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Alpine glaciers: Another decade of loss

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Guest Commentary by Mauri Pelto (Nichols College)

Preliminary data reported from the reference glaciers of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) in 2018 from Argentina, Austria, China, France, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and United States indicate that 2018 will be the 30th consecutive year of significant negative annual balance (> -200mm); with a mean balance of -1247 mm for the 25 reporting reference glaciers, with only one glacier reporting a positive mass balance (WGMS, 2018).

A view of how alpine glaciers in the Pacific Northwest fit into the broader ecosystem (Megan Pelto, Jill Pelto).
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References

The Crank Shaft

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This is a thread for collecting the oddball theories, tinfoil hat-level conspiracies and other climate-related nonsense in the comments that would otherwise derail substantive discussion. Keeping them all in one spot might be of interest to future researchers.

New Ocean Heat Content Histories

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Guest commentary from Laure Zanna (U. Oxford) and G. Jake Gebbie (WHOI)

Two recent papers, Zanna et al. (2019) (hereafter ZKGIH19) and Gebbie & Huybers (2019) (hereafter GH19), independently reconstructed ocean heat content (OHC) changes prior to the instrumentally-based records (which start ~1950). The goals (and methodologies) of the two papers were quite different – ZKGIH19 investigated regional patterns of ocean warming and thermal sea level rise, while GH19 analyzed the long-term memory of the deep ocean – but they both touch on the same key questions of climate forcing and response.

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References

  1. L. Zanna, S. Khatiwala, J.M. Gregory, J. Ison, and P. Heimbach, "Global reconstruction of historical ocean heat storage and transport", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116, pp. 1126-1131, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1808838115
  2. G. Gebbie, and P. Huybers, "The Little Ice Age and 20th-century deep Pacific cooling", Science, vol. 363, pp. 70-74, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aar8413

The Climate Scientists are Alright

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Guest commentary from Eric Guilyardi (IPSL) and Valérie Masson-Delmotte (IPSL/IPCC)

[This is a translation of an article in Le Monde (Jan 11).]

In recent weeks in France, there has been a profusion of articles about the “climate scientist blues” (Le Monde 21/Dec, JDD 9/Dec, France Info 26/Sep), which has apparently affecting them “scientifically”. This follows a spate of similar articles in the US and Australian media (Esquire, 2015; The Monthly, 2018; Sierra Club Magazine, 2018). But what is the point of knowing the mood of scientists, or whether so-and-so is optimistic or pessimistic?

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Unforced Variations: Jan 2019

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This year’s first open thread on climate science topics. Usual rules apply – and let’s make a particular effort to stay substantive and not devolve into empty bickering (you still have Facebook for that).

Any expectations or predictions for climate science in 2019?