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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
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FROM VOLUME 3, NUMBER 9, SEPTEMBER 1990

NEWS...
RESEARCH NEWS

Item #d90sep97

ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET STABILITY. Recent observations of erratic motion in an Antarctic glacier indicate a serious lack of understanding of the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet, and of its relationship to climatic change. This topic was the theme of an interdisciplinary workshop of physical scientists held January 1990 in College Park, Maryland, with support from the National Science Foundation. It concluded that the possibility of an impending rapid rise of sea level due to the response of the West Antarctic ice sheet to climatic warming, or to delayed response to past climatic change, is serious enough to warrant a new research initiative. A subsequent document (see REPORTS/OF GENERAL INTEREST, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Sep. 1990) describes the proposed SeaRISE initiative (Sea-level Response to Ice Sheet Evolution). A second workshop will be held in October at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland) to write a science implementation plan. (See related article by Bindschadler in PROF. PUBS./EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE. The report's executive summary was published in Eos, pp. 710-711, May 15. See also New York Times, pp. C1, C8, Aug. 14, and Science News, p. 285, May 5.)

Item #d90sep98

"Changes in Ocean Currents Could Accelerate Global Warming," New Scientist, p. 35, July 14, 1990. An analysis by West German researchers indicates that changes in ocean currents resulting from global warming may reduce the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide, resulting in a positive feedback. (See Mikolajewicz, PROF. PUBS./OF GEN. INTEREST, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Sep. 1990.)

Item #d90sep99

"Could Arctic Ice Be Thinning?" A.S. McLaren et al., Nature, p. 762, June 28, 1990. Data collected in recent years by British submarines suggests such thinning could be occurring, but much more data are required to reliably establish any trend. (See Wadhams article, PROF. PUBS./OF GEN. INTEREST, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Sep. 1990; also Science News, p. 46, July 21.)

Item #d90sep100

"Uranium Dating Delves Deeper into the Past," S. Bowler, New Scientist, p. 30, June 16, 1990. A new method of dating applied to Caribbean coral samples shows that car-bon-14 dating is in error by up to 3,500 years. The finding will lead to revised dating of climatic and sea level change at the end of the last ice age. (See Bard article, PROF. PUBS./OF GEN. INTEREST, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Sep. 1990.) A press release from Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory (where the work was done) states that the method provides so much detail that, for the first time, scientists can clearly see two dramatic meltwater surges 14,200 to 13,600 and 11,500 to 10,900 years ago, when sea levels rose at a rate of more than nine feet per century.

Item #d90sep101

"Ozone Depletion Quickens at Both Poles," New Scientist, p. 32, Aug. 4, 1990. Discusses balloon observations made by University of Wyoming workers in Antarctica and by Canadian scientists in the Arctic. (See Deshler and Evans articles, Global Climate Change Digest, PROF. PUBS./STRATOSPHERIC OZONE CHEMISTRY, June 1990.)

Item #d90sep102

"NASA Announces Comprehensive Global-Scale Environmental Studies to Improve Modeling," J. Air Waste Mgmt. Assoc., pp. 1024-1025, July 1990. Gives an overview of the NASA Mission to Planet Earth Program, and its space-based Earth Observing System (EOS).

Item #d90sep103

"Paleoclimatic Aspects of El Niño/Southern Oscillation," Eos, p. 982, July 17, 1990. This brief summary of a May workshop (Boulder, Colo.) includes discussion of the response of the oscillation to varying boundary conditions, which must be understood before the effect of global climate change on this important feature of the atmosphere can be determined.

Item #d90sep104

"AGU Position on `Our Changing Planet: FY 1991 U.S. Global Change Research Program,'" Eos, p. 746, June 5, 1990. Summarizes modifications to the President's global change research budget recommended by an American Geophysical Union panel of reviewers.

Item #d90sep105

"Climate and Water," G.E. Stout, Eos, pp. 339, 347, Mar. 20, 1990. An extensive summary of the December 1989 International Seminar on Climatic Fluctuations and Water Management (Cairo, Egypt).