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“Climate Change for kids” article collection

Published on August 31, 2022

A large effort of communication has been conducted around the release of the latest IPCC assessment report. One project, initiated by Chris Jones (lead author of Chapter 4 of Working Group I on “Future global climate”), and Sophie Berger and Robin Matthews (Technical Support Unit for Working Group I), was to explain the basic concepts related to climate and climate change to children. They invited fellow IPCC lead authors and early career researchers interested in science communication to (…)

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Halving of Swiss glaciers volume since 1931

Published on August 23, 2022

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Université Grenoble Alpes have reconstructed the extent of Switzerland’s 20th century glacier ice loss for the first time. For this purpose, the researchers used historical imagery and conclude that the country’s glaciers lost half their volume between 1931 and 2016.

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A novel view on the key factors controlling the long term response of the Greenland Ice-Sheet flow to surface melt water

Published on August 02, 2022

Ice flowing from the interior to the lower elevated edges of Greenland exerts a key control on how much the Ice-Sheet will lose mass as temperatures rise. The faster the ice flows, the faster it reaches the edges where it can be discharged in the ocean or melt. Predicting ice flow, however, is a challenging task. In Greenland, ice flow is mainly controlled by the sliding of ice over its underlying bedrock and the modulation of it by surface melt water supplied to the base through vertical (…)

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Historic Greenland ice sheet rainfall unravelled

Published on June 03, 2022

For the first time ever recorded, in the late summer of 2021, rain fell on the high central region of the Greenland ice sheet. This extraordinary event was followed by the surface snow and ice melting rapidly. Researchers now understand exactly what went on in those fateful summer days and what we can learn from it.

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A reactive Arctic surface layer ? The chemical connection between snow and the atmosphere

Published on May 10, 2022

Slider image credit : Didier Voisin
The remote nature and conditions of the Arctic make it difficult to routinely observe chemical species in the atmosphere. Observational stations and measurement campaigns are therefore extremely valuable and provide insight into the chemical composition and processes occurring in the Arctic atmosphere. Measurements of chemical species such as ozone, mercury, chlorine, and bromine in the Arctic are of great scientific interest as they are involved in (…)

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Intense atmospheric rivers shown to weaken ice shelf instability at the Antarctic Peninsula

Published on April 21, 2022
Press release published by UGA

Atmospheric rivers landfalls shown to induce extreme conditions that destabilize Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves according to a new study from researchers (including IGE / OSUG ) from the Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Sorbonne Université and Aix Marseille Université, and from Portugal, Belgium, Germany, and Norway. Their study will be published in the journal of Communications Earth & Environment on April 14, 2022.
80% of the total Antarctica ice output flow through ice shelves (…)

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Urbanized tropical estuaries : hot spots of greenhouse gas emissions

Published on April 06, 2022

IGE and CARE International Joint Laboratory (Asian Center for Water Research) have been conducting research for several years on the pollution flows of organic matter and nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) from the Ho Chi Minh Megacity in southern Vietnam. This large Southeast Asian city is undergoing rapid economic and demographic expansion (10 millions inhabitants in 2020). With less than 15% of domestic urban water collected and treated, the city has a lasting impact on the quality of (…)

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Antarctica : working for 2 months at -40°C to complete the Little Dome C camp

Published on February 22, 2022

The first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice has been successfully completed. This international research project was funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros, supported by significant financial and in-kind contributions from the participating nations, and is coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Cnr (National Research Council of Italy). The project aims to obtain information on the evolution of the temperatures, on the composition of the (…)

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