We have large portions of the Arctic Ocean free of ice in the summer. That opens up a whole new field of science ... and exploration.This article looks at some of the issues of ice melt and, likely, a new seasonal cycle of the Earth's albedo - a little bit like Mars.
RickyRood, • 10:43 PM GMT on April 28, 2011
RickyRood, • 5:47 PM GMT on April 18, 2011
Aircraft currently account for about 3% of the global human-emitted CO2. But a major new study published this April in Nature found that at any particular moment, the clouds aircraft leave in the sky--contrails--have a warming effect on the climate that is greater than all the CO2 emitted by aircraft since the dawn of aviation 100 years ago. The new study used a global climate model to determine that contrails that spread out into cirrus clouds cause nine times more climate warming than the original line-shaped contrails.
RickyRood, • 5:47 PM GMT on April 11, 2011