Cambridge University Press (June 3rd 2020)
A new paper written by Cyrille Mosbeux, Till J.W. Wagner, Maya K. Becker, and Helen A. Fricker describes the elastic and viscous driving forces of ice-shelf calving. Developing these effects allows for better modeling and prediction of future mass loss from the ice sheets.
NASA (April 30th 2020)
“Using the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument NASA has ever flown in space, scientists have made precise, detailed measurements of how the elevation of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.” The new findings track the large-scale mass loss of ice sheets with the laser altimetry ICESat-2 satellite launched in 2018.
Scripps News (April 30th 2020)
Using new data from the NASA ICESat-2 satellite, researchers found that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting at an unprecedented rate of 318 gigatons per year, greatly contributing to future sea level rise.
Scripps News (February 14th 2020)
The ‘Polar Amplification’ is a combination of feedback effects that accelerate global warming in high latitude, ice-laden regions. A team of Scripps scientists led by graduate student Emma Beer have discovered that polar water at depth is warming faster than the cool layer near the sea ice, increasing the upward heat flux. The findings suggest that this effect causes one fifth of warming in the Arctic.
Times of San Diego (November 26th 2019)
Polar Center researcher Jeff Severinghaus and colleagues recently traveled to Antarctica to sample the oldest ice on the continent. With an improved drilling system, the team are hoping to acquire ice core climate records stretching further back than ever before.
The San Diego Union Tribune (December 29th 2019)
Scripps researcher Jeff Bowman is joining the MOSAiC project, a multidisciplinary expedition to the Arctic, to answer the most pressing questions about polar interactions with the climate.
BBC (September 30th 2019)
Helen Fricker predicted that the Amery Ice Shelf would calve its “Loose Tooth” by 2015. The day after Amery calved D28, Fricker spoke to the BBC about the event and her earlier prediction. Though it remains “wobbly,” Amery shed a much larger iceberg, D28, which Fricker described as being “the molar compared to a baby tooth.” While this event is unrelated to climate change, “there is no cause for alarm yet for this particular ice shelf,” Fricker added.
Scripps News (April 3rd, 2019)
The new Scripps Polar Center brings together scientists from disciplines that investigate everything from ocean physics to ice sheet and glacier dynamics to the ecology of the organisms that live at the poles—a cross-disciplinary approach to understand polar regions in all their complexity.
Scripps News (May 11th 2017)
Maria Vernet is an emeritus researcher in the Integrative Oceanography Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the UC San Diego. She earned a master’s degree in biological oceanography from the University of Washington in 1981 and a PhD in biological oceanography from the University of Washington in 1983. A phytoplankton ecologist, she considers long-term changes in marine ecosystems with a special emphasis on life in polar regions.