Climate changes – dilemmas from the past and the present
- Authors: Ognjen Bonacci
- Citation: Acta hydrotechnica, vol. 28, no. 48, pp. 39-47, 2015.
- Abstract: The paper discusses the question regarding climate change: ”Is climate really changing due to human activities or is it changing naturally?” In the paper two examples are covered. The first one is from the past. Radar images of the Mauritanian desert have revealed a river stretching for more than 500 km and suggest that plants and wildlife once thrived there. Radar images taken from a Japanese Earth observation satellite spotted the ancient river system beneath the shallow, dusty surface, apparently winding its way from inland towards the Atlantic Ocean coast. The river carried water to the sea during the periodic humid spells that took hold in the region over the past 245,000 years. Water may last have coursed through the channels 5,000 years ago. The second example discusses recent process in the Antarctic. Mass gains of the Antarctic ice sheet that exceed losses. During the period 1992–2001, the Antarctic mass gain from snow accumulation exceeded the mass loss from ice discharge. During 2003–2008, the gain exceeded the loss by about 82±25 Gt per year, which is 4 % of the surface mass balance and is equivalent to 0.23 mm per year sea-level fall.
- Keywords: climate changes, sea level fall, ice sheet, Antarctic, Sahara
- Full text: a48ob.pdf
- References:
- Bonacci, O. (1998). Opskrba vodom Libije. Hrvatska Vodoprivreda VII 64, 9–11.
- Bonacci, O. (2012). Voda i život u Sahari!? Hrvatske Vode 20(81), 139–144.
- Clites, A.H., Wang, J., Campbell, K.B., Gronewold, A.D., Assel, R.A., Bai, X., Leshkevich, G.A. (2014). Cold water and high ice cover on Great Lakes in spring 2014, EOS 95(24), 305–312.
- Doran, P.T., Priscu, J.C., Berry Lyons, W., Walsh, J.E., Fountain, A. G., McKnight, D.M., Moorhead, D.L., Virginia, R.A., Wall, D.H., Clow, G.D., Fritsen, C.H., McKay, C.P., Parsons, A.N. (2002). Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response. Nature 415, 517–520.
- Frieler, K., Clark, P.U., Feng He, Buizert, C., Reese, R., Ligtenberg, R.M., van den Broeke, M.R., Winkelmann, R., Levermann, A. (2015). Consistent evidence of increasing Antarctic accumulation with warming. Nature Climate Change 5(4), 348–352.
- Heinl, M., Brinkmann, P.J. (1989). A groundwater model of the Nubian aquifer system. Hydrological Sciences Journal 34(4), 426–450.
- IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). (2013). »Summary for Policymakers« in: Climate Change 2013: The physical science basis. Cambridge, United Kingdom, and New York, NY, USA, Cambridge University Press: 29 p.
- Kröpelin, S. (2012). »La fin du Sahara vert« in: Des Climats et des Hommes. Direction Jean François Berger, Coéditions La Découverte - Universcience éditions - Météo-France - Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives, Editions La Découverte, Paris: 201–219.
- Kröpelin, S., Swezey, C.S. (2006). Revisiting the Age of the Sahara Desert. Science 312, 1138–1139.
- Lajoux, J.D. (1977). Tassili n'Ajjer: Art Rupestre du Sahara Préhistorique Paris, Le Chêne.
- Larious, C. (1983). Le données des carottes de glace de l’Antarctique: Évolution du climat et de l’environment atmosphérique depuis le Dernier Maximum Glaciaire. Bulletin de Institution Géologique de Bassin d'Aquitaine 33, 37–49.
- Leroux, M. (2005). Global warming - myth or reality? The erring ways of climatology. Springer Verlag, Berlin and Praxis Publishing, Chichester, 504 p.
- NASA (2014). https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum (pridobljeno 8. 1. 2015.)
- Overland, J., Turner, J., Francis, J., Gillett, N., Marshall, G. (2008). The Arctic and Antarctic: two faces of climate change. EOS 89(19), 177–178.
- Parkinson, C.L. (2002). Trends in the length of the Southern Ocean sea-ice season, 1979-99. Annals of Glaciology 34, 435–440.
- Postel-Vinay, O. (2002). Les pôles fondent-ils? Nature 358, 34–43.
- Roberts, C.D., Palmer, M.D., McNeall, D., Collins, M. (2015). Quantifying the likelihood of a continued hiatus in global warming. Nature Climate Change 5(4), 337–342.
- The Guardian (2015). http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/10/ancient-river-network-discoverd-buried-under-saharan-sand (Pridobljeno 8. 1. 2015.)
- Wendel, J. (2016). Scientists find the point of no return for Antarctic ice cap, EOS, 97, doi:10.1029/2016EO047929 (Published 10. 3. 2016.).
- Zwally, H.J., Jun Li, Robbins, J.W., Saba, J.L., Donghui, Yi, Brener, A.C. (2015). Mass gains of the Antarctic ice sheet exceed losses. Journal of Glaciology 61(230), 1019–1036.