The Shrinking Ice Cap

[Amelia]

The Shrinking Ice Cap

[]http://images.livescience.com/images/050422_arctic_ice_04.jpg[/]

22 April 2005

As celebrations go on today for the 2005 Earth Day, debate continues over how much of climate change is due to human activity and what can be done about it.

But there is little doubt that global warming is occurring. Over the last century the global average temperature has climbed about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 of a degree Celsius).

The poles seem to be taking the brunt of this warming – with sea ice shrinking at a rate of 9% per decade. The above images show the change in the Arctic’s minimum sea ice concentration between 1979 (top) and 2003 (bottom).

The data comes from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI).

[aka]

BIGGEST ICEBERG SPLITS

The world's biggest iceberg has been split in two by a powerful storm, scientists say.

The huge iceberg, the size of Jamaica, broke up over the last month.

Eight smaller icebergs have also split away from it.

The 4,400 square mile piece of ice, named B15, suffered a massive fracture when the Antarctic storm swept in.

Scientists said they had expected it to split "eventually".

The two pieces, designated B15A and B15J by the US National Ice Centre, are now slowly edging their way along the Ross Sea, said Mike Williams of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research.

"They are still grounded on the Ross Sea floor by their weight," he said, adding there must have been "some inherent weakness" in the iceberg where it split in two.

B15 had been grounded off the Ross Sea ice shelf coast of Antarctica for more than three years, pounded by storms and waves and tugged by coastal ocean currents.

It was identified as the world's biggest iceberg three years ago when it broke from the Ross Ice Shelf.

The Ross Sea is on the northern Antarctic coast, 2,395 miles south of New Zealand.

British scientists have warned that polar bears are under threat because their habitat in the North Pole is being eroded.

Increasingly long summers are thinning the sea ice, which the bears rely on to hunt for seals.

Scientists say the ice could eventually disappear completely over the summer months.

Researchers from University College London and the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research have also warned that the melting ice will increase the effects of global warming in the northern hemisphere.

The study, reported in the journal Nature, is based on ice thickness measurements taken from two European Space Agency satellites, ERS-1 and ERS-2.

Microwave images from an American satellite were also studied.

Lead researcher Dr Seymour Laxon said the research showed that the length of summers has increased over the last 25 years.

"When we compared the data from the two satellites we were astonished by the similarity between changes in the ice thickness and the length of the summer melt season," he said.

"This result suggests that if this continues, further melting will occur, leading to the eventual disappearance of the ice during summer."

Ice in the Arctic Ocean has already thinned by 40% in the past 40 years, according to the results of other surveys.

(sorry, the above I saved to file but the source went missing, apparantly)

[aka]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,31500-12925784,00.html

Britain could be plunged into a 100-year-long winter within the next century, scientists have warned.

Ironically, the change would come about as a result of global warming cutting off the Gulf Stream which warms Britain's western shores.

Scientists say the change could happen relatively suddenly and may have already begun.

The Iceland Britain scenario was investigated on BBC 2's Horizon programme, the Big Chill.

Expert Terry Joyce, from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in the US said he put the likelihood of an abrupt plunge in British temperatures within the next 100 years at 50%.

He said: "It will be quick, and suddenly one decade we're warm, and the next decade we're in the coldest winter we've experienced in the last 100 years, but we're in it for 100 years."

Global warming threatens the gulf stream because it is predicted to produce more fresh water, which would dilute the salty waters of the current.

This, in turn, would stop it sinking, and if this happened the heat it carries would be cut off.

Dr Bill Turrell, from the Fisheries Research Service in Aberdeen, has been measuring the salt content of the Gulf Stream current flowing north of Scotland.

Dr Turrell's measurements show that the Gulf Stream's salinity is indeed dropping.

He said: "We were really worried when we saw these results. We'd never seen a change like this before.

"These changes are fundamental; they are substantial; They are going to impact our climate and the climate our children have to live in."

[Dr. Shane]

I don't see any opposing view expressed in any of the articles here. That is a little disturbing. These conclutions are not universially believed in the scientific community.

Furthermore, since ice takes up more space than water, if the polar ice caps are melting, why isn't the ocean receding? As the polar ice caps melt the coast lines should increase and new islands should start to pop up.

[Bravus]

1. See this article: http://bravus.port5.com/blog/index.php?p=52

2. Not quite: your reasoning is logical, but (a) the extra space that the ice takes up over the liquid water is the same extra space that protrudes above the surface of the water: so it's the 1/10th of the floating ice that's up in the air that tends to *increase* the volume of liquid water (this is only a small part of the overall effect and ( in Antarctica, as well as in the north around the Arctic Sea, much of the ice occurs as glaciers on land, rather than being in the ocean, and when that melts it also adds to the volume of water in the world's oceans.

[Dr. Shane]

Brother Dwight Hornbacher use to be a member here, and as a geologist, he would have disagreed with you on the issue of unity within the scientific community. He was a large asset here at C/A. I wonder whatever happened to him.

[there buster]

Antarctic Ice sheet is growing, as whole. And other interesting information about environmentalism as religion.

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/index.html

See speech by Michael Crichton before the Commonwealth Club of California, 9/15/2003

In another speech, Crichton says that when you hear about "scientific consensus" you know you hearing about politics, not science, because science is about data.

Anthropogenic climate change is and has always been a leftist political movement in search of scientific evidence.

It's basic tenets have been disproven. For example, supposedly, the increase of "greenhouse gases" due to human activity causes temperatures to rise.

Well, 3/4 of the 20th century's temperature increase occurred before 1940, but 3/4 of the CO2 increase occurred after 1940. The selective emphasis of data appearing to support this proposition is echoed by a press in need of dramatic stories. I've been around long enough to see so many of their dire predictions not only wrong, but ludicrously so.

As a political movmement, climate change is going well in the U.S. As a scientific idea, it's losing support world wide, notably in Europe and somewhat recently in Australia.

[Amelia]

Im no expert, nor a geologist, nor any kind of scientist. So I ask, what about the picture? Is it lying?

[there buster]

You have, in effect, two snapshots. The first tendency is to see a uniform, progressive change. The second is to project that backwards and forwards into the future. But the Arctic goes through a 19year oscillation.

[]http://www.techcentralstation.com/images/030705C1.gif[/]

Since the two pictures were taken in 1979, at the end of the most recent down oscillation, and 2003, in a current up oscillation, they show a noticable change. Had it been possible to take such a picture years earlier, the change would have appeared to be going the other way.

This kind of sleight-of-hand goes on all the time. For example, the ozone layer is thinner today than it was in the 1970's, we hear. So, what was the ozone layer like in the 1950's? What about 100 years ago? 500 years ago? We don't know. We didn't discover the ozone layer until the 1970's. So we have about thirty years data. Well, thirty years is a long time in human terms. In climate terms, it's a hiccup.

So, what the ozone layer has done over time we have no idea. To make predictions based on this tiny bit of data is irresponsible. It's like saying, "These last three days were colder than the previous three. At this rate, we'll have snow by July."

[there buster]

Here's another example of "misinformation."

On "Earth Day," AP Newswire led with a scary headline: "Study Shows Antarctic Glaciers Shrinking." and a "Global Warming" story followed.

[]http://www.techcentralstation.com/images/042505C1.gif[/]

It was absolutely accurate. Glaciers are retreating on the norther part of the Antarctic peninsula [in the red box], and temperatures are increasing. On the rest of the continent, however, glaciers are thickening and temperatures are decreasing--and have been for decades. See for yourself. What do you think? Is Antarctica as a whole cooling or warming? If it's cooling, why haven't you heard about it before?