We will feel the higher temperatures 'where we live'

Regions around the Arctic may have passed a 2°C temperature rise as far back as 2000 and, if emissions rates don't change, areas around the Mediterranean, central Brazil and the contiguous United States could see 2°C of warming by 2030.

This is despite the fact that under a business as usual scenario the world is not expected to see global average temperatures rise by 2°C compared to preindustrial times until the 2040s.

New research published in Nature led by Prof Sonia Seneviratne from ETH Zurich with researchers from Australia's ARC Centre ofExcellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) has quantified the change in regional extremes in a world where global average temperatures have risen by 2°C.

Read the Science Daily story - “How a 2°C rise means even higher temperatures where we live.”

Sudden ice loss from previously stable region of Antarctica

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 group of scientists, led by a team from the University of Bristol, UK has observed a sudden increase of ice loss in a previously stable region of Antarctica.

A story published today by Science Daily says, “Using measurements of the elevation of the Antarctic ice sheet made by a suite of satellites, the researchers found that the Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change up to 2009.

“Around 2009, multiple glaciers along a vast coastal expanse, measuring some 750km in length, suddenly started to shed ice into the ocean at a nearly constant rate of 60 cubic km, or about 55 trillion litres of water, each year.

“This makes the region the second largest contributor to sea level rise in Antarctica and the ice loss shows no sign of waning.”

Read the Science Daily story - “Sudden onset of ice loss in Antarctica so large it affects Earth'sgravity field”.