Showing posts with label North Pacific Gyre Oscillation. Show all posts

Written by fatih al-farahat in , , , ,


Greenland Ice Sheet’s elevation change in winter and atmospheric circulation

Nuuk Climate Days 2009 -- Changes of the Greenland Cryosphere Workshop & The Arctic Freshwater Budget International Symposium, Nuuk, Greenland, 25-27 August 2009

Primary author: CHEN, Linling (Nansen-Zhu International research center/Institute of Atmospheric Physics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences), lin-ling.chen@nersc.no ; Co-authors: JOHANNESSEN, Ola M. (Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center); WANG, Huijun (Nansen-Zhu International research center/Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences);  KHVOROSTOVSKY, Kirill (Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center)

Abstract ID: F4
 
Greenland Ice Sheet’s elevation change in winter and atmospheric circulation

Data from ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat Satellites are analyzed to identify the relationship between winter elevation variations of Greenland ice sheet and sea level pressure during 1993-2007. It is found that the North Pacific oscillation and the North Atlantic oscillation, the two major teleconnection patterns of surface pressure fields in North Hemisphere, both have significant impacts on the Greenland ice sheet winter elevation change by influencing accumulation. In addition, we are evaluating modeled precipitation data over Greenland based on comparison with accumulation data from all available ice core records and meteorological station, in order to better understand how the atmospheric circulation impact the Greenland Ice Sheet’s Elevation.

Written by fatih al-farahat in , ,


Oceanographer Charles Moore talks about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Oceanographer Charles Moore talks about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

environment360.org, March 4, 2009



Speaking at the recent TED Conference in California, oceanographer Charles Moore – who discovered and publicized the huge oceanic gyre of plastic waste known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” — outlined the toll taken on marine life by plastic bottles and caps. Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, said that the massive use of plastic bottles — Americans purchase 2 million plastic bottles every 5 minutes — is leading to floating swaths of trash that are killing large numbers of seabirds and contaminating fish. Hundreds of thousands of albatross chicks die in the Pacific every year when their parents pluck bottle caps out of the sea — thinking they are food — and feed them to their offspring, Moore said. As the bottles and caps break down, they turn into plastic pellets that are ubiquitous in the Pacific “garbage patch,” which is twice as large as Texas. One-third of the fish sampled by Moore’s foundation contained plastic pellets in their stomachs, he said, adding that the pellets accumulate extremely high levels of so-called persistent organic pollutants. The solution, he said, is to change the world’s “throwaway culture” and contain plastic waste on land.

Video link here: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/470

Link to article here: http://e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=1772

Written by fatih al-farahat in


Emanuele Di Lorenzo: North Pacific Gyre Oscillation described

New Ocean Current Discovered

The North Pacific Gyre Oscillation explains changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll seen in the Northeast Pacific. (Credit: Image courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology)

ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) — Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new climate pattern called the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation. This new pattern explains, for the first time, changes in the water that are important in helping commercial fishermen understand fluctuations in the fish stock. They’re also finding that as the temperature of the Earth is warming, large fluctuations in these factors could help climatologists predict how the oceans will respond in a warmer world.

“We’ve been able to explain, for the first time, the changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll that we see in the Northeast Pacific,” said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Since 1945, fishermen in the California current of the Pacific Ocean have been tracking temperature, salinity and nutrients, among other things, in the ocean to help them predict changes in fish populations like sardines and anchovies that are important for the industry. Studying this data, along with satellite images, Di Lorenzo discovered a pattern of current that he named the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation.

Recent satellite data suggest that this current is undergoing intensification as the temperature of the Earth has risen over the past few decades.

"Although the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation is part of a natural cycle of the climate system, we find evidence suggesting that its amplitude may increase as global warming progresses,” said Di Lorenzo.

If this is true, this newly found climate pattern mey help scientists predict how the ecosystem of the Pacific Ocean is likely to change if the world continues to warm, as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The research appears in the April 30 edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Adapted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology.

Georgia Institute of Technology (2008, May 2). New Ocean Current Discovered. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 8, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/04/080430141200.htm