Related papers: Sea ice and methane
The downward trend in the amount of Arctic sea ice has a wide range of environmental and economic consequences including important effects on the pace and intensity of global climate change. Based on several decades of satellite data, we…
It has been proposed that galactic cosmic rays may influence the Earth's climate by affecting cloud formation. If changes in cloudiness play a part in climate change, their effect changes sign in Antarctica. Satellite data from the Earth…
This chapter explores the key carbon compounds that shaped the Archean biogeochemical cycle, delineating their substantial impact on Earth's primordial atmospheric and biospheric evolution. At the heart of the Archean carbon cycle were…
Rapidly diminishing Arctic summer sea ice is a strong signal of the pace of global climate change. We provide point, interval, and density forecasts for four measures of Arctic sea ice: area, extent, thickness, and volume. Importantly, we…
Understanding how sea ice melts is critical to climate projections. In the Arctic, melt ponds that develop on the surface of sea ice floes during the late spring and summer largely determine their albedo -- a key parameter in climate…
Clouds on Titan result from the condensation of methane and ethane and, as on other planets, are primarily structured by circulation of the atmosphere. At present, cloud activity mainly occurs in the southern (summer) hemisphere, arising…
During winter and springtime, the flow above Antarctica at high altitude (upper troposphere and stratosphere) is dominated by the presence of a vortex centered above the continent. It lasts typically from August to November. This vortex is…
A controlling factor in the seasonal and climatological evolution of the sea ice cover is its albedo $\alpha$. Here we analyze Arctic data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Polar Pathfinder and assess the seasonality…
An intriguing problem in climate science is the existence of Earth's glacial cycles. We show that it is possible to generate these periodic changes in climate by means of the Earth's carbon cycle as the main determinant factor. The carbon…
Observations indicate that the Arctic sea ice cover is rapidly retreating while the Antarctic sea ice cover is steadily expanding. State-of-the-art climate models, by contrast, typically simulate a moderate decrease in both the Arctic and…
Titan's northern high latitudes host many large hydrocarbon lakes. Like water lakes on Earth, Titan's lakes are constantly subject to evaporation. This process strongly affects the atmospheric methane abundance, the atmospheric temperature,…
The hydrologic cycle has wide impacts on the ocean salinity and circulation, carbon and nitrogen cycles, and the ecosystem. Under anthropogenic global warming, previous studies showed that the intensification of the hydrologic cycle is a…
Sea ice motions play an important role in the polar climate system by transporting pollutants, heat, water and salt as well as changing the ice cover. Numerous physics-based models have been constructed to represent the sea ice dynamical…
Methane ebullition (bubbling) from lake sediments is an important methane flux into the atmosphere. Previous studies have focused on the open-water season, showing that temperature variations, pressure fluctuations and wind-induced currents…
Titan's abundant lakes and seas exchange methane vapor and energy with the atmosphere via a process generally known as air-sea interaction. This turbulent exchange process is investigated with an atmospheric mesoscale model coupled to a…
As the number of detected rocky extrasolar planets increases, the question of whether their surfaces could be habitable is becoming more pertinent. On Earth, the long-term carbonate silicate cycle is able to regulate surface temperatures…
Aims: The long-term carbon cycle for planets with a surface entirely covered by oceans works differently from that of the present-day Earth because inefficient erosion leads to a strong dependence of the weathering rate on the rate of…
The potential habitability of an exoplanet is traditionally assessed by determining if its orbit falls within the circumstellar `habitable zone' of its star, defined as the distance at which water could be liquid on the surface of a planet…
Variations in stratospheric atmospheric circulation significantly influence tropospheric weather and climate, and understanding these variations can guide stratospheric aircraft development and operations. Despite a century of progress,…
Snow cover plays a critical yet often underrepresented role in shaping the thermodynamic behavior of Antarctic sea ice. In this study, we investigate the seasonal variability of snow distribution and its impact on surface albedo and energy…