Climate Change Has Pushed the World's Ice Out of Its Safe Zone
The world is no longer safe for frozen H2O.
New research published in Science on Thursday shows that the conditions that have kept ice, frozen soil, and snow stable are slipping away due to the burning of fossil fuels—and the implications are grave for the entire globe.
The climate of the past 12,000 or so years has been remarkably steady. That’s allowed for all kinds of wonderful things to happen, like human civilization flourishing. But rising temperatures are pushing the climate outside that envelope, and the new research looks at what the team behind the new findings has called the “safe operating space” for the icy, snowy landscape known as the cryosphere.
The scientists looked at changes to polar sea and land ice, mountain glaciers, permafrost, and snow cover over the past 12 millennia to analyze conditions that have allowed both civilization and other ecosystems to thrive. They...
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