Antarctic Peninsula warming up due to heat in Tasman sea
Heating of the Tasman sea warms up the climate of Antarctic Peninsula via changes in wind patterns, new study by Japanese and Australian scientists shows
2021-03-09
(Press-News.org) The melting of the Earth's ice cover intensified in the 20th century, with glaciers and sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions melting at alarming speeds. In fact, The Antarctic Peninsula (AP), which is the only landmass of Antarctica extending out past the Antarctic Circle, was found to be one of the most rapidly warming regions on the planet during the second half of the 20th century. This rapid change in climate has raised serious concerns of rising sea levels the world over.
Multiple factors have been associated with the melting of the ice cover: the primary factor being the greenhouse gas emissions from human activities that cause warming up of the atmosphere and the oceans and the consequent ice melting. Apart from this, atmospheric variations, ocean currents, and wind patterns also play a significant role. Now, a collaborative group of scientists from Japan and Australia--led by Assistant Professor Kazutoshi Sato from Kitami Institute of Technology and Associate Professor Jun Inoue from National Institute of Polar Research in Japan--has focused efforts on understanding how fluctuations in these climatic factors affect the warming of the Antarctic. They have documented their findings in a brand-new article published in Nature Communications.
Previous studies have examined the relationship between the wind dynamics over the Southern Ocean (also called SO; located north of Antarctica) and climate variability in tropical oceans. It was found that heating in tropical regions generates atmospheric waves called "Rossby wave trains" from the tropics to the Antarctic region via the SO, which causes heating of the West Antarctic region. Interestingly, Rossby waves are an attempt of nature to balance heat in the atmosphere as they transfer heat from the tropics to the poles and cold air towards the tropics.
On the path of understanding the warming of AP, Dr. Sato points out, "The impacts of climate variabilities over the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere on this Antarctic warming have yet to be quantified". His team addressed this gap by looking at the climate changes in the Tasman Sea located between Australia and New Zealand and the SO and drew correlations with temperature variations in the AP.
Dr. Sato and his team analyzed the temperature data from six stations in AP and the wind and cyclone patterns over the Tasman sea and the SO from 1979 to 2019. They found that even without unusual heating in the tropics, only the heating in the Tasman Sea modifies the wind patterns over the SO and forces the Rossby waves to move even deeper into the Amundsen sea low, a low-pressure area lying to the west of the AP. This larger pressure gradient causes stronger colder winds towards the poles. The meandering wind stream moves towards the AP, resulting in the warming of this region. Additionally, this effect was found to be prominent in the winter months when the cyclones are more active. "We have shown that warm winter episodes in the Tasman Sea influence warm temperature anomalies over key regions of West Antarctica, including the AP, through a poleward shift of South Pacific cyclone tracks", Dr. Sato summarizes.
The ever-increasing warming of the AP--rather, the whole of Antarctica at large--is a major concern plaguing climatologists all over the world. Commenting on the serious implications of this rapid rise in temperature and sea levels and the importance of the findings of their study, Dr. Inoue says, "Antarctic warming accelerates Antarctic ice sheet melting and contributes to the rise in sea levels across the world. Therefore, knowledge of the mechanisms of the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would help scientists, policymakers, and administrations to devise measures for people who will be most affected by the rising sea levels."
Dr. Sato and his team concludes by stating that the findings of their study can also aid the future forecast of ice sheet melting in Antarctica and consequent global sea level rise.
INFORMATION:
About Kitami Institute of Technology, Japan
Kitami Institute of Technology is a national university in Kitami, Hokkaido, Japan. It was founded as the Kitami Junior College of Technology on 1 April 1960 and it was chartered as a university on 1 April 1966. In 2004, it became part of the National University Corporation.
Website: https://www.kitami-it.ac.jp/en/
About Dr. Kazutoshi Sato from Katami Institute of Technology, Japan
Dr. Kazutoshi Sato is an Assistant Professor at Kitami Institute of Technology in Japan. He has worked as a Project Researcher at National Institute of Polar Research, Japan. His research group is interested in understanding climate variability and its effects on increasing sea levels.
About National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR)
The NIPR engages in comprehensive research via observation stations in Arctic and Antarctica. As a member of the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS), the NIPR provides researchers throughout Japan with infrastructure support for Arctic and Antarctic observations, plans and implements Japan's Antarctic observation projects, and conducts Arctic researches of various scientific fields such as the atmosphere, ice sheets, the ecosystem, the upper atmosphere, the aurora and the Earth's magnetic field. In addition to the research projects, the NIPR also organizes the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition and manages samples and data obtained during such expeditions and projects. As a core institution in researches of the polar regions, the NIPR also offers graduate students with a global perspective on originality through its doctoral program. For more information about the NIPR, please visit: https://http://www.nipr.ac.jp/english/
About the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS)
The Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS) is a parent organization of four national institutes (National Institute of Polar Research, National Institute of Informatics, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and National Institute of Genetics) and the Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research. It is ROIS's mission to promote integrated, cutting-edge research that goes beyond the barriers of these institutions, in addition to facilitating their research activities, as members of inter-university research institutes.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-03-09
Anxiety levels in the United States are rising sharply and have especially intensified in younger populations. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders affect 31.9 percent of children ages 13 to 18 years old. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, children and adolescents have experienced unprecedented interruptions to their daily lives and it is expected that these disruptions may precipitate mental illness, including anxiety, depression, and/or stress related symptoms.
