• Climate Change

Study Finds Glaciers Are Melting Faster Than Ever

• climate change
• endangered species
• glaciers
• habitat
• ice
• melting
• sea level rise
• water

The world’s glaciers are melting faster than ever before, and it’s having significant consequences on the oceans, wildlife, and our coastlines. A study published Wednesday found that nearly all the world’s glaciers are melting, and some are withering at rates 31 percent higher than 15 years ago. 

Why This Matters: As glaciers melt, habitats for critical species disappear, water sources deplete, coastlines recede, and dangerous glacial bursts threaten communities.

• Cosmos

Google Unveils 37 Year Time-lapse of Earth’s Surface, Reveals Melting Glaciers, Deforestation

• #30x30
• climate change
• deforestation
• glaciers
• Google
• melting
• Paris Agreement
• permafrost
• rainforests
• urbanization

In time for Earth Day, last week Google unveiled Google Earth Timelapse, allowing users to see zoomable videos documenting how the Earth has changed since 1984. Through the eyes of a satellite, users can view sobering and sometimes alarming trends of deforestation, sea-level rise, dried up seas, and urban sprawl. 

Why This Matters: The world is fast approaching its deadline to stop global temperature rise and prevent total climate catastrophe, but in the U.S., the world’s second-largest emissions producer, some politicians are still fighting the climate efforts to control emissions.

• Politics

Mending the Arctic Council After Trump Administration’s Climate Denial

• Arctic Council
• global warming
• ice
• indigenous people
• melting

The Trump Administration wreaked havoc on the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that brings together eight nations and six Arctic Indigenous organizations to discuss issues impacting the melting top of the globe.

Why this Matters: With the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe, it’s especially imperative to have international collaboration on how to navigate the changing realities.

• People

Interview of the Week: Scott Ressler on National Geographic’s “The Last Ice”

• climate change
• ice
• Inuit
• melting
• National Geographic Society
• sea ice
• the Arctic
• The Last Ice

This week, we sat down with Scott Ressler, the producer and director of the National Geographic Society’s latest feature documentary film called “The Last Ice.”  Watch the full interview, and also the film’s beautiful trailer below.  It premieres on National Geographic Wild on Monday at 9 PM ET. On the Film’s Genesis: It started out […]

• Ocean

Greenland’s Rapid Ice Melt Could Jeopardize Major Cities

• AOC
• climate change
• Greenland
• icesheets
• melting
• sea level rise
• tipping point

Sea level rise caused by rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland is now even more likely to adversely impact the most vulnerable coastal cities: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Osaka (Japan), Rio de Janeiro, and Miami, according to a news report in The Guardian.  A new study published by the National Academies of Sciences led by scientists from Ohio State found that ice loss between 2003 and 2013 was greater than previously thought because in addition to glaciers, a greater amount of melting during that time came from ice sheets in the southwest region of the island, which is largely glacier-free and had not been as closely studied in the past.