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The Greenland ice sheet is not only melting from above, but also from below. It has been discovered that this is caused by heat flowing up from Earth’s mantle. It’s variable across Greenland, absent in some places and intense in others. Last summer, NASA satellites revealed that the surface of Greenland’s massive ice sheet had melted over an unusually large area. NASA has been monitoring the Greenland melt for 30 years, July of 2012 was "unprecedented," partly because it was so large and partly because it occurred at the COLDEST part of the country, Summit station. The thawed area went from 40% of the ice sheet to 97% in just four days, starting on July 8th, 2012.read more

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Persistent rainfall and flooding across the central US is being caused by an unusual condition in the jet stream that has meteorologists scratching their heads. Normally in midsummer, the jet stream rises to the north and becomes weaker, flowing over central Canada and occasionally dipping down into the US, bringing outbursts of summer thunderstorms with it. This year, however, it has been acting in an erratic manner. In June, it looped high into the arctic, bringing record temperatures to Alaska and Siberia and accelerating summer ice melt dramatically. Then it dropped further south than usual, the summer melt ended and became normal, but the central US began to experience a cooler and wetter summer. Until August 10, one loop of the stream was stationary over the US midwest.read more

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Many vertebrate species (that category includes us) would have to evolve about 10,000 times faster than they have in the past to adapt to the rapid climate change expected in the next 100 years.

Scientists analyzed how quickly species adapted to different climates in the past, using data from 540 living species from all major groups of terrestrial vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. They then compared their rates of evolution to rates of climate change projected for the end of this century.
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With coastal areas bracing for rising sea levels, new research indicates that cutting emissions of certain pollutants can greatly slow down sea level rise this century.

A research team found that reductions in just FOUR pollutants that cycle comparatively quickly through the atmosphere could temporarily forestall the rate of sea level rise by 25 to 50%.

As glaciers and ice sheets melt and warming oceans expand, sea levels have been rising by an average of about 3 millimeters annually in recent years (just more than one-tenth of an inch). If temperatures continue to warm, sea levels are projected to rise between 7 and 23 inches this century. Some scientists, however, feel those estimates are too conservative.
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