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Title:New Research for Week #17 2024
Date:4/25/2024
Summary:

Ice acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:

In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products hampers the detection of inland changes. In-situ measurements using stake surveys or GPS have lower uncertainties. To detect inland changes, we repeated in-situ measurements of ice-sheet surface velocities at 11 historical locations first measured in 1959, located upstream of Jakobshavn Isbræ, west Greenland. Here, we show ice velocities have increased by 5–15% across all deep inland sites. Several sites show a northward deflection of 3–4.5° in their flow azimuth. The recent appearance of a network of large transverse surface crevasses, bisecting historical overland traverse routes, may indicate a fundamental shift in local ice dynamics. We suggest that creep instability—a coincident warming and softening of near-bed ice layers—may explain recent acceleration and rotation,

Record-breaking fire weather in North America in 2021 was initiated by the Pacific northwest heat dome, Jain et al., Communications Earth & Environment:

The 2021 North American wildfire season was marked by record breaking fire-conducive weather and widespread synchronous burning, extreme fire behaviour, smoke and evacuations. Relative to 1979–2021, the greatest number of temperature and vapor pressure deficit records were broken in 2021, and in July alone, 3.2 million hectares burned in Canada and the United States. These events were catalyzed by an intense heat dome that formed in late June over western North America that synchronized fire danger, challenging fire suppression efforts. Based on analysis of persistent positive anomalies of geopotential heights, the heat dome accounted for 21–34% of the...

Organization:Skeptical Science
Date Added:4/25/2024 6:39:03 AM
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