs officials – he was squeezing me in before taking off for a new expedition in the Andes – an unphased Thompson carefully laid out the past and present-day climate change that his work has uncovered. Here’s an extract: What information can you garner from glaciers? Glaciers are like sentinels, and they’re telling us that the system is changing. The first thing we look  … Read more

Pre-Poznan: China makes the first move

Pre-Poznan: China makes the first move

Though experts have pegged China as the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter for well over a year, it was only two weeks ago that the government first openly admitted China’s emissions have caught up with the US (just barely, they insist).  Read more