Traditional anxiety and depression treatments include ...
2021-03-09
A critical ingredient for auroras exists much higher in space than previously thought, according to new research in the journal Scientific Reports. The dazzling light displays in the polar night skies require an electric accelerator to propel charged particles down through the atmosphere. Scientists at Nagoya University and colleagues in Japan, Taiwan and the US have found that it exists beyond 30,000 kilometres above the Earth's surface - offering insight not just about Earth, but other planets as well.
The story of aurora formation begins with supersonic plasma propelled from the Sun into space as high-speed, charged particles. When these charged particles get close to Earth, they are ...
2021-03-09
Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have developed a tool to monitor communications within the brain in a way never before possible, and it has already offered an explanation for why Alzheimer's drugs have limited effectiveness and why patients get much worse after going off of them.
The researchers expect their new method will have tremendous impact on our understanding of depression, sleep disorders, autism, neurological diseases and major psychiatric conditions. It will speed scientific research into the workings of the brain, they say, and facilitate the development of new treatments.
"We can now 'see' how brain cells communicate in sharp detail in both the healthy and diseased brains," said lead researcher J. Julius Zhu, PhD, of UVA's Department ...
2021-03-09
(LOS ANGELES) - Recent advances in technology have opened many possibilities for using wearable and implantable sensors to monitor various indicators of patient health. Wearable pressure sensors are designed to respond to very small changes in bodily pressure, so that physical functions such as pulse rate, blood pressure, breathing rates and even subtle changes in vocal cord vibrations can be monitored in real time with a high degree of sensitivity.
Such responses occur when a substance in the sensor "gates," or allows selected pressure signals to pass to a transistor, which then conducts and amplifies these signals for detection. A recent type of transistor, organic electrochemical transistors ...
2021-03-09
Visual sensation begins at the retina, which is the neural tissue located at the back of eyeballs. It has been known that the retina detects light using photoreceptors which are light-sensitive nerve cells.In case of retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, those light sensing neurons are gradually damaged, leading to a profound vision loss. At this moment, no cure is available for the abovementioned ailments. But, microelectronic retinal prostheses can create artificial vision by electrically stimulating remaining retinal neurons although the prosthetic vision is still far removed from normal vision.
To further improve the quality of prosthetic artificial vision, Dr. Maesoon ...
2021-03-09
A staple for many, chickpeas are a rich source of vitamins, minerals, and fiber and offer many health benefits, such as improving digestion and reducing the risk of ailments including heart disease and cancer. However, chickpeas possess a rather narrow genetic diversity and are susceptible to Ascochyta blight, a devastating disease that can cause a yield loss of up to 100 percent. In Australia alone, this disease costs an average of $4.8 million annually.
To help curtail the impact of Ascochyta blight, plant pathologists in Western Australia have turned to wild relatives of the ...
2021-03-09
In the spring of 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic appeared to coincide with the tree pollen season in the northern hemisphere. These observations prompted an international team of researchers to conduct an extensive investigation: The scientists wanted to know whether there is a demonstrable link between airborne pollen concentrations and SARS-CoV-2 infection rates.
Pollen is a significant environmental factor influencing infection rates
Under the leadership of first author Athanasios Damialis, the team at the Chair of Environmental Medicine at TUM collected data on airborne pollen concentrations, weather conditions and SARS-CoV-2 infections - taking into consideration the variation of infection rates from ...
2021-03-09
Depending on the topic, people's attitudes can change from moment to moment or last a lifetime. The factors that make one opinion long-lasting and another ephemeral, however, are not always clear.
Past studies have demonstrated that opinions based on hard facts and data can remain constant over time, but new research published in the journal Psychological Science reveals that attitudes based on feelings and emotions can also stand the test of time. This research has implications for both predicting whose attitudes are fixed versus fleeting and how to nudge people to form more long-lasting opinions.
"We have ...
2021-03-09
Washington, March 9, 2021--A comprehensive meta-analysis of prior research has found, overall, that children ages 1 to 8 were less likely to understand picture books when they read the digital, versus print, version. However, when digital picture books contain the right enhancements that reinforce the story content, they outperform their print counterparts. The results were published today in Review of Educational Research, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.
Authors Natalia Kucirkova at the University of Stavanger in Norway and The Open University in the United Kingdom, and May Irene Furenes and Adriana G. Bus at the University of Stavanger, analyzed the results of 39 studies that included a total 1,812 children between the ages of 1 and 8. For their ...
2021-03-09
PHILADELPHIA-- Head injury in the United States is common, END ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Antarctic Peninsula warming up due to heat in Tasman sea
Heating of the Tasman sea warms up the climate of Antarctic Peninsula via changes in wind patterns, new study by Japanese and Australian scientists shows
