The Independent reports that the:

ocean "engine" that helps to drive the warm waters of the Gulf
Stream and keeps Britain relatively mild in winter has begun to slow
down, say scientists.

Uh oh.  This would be bad news because:

Scientists estimate that the detected 30 per cent weakening of the
Atlantic currents could lead to a fall of about 1C in Britain’s average
temperatures over the next 20 years.

Specifically, the article notes that the rate of flow has fallen 30%
from 20 million tons of water flowing per second to 14 million tons of
water flowing per second.  Continuing this process could have dire implications:

They also warn that the weakening could be the first signs of an
accelerating trend that could eventually lead to a more drastic change,
including a complete shutdown of the currents. If this were to happen,
average temperatures in Britain could fall by between 4C and 6C,
leading to winter temperatures similar to Newfoundland in Canada, which
is on the same latitude as the UK but does not benefit from the Gulf
Stream.

Such a change could also hurt New England, but Europe would bear the brunt of such a slow down in the current.

Common Dreams has another copy of the article.

The New Scientist reports that:

The edges of the Antarctic ice sheets are slipping into the ocean at an
unprecedented rate, raising fears of a global surge in sea levels,
glaciologists warned on Monday.

The findings confound predictions made just four years ago, by the
UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that Antarctica
would not contribute significantly to sea level rise in the 21^st century. 

       
       
       
       
       
            

In
one area, around the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, glaciers are
dumping more than 110 cubic kilometres of ice into the ocean each year,
Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, US, told
a meeting at the Royal Society in London, UK. This loss, which is
increasing each year, is many times faster than the ice can be replaced
by snowfall inland, he says.

…

Antarctic glaciers are much bigger than those in warmer climates.
They are up to a kilometre thick, tens of kilometres wide and hundreds
of kilometres long. Connected to inland ice tributaries, they drain the
continent’s ice caps, which are the largest stores of frozen water on
the planet.

       
       
       
       
       
            

In
many places, the glaciologists reported that the recent acceleration in
glacier flows has been triggered by the break-up of a series of
floating ice shelves at the continent’s edge. These shelves acted like
a cork in a bottle, holding back the glaciers.

Got this article via the New Standard News news summary page.  A great source of news.

The Guardian also reports on an article in Science (not available without a login) that scientists using new techniques for analyzing satellite images of the Amazon Rainforest have concluded that the rate of destruction of the Amazon is twice what we had estimated.  They were able to identify the areas where single or several high value trees were pulled out resulting in increased drying in that area and the attendent destruction around the tree.