Posted on 10/24/2003 2:37:14 PM PDT by jazzo
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.
AFP-NASA/File Photo
"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."
I can look foreward to beachfront/ocean-view, and palm trees. Koowel!
So many logical errors in such a condensed form!
Maybe we will like having a much smaller icecap with sea navigation possible all around it. Maybe there is nothing to be done anyway. Maybe we can wait or maybe we can do what???? Not wait???
BS. Until the launch of ICESAT, there was no reliable way of measuring ice thickness over large areas. Comparing ICESAT laser altimeter data to the guesswork about ice thickness done prior is useless.
Hmm. Aluminum is reflective, right? So if we quit painting drink cans and simply disposed of them alongside the roads, we could increase - by some small increment - the overall reflectivity of the planet, could we not?
I'm willing to do my part! Are you?
There were very few coal plants and even fewer SUV's in the 11th century. Cholofluorocarbons in spray cans were completely unknown. Global warming is cyclic and unrelated to man's puny activities.
Buy thermal insulation and heating stocks (again no pun intended or implied)
....enjoy................
From NASA. The people who brought you the Challenger and the Columbia.
Oh, the statement is right on target (i.e. accurate). EVERYONE is in agreement that SOME PART of the changes are due to human impact. The unknown point is exactly HOW BIG THAT PART IS with respect to "natural" variation from other causes. To date, the evidence is that the "human-instigated" portion is tiny compared to that due to solar intensity variation, variation in the earth's orbit, and changes in cosmic ray intensity, and many others.
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