DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
A new study suggests that Antarctica's ice shelves may be melting faster than previously believed, which is causing sea levels to rise at a more rapid pace and accelerating the dangers of climate change.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances on Aug. 12, was conducted by Caltech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers. It's based on a model that accounts for a narrow ocean current, which runs along the Antarctic coast.
The current's flow patterns show how freshwater, which has melted from the ice shelves, can trap dense warm ocean water at the base of the ice, intensifying heat and, therefore, causing more ice to melt.
"If this mechanism that we've been studying is active in the real world, it may mean that ice shelf melt rates are 20 to 40 percent higher than the predictions in global climate models, which typically cannot simulate these strong currents near the Antarctic coast," Andy Thompson, one of the researchers and professor of environmental science and engineering, said in a Caltech news release.
According to the release, "ice shelves are outcroppings of the Antarctic ice sheet, found where the ice juts out from land and floats on top of the ocean."
Several hundred metres thick, the shelves offer a protective buffer for the mainland ice, blocking the whole ice sheet from flowing into the ocean.
"A warming atmosphere and warming oceans caused by climate change are increasing the speed at which these ice shelves are melting," says the news release, which is "threatening their ability to hold back the flow of the ice sheet."
The study was led by senior research scientist Mar Flexas, who said their climate model assessed a current which is often overlooked by other researchers: the Antarctic Coastal Current, which runs counter-clockwise around the entire Antarctic continent, and is often considered too small to offer relevant data.
"Large global climate models don't include this coastal current because it's very narrow—only about 20 kilometres wide, while most climate models only capture currents that are 100 kilometres across or larger," Flexas said in the release. "So, there is a potential for those models to not represent future melt rates very accurately."
Increased meltwater can escalate melting at West Antarctic ice shelves thousands of kilometres away from the peninsula, the research suggests.
The release says that "this remote warming mechanism may be part of the reason that the loss of volume from West Antarctic ice shelves has accelerated in recent decades."
"There are aspects of the climate system that we are still discovering," Thompson said in the release. "As we've made progress in our ability to model interactions between the ocean, ice shelves, and atmosphere, we're able to make more accurate predictions with better constraints on uncertainty. We may need to revisit some of the predictions of sea level rise in the next decades or century—that's work that we'll do going forward."
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Senate legal affairs committee has rejected a motion calling for members to take a $50,000 field trip to the African Lion Safari in southern Ontario to see the zoo's elephant exhibit.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.