Is the ice in Greenland in growing decline?

Accelerated loss of ice mass could be 'ice shield weather'

2013-07-15

(Press-News.org) The time period of satellite observations of the ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic is still too short to be able to say whether the accelerated loss of ice measured today will persist in the future. This is the result published today in the online edition of "Nature Geosciences" by a research team led by Bert Wouters from the University of Bristol. The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences is also involved in the study. The researchers conclude that predictions of the contribution of both ice shields to the sea level up to the year 2100 may be more than 35 cm too high or too low. The researchers analyzed nine years' worth of data from the gravity field satellite GRACE. The GRACE measurements showed that both ice sheets are losing significant amounts of ice - about 300 billion tons per year. At the same time, the rate at with which these losses occur is increasing: The contribution of both ice shields to sea level rise in recent years has almost doubled when compared to the first years of the GRACE mission. The causes of this accelerated reduction in ice mass are still a challenge for scientists: In addition to anthropogenic warming, the ice sheets are influenced by a variety of natural processes, such as variations in snowfall and slow changes in ocean currents. In climatological terms, nine years are a very short period of observation. "It would be more prudent to speak of weather rather than climate," says Bert Wouters. "This 'ice sheet weather' can cloak long-term acceleration, or suggest an increase in the depletion of ice mass that could actually be compensated over a longer period", adds co-author Ingo Sasgen from GFZ. "The results highlight the need for a continuous monitoring of the ice sheets with satellites." In particular, deriving long-term trends of processes that interact with the climate from short observation data sets only have limited meaning. In order to improve the identification and prediction of the contribution of melting ice sheets to future sea level rise, the observation will be continued with the GRACE-Follow On mission from 2017 onwards.

### B. Wouters, J.L. Bamber, M.R. van den Broeke, J.T.M. Lenaerts and I. Sasgen, „Limits in detecting acceleration of ice sheet mass loss due to climate variability", Advance Online Publication, Nature Geoscience 10.1038/ngeo1874, 14. 07. 2013

Images in printable resolution: http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/M40-Bildarchiv/Bildergalerie+Eismassendynamik

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

JCI early table of contents for July 15, 2013

2013-07-15

An "obesity-risk" allele alters hunger-stimulating hormone production Individuals carrying the "obesity-risk" allele of the fat mass and obesity associated gene, FTO, are prone to obesity and obesity related eating behaviors such as increased food consumption, preference for high fat foods and lack of satiation after eating. How this particular gene regulates obesity prone behaviors is not fully understood. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Rachel Batterham and colleagues at University College London identify a link between FTO and the hunger-stimulating ...

An 'obesity-risk' allele alters hunger-stimulating hormone production

2013-07-15

Individuals carrying the "obesity-risk" allele of the fat mass and obesity associated gene, FTO, are prone to obesity and obesity related eating behaviors such as increased food consumption, preference for high fat foods and lack of satiation after eating. How this particular gene regulates obesity prone behaviors is not fully understood. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Rachel Batterham and colleagues at University College London identify a link between FTO and the hunger-stimulating hormone, ghrelin. Subjects homozygous for the "obesity-risk" ...

Current blood transfusion practice in trauma centers feasible but wastes scarce plasma

2013-07-15

The use of a 1:1:1 blood transfusion protocol in patients with severe trauma is feasible in hospitals, although it is associated with higher waste of plasma, according to a randomized trial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Previous retrospective studies suggested that a 1:1:1 transfusion strategy or fixed-ratio transfusion could reduce the number of deaths from hemorrhage; therefore, the strategy has been widely adopted in trauma centres around the world and for nontrauma patients. It uses an equal ratio of red blood cells, plasma and platelets ...

An end-of-life 'conversation guide' for physicians to speak with patients

2013-07-15

How does a doctor tackle the delicate issue of end-of-life care planning with a patient? With an aging population and people living longer with chronic illness, it is increasingly important for patients and family members to decide how they and their loved ones would like to spend their final days. And for physicians in both hospital and primary care settings, it is crucial that they know how to address this issue with sensitivity. A new "conversation guide" in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) aims to guide physicians through these sensitive discussions with ...

A guide to help physicians talk to their patients about dying

2013-07-15

Hamilton, ON (July 15, 2013) - How does a doctor tackle the delicate issue of end-of-life care planning with a patient? With an aging population and people living longer with chronic illness, it is increasingly important for patients and family members to decide how they and their loved ones would like to spend their final days. And for physicians in both hospital and primary care settings, it is crucial that they know how to address this issue with sensitivity. A new "conversation guide" in Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) aims to guide physicians through ...

Scientists at NCI generate largest data set of cancer-related genetic variations

2013-07-15

PHILADELPHIA — Scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have generated a data set of cancer-specific genetic variations and are making these data available to the research community, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. This will help cancer researchers better understand drug response and resistance to cancer treatments. "To date, this is the largest database worldwide, containing 6 billion data points that connect drugs with genomic variants for the whole human genome across cell lines ...

Prior flu exposure dictates your future immunity, allowing for new, rationally developed regiments

2013-07-15

A team of scientists, led by researchers at The Wistar Institute, has determined that it might be possible to stimulate the immune system against multiple strains of influenza virus by sequentially vaccinating individuals with distinct influenza strains isolated over the last century. Their results also suggest that world health experts might need to re-evaluate standard tests used for surveillance of novel influenza strains. Their findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, available online now. According to the Wistar researchers, their analysis ...

Phytoplankton social mixers

2013-07-15

VIDEO: Scientists at MIT and Oxford University have shown that the motility of phytoplankton also helps them determine their fate in ocean turbulence. Click here for more information. CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Tiny ocean plants, or phytoplankton, were long thought to be passive drifters in the sea — unable to defy even the weakest currents, or travel by their own volition. In recent decades, research has shown that many species of these unicellular microorganisms can swim, and do ...

Affordable Care Act could cause people to leave their jobs

2013-07-15

As a consequence of the Affordable Care Act, between 500,000 and 900,000 Americans may choose to stop working. That possibility is predicted in a new analysis of an analogous situation in reverse: the abrupt end of Tennessee's Medicaid expansion in 2005. That year, Tennessee dropped 170,000 of its citizens from Medicaid. It was the largest Medicaid disenrollment in the history of the program. Economists from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business ...

Understanding the role of IKACh in cardiac function

2013-07-15

Researchers have uncovered a previously unknown role for the acetylcholine-activated inward-rectifying potassium current (IKACh) in cardiac pacemaker activity and heart rate regulation, according to a study in The Journal of General Physiology. The heart rate increases in response to fear or exercise, when the body's sympathetic nervous system activates the "fight or flight" stress response. After sympathetic stimulation, the heart rate is brought back to normal by the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates the body at rest. Parasympathetic regulation of the ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

JAMA names ten academic physicians and nurses to 2025 Editorial Fellowship Program

New study highlights role of lean red meat in gut and heart health as part of a balanced healthy diet

Microporous crystals for greater food safety – ERC proof of concept grant for researcher at Graz University of Technology

First evidence of olaparib maintenance therapy in patients with newly diagnosed homologous recombination deficient positive/BRCA wild-type ovarian cancer: real-world multicenter study