Arctic ice cap melting at worrying rate

[MrRant 0]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The polar ice cap is melting at an alarming rate due to global warming (news - web sites), according to NASA (news - web sites) scientists, with satellite images showing the ice cap has been shrinking by 10 percent per decade over the past quarter century.

 

"It is happening now. We cannot afford to wait a long period of time for technological solutions," said David Rind of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

 

"Change is in the air -- literally," he told a press conference here Thursday.

 

By means of a special satellite launched last year to measure the thickness of the polar ice cap, NASA has confirmed that part of the Arctic Ocean that remains frozen all year round shrank at a rate of 10 percent per decade since 1980, NASA researcher Josefino Comiso said.

 

"The extent of Arctic sea ice that remains frozen all year reached record lows in 2002 and 2003," he added.

 

The polar ice cap expands in winter and contracts in spring and summer. The part of the ice cap that never melts, even in the warmest summers, is called the "perennial sea ice."

 

The oceans and land masses surrounding the Arctic Ocean have warmed one degree Celsius (two degrees Fahrenheit) during the past decade, scientists said.

 

Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are worried because global warming speeds up as the ice cap melts, forming a vicious cycle.

 

"Snow and sea-ice are highly reflective because they are white," Comiso said.

 

"Most of the sun's energy is simply reflected back to space. With retraction of the ice cover, that means that less of surface is covered by this highly reflective snow and sea ice, and so more energy has been absorbed and the climate warms."

 

The warming trend has brought spectacular consequences. US and Canadian scientists reported in September that the largest ice shelf in the Arctic off Canada's coast has broken up due to climate change and could endanger shipping and drilling platforms in the Beaufort Sea.

 

The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf had been in place on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory for at least 3,000 years.

 

"Small changes in ice could mean big impacts on the water cycle and ultimately the global climate," warned NASA.

 

The changes could alter ocean currents, the distribution of fish populations and precipitation averages over a wide area.

 

"One activity in the north is hunting of marine animals using sea-ice as a platform. When sea-ice retreats, it affects the communities up there," said University of Washington oceanographer Michael Seteele.

 

"The Arctic is changing rapidly. We should be concerned in the sense we need to simply recognize the change is here, is occurring and we may have to adapt to it," University of Colorado researcher Mark Serreze told reporters.

 

"Why the increase in global temperature?" he asked.

 

"Part of this is probably simply due to natural variability in the climate system," he added. "But the general consensus of the climate community is that part these changes are due to human impact."

[{''({o..o})''} 0]

I blame the Amish Hippies.

[Dangerous A 0]

Waterworld, here we come!!

[A Happy Medium 0]

So how long until I invest my money in that mini nuclear submarine I saw an ad for in the Sears Catalogue?

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Waterworld, here we come!!

It is still in the ocean, sea levels would only be affected if continental ice on Antarctica melted (the Greenland ice sheet is too small to make much of an impact).

 

And it is only at record lows since it started being scientifically measured in the early 1900s. Historical records indicate that the ice cap was much smaller from the 10th Century (when documents about the region first appear) until the beginning of the Little Ice Age in the 14th Century.

 

Human factor is minimal. Of the 1.5 degrees Celcius that global temperatures increased in the 1900s, we now know that 1.4 degrees can be attributed to an increase in solar radiation in the same time.

 

Sea levels were much higher 5000 years ago (the time of Noah) during the hypsithermal then they are now. Much of the Middle East was flooded periodically at that time (evidence of water-layed clays at various sites including Ur & Babylon). The arctic animals survived then, there is no reason to think that they can't survive now.

 

The biggest human influence on increasing temperatures is the building of cities, not pollution. Concrete and asphalt absorb heat as you know doubt know, where as plant life reflects it. This is why it is always much hotter in the city than in the surrounding countryside a few miles away. As cities and roads expand and become more numerous, this problem is only going to get worse. But relatively speaking, we still are not overriding global and extra-terrestrial factors.

 

As far as greenhouse gases go, the two worst by far are CFCs (Which are now banned in pretty much every major country, and thus the Earth is far below capacity. These are also the things that destroy ozone.) and water vapour (which is why it is so much hotter in El Nino years). Carbon dioxide which the horrible outdated Kyoto makes a big deal out of means practically nothing. Modern climate records show that there is a delayed effect. Temp goes up first, then C02 follows. You could double the amount of C02 in the atmosphere, and global temps would only go up 0.5 C.

Edited October 24, 2003 by Kahran Ramsus

[Vyce 0]

So.....we're all contributing to the heat-death of the universe?

[Red Baron 0]

And this news is how old?

[Ravenbomb 0]

*waves hand* It's the republicans fault