The “Planet Earth Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
“The Arctic is currently warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe, so naturally, glaciers and ice caps are going to react faster,” said Simon Pendleton, a doctoral researcher in University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR).
“If you want to see where global warming is happening, look in our oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, at the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of the paper. “Ocean heating is a very important indicator of climate change, and we have robust evidence that it is warming more rapidly than we thought.”
Hurricane Michael plowed into the Florida panhandle Wednesday, Oct. 10, as a major Category 4 storm — the strongest hurricane ever to hit that region. Many NASA instruments are keeping tabs on Michael from space, including the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR).
“If the rate of sea ice loss and warming continues unmitigated, what is going to happen to polar bear habitat will exceed anything documented over the last million years. The extremely rapid pace of this change makes it almost impossible for us to use history to predict the future,” said Kristin Laidre, a marine biologist at the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center.
