Tensions over the Arctic’s untapped energy reserves are expected to build after a survey has found substantial mineral riches under the ice.
The analysis, by researchers at the U.S. Geologic Survey, found that a third of world’s remaining natural gas and 13 per cent of its oil are trapped beneath the oceans of the North Pole.
Continue reading… “Third Of World’s Gas Reserve Found Beneath Arctic”
New York, Boston and other cities on North America’s northeast coast could face a rise in sea level this century that would exceed forecasts for the rest of the planet if Greenland’s ice sheet keeps melting as fast as it is now, researchers said on Wednesday.
Sea levels off the northeast coast of North America could rise by 12 to 20 inches more than other coastal areas if the Greenland glacier-melt continues to accelerate at its present pace, the researchers reported.
Continue reading… “U.S. Sea Levels Could Rise Significantly Due To Greenland’s Melting Ice”
Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat.
Continue reading… “Land Rising In Alaska As Glaciers Melt”
As if global warming isn’t giving us enough to worry about, now scientists say it could lead to bigger-and possibly more-spiders of at least one species.
A group of Danish scientists wondered whether global warming would make the hairy, meat-eating wolf spiders of northeastern Greenland bigger, since longer summers mean more hunting time. The little-known species, Pardosa glacialis, grows as long as 1.6 inches (four centimeters), study co-author Toke Høye of Aarhus University estimates. Continue reading… “Spiders Getting Bigger”
Despite projections by some scientists of global seas rising by 20 feet or more by the end of this century as a result of warming, a new University of Colorado at Boulder study concludes that global sea rise of much more than 6 feet is a near physical impossibility.
Continue reading… “Sea-Rise Levels By End Of Century May Be Lower Than Previously Predicited”