Daniel Cressey; cross-posted from The Great Beyond As world leaders sweat in Copenhagen and climate sceptics continue to crow over stolen emails, the World Meteorological Organization has announced that 2009 is likely to be one of the 10 warmest years since records began in 1850. Although the temperatures for November and December are not in yet, the WMO says the combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 is currently estimated at 0.44 degrees C above the 1961-1999 average of 14.00 degrees. “The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages,  … Read more

Daniel Cressey; cross-posted from The Great Beyond The ice sheet covering east Antarctica may have been melting since 2006, according to new research, contradicting previous suggestions that it has remained stable or even grown in mass. Using measurements for 2002 to 2009 from a twin pair of satellites, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, say east Antarctica is losing mass at about 58 gigatonnes a year. Most of the loss appears to be from coastal regions and to stem from increased ice loss post 2006. Previous studies have generally used satellites to measure elevation or  … Read more