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On 14 August 2021, researchers measured the southern peak of Sweden's highest mountain, Kebnekaise, at 2,094.6 meters above sea level. This is the lowest height since measurements began in the 1940s, and almost two meters lower than the same time last year.
From the mid-1940s on, there has been an unbroken series of measurements of Kebnekaise's southern peak, carried out by researchers at Stockholm University's research station in Tarfala. The measurements show that the south peak's snow drift varied in both height and shape during the 20th century. The height varies two to three meters between summer and winter. Normally, the peak is at its highest in May and lowest in September.
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The World Climate Research Programme Academy aims to support scientists in accessing the training they need to meet future challenges. As part of this, they have launched a global stocktake of training needs – and they need your input! Survey deadline 26 November 2021.
Now, more than ever, the world needs climate scientists. A key part of building the climate research workforce needed to address the challenges of this century is broadening access to climate science training. The WCRP Academy is one of the new lighthouse activities of the World Climate Research Programme, designed to make positive steps towards giving more scientists access to the training they need to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
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Human activity has warmed the planet at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years, a landmark IPCC report says. Continued inaction will have dire consequences across every corner of the globe, from the depths of the oceans to the highest peaks of our changing mountains.
The language in the most recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is stark: it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, and land – and the resulting changes to many of our planetary support systems are irreversible over hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
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New research provides the first scientific evidence of overwintering fires in Alaska and Canada boreal forests. Due to climate change, these “zombie fires” appear to be increasing in frequency.
The study published in Nature was led by Vrije University Amsterdam with co-authors at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska Fire Service. The researchers found that extreme summer temperatures and intense burning enable some wildfires to smolder in peat beneath snow during winter, even when temperatures drop to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. When warm and dry conditions arrive in spring, these fires flare up.
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Glacier runoff from one of the largest icefields in North America has been increasing for more than three decades, researchers from the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have found.
As the Juneau Icefield continues to lose mass, the flow will increase until 'peak runoff' is reached, the researchers predicted.
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A comprehensive inventory of Swiss glacial lakes shows how the lake landscape in the high mountains has changed since the end of the Little Ice Age in around 1850.
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Forest clearance in the mountains of Southeast Asia is accelerating and leading to unprecedented increases in carbon emissions, a new study published in the journal Nature Sustainability finds.
The findings of a new study published in Nature Sustainability show that forests are being cut down at increasingly higher altitudes and on steeper slopes in order to make way for agricultural intensification. As a result, more than 400 million tonnes of carbon are being released into the atmosphere every year as forests are cleared in the region, with that emissions figure increasing in recent years.
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The Pyrenean Climate Change Observatory has begun the second phase of the development of the Pyrenean Climate Change Strategy. The mountain research community are invited to participate in the process by contributing their experience and knowledge through an online survey.
The Pyrenees is a mountain bioregion particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Seven regional climate change policies from three countries converge in this territory, comprised of two EU Member States and one third country.