By Austin Keating, Video by Tiffany Chen and Austin Keating, Nov. 22, 2017 –
Scientists take to the field to study rapid warming and cooling events in Earth’s past. They find clues in ice and rock, lakes and sediment across the globe. Rebuilding climate change patterns from the past enhances predictions for the future as human use of fossil fuels accelerates global warming.
Leading geologists and climate researchers shared their latest discoveries and new developments at the Comer Abrupt Climate Change Conference in southwestern Wisconsin this fall.
The Comer Family Foundation has supported climate science researchers for 15 years now. This year, scientists presented a wide array of new discoveries, such as looking at how heavy rainfall in California over the past year and years of drought prior to that are depleting snowpack that streams water into the region.
Researchers also presented new data on glacial melt in Greenland, as well as melt in the Bhutan region of the Himalayas, where the lower-elevation faces of glaciers are thinning as much as 10 feet per year, according to research presented at the conference by Joerg Schaefer of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Sea level rise as Greeenland glaciers melt and strained freshwater resources for several countries due to thinning Himilayan glaciers pose major concerns.
See related stories:
Soil Microbes Eat Up Methane: Gas Released From Thawing Ice Will Have ‘Minimal’ Impact on Climate Change
Oceans Soak Up CO2 and Buffer Global Warming
PHOTO AT TOP: A visualization of aerosols in the atmosphere above China recorded by satellites in 2006. Human-sourced aerosols and other greenhouse gases coming from China are rising, and scientists at the Comer Conference advocated for policy action to curb the trend (Courtesy of NASA).
NOTE: Tiffany Chen and Austin Keating are Comer Scholars, a Medill scholarship program supported by the Comer Family Foundation to promote graduate studies in Science and Environmental Journalism.
