Arctic ice cap melting at worrying rate: NASA

Yahoo! News ^ | 10/24/2003

[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."

[Always Right]

When the concern was global cooling, there was serioius scientific discussion of painting the ice caps black so they would melt. Conversely, now we are talking global cooling, may I suggest we paint the ice capes white to reflect the heat.....

[microgood]

Why don't we send all the scientists to the north pole with snow making machines or freezers or something. At least it would get them out of our hair.

[aruanan]

"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.

Poor Davey. Just because it's happening now doesn't mean that it's being caused by humans, especially when human contribution to global warming is less than 3 tenths of 1 percent, if that is even a significant difference beyond background.

[irishtenor]

***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. ***

PEOPLE!!! We've got to quit using our cars so the Eskimos can hunt seals. Do it for the Eskimo children.

[MonroeDNA]

NASA drank the Koolaid.

[DB]

When you consider that we are at around 300 degrees Kelvin it takes very little output change from the sun to make a big difference over the narrow range of temperatures we thrive in.

[BenLurkin]

Somebody warms Barbara . . .

[GOP_1900AD]

And even if it's not, it's perfectly natural. The Vikings were farming on Greenland 800 years ago and there were palm trees growing in southern England. Then, more recently, 200 - 300 years ago, we were in the midst of the "Little Ice Age" and people were ice skating on the canals of Holland and on the River Thames. We fail to understand what a big deal George Washington's and his troops' survival at Valley Forge was - the winters were much more severe back then. Now, we are slowly coming back to normal, as the remnent of the "Little Ice Age" recedes into history.

[Normal4me]

>>"From NASA. The people who brought you the Challenger and the Columbia.<<

Yup, only 38 succesful missions between the two. Columbia flew 28 missions and Challenger 10.

[GOP_1900AD]

Bump.

[PoorMuttly]

Muttly fix.

Everybody paints their roof WHITE...more energy reflected back up. Planets heating up, it happens, not in our control. Everybody wear white hats. Fixed.

You're welcome.

[RightWhale]

We fail to understand what a big deal George Washington's and his troops' survival at Valley Forge was

George Washington was encamped on his own property. He had purchased Valley Forge long before the war.

[Agnes Heep]

I clearly recall in 1966 people worrying that if prices continued to rise at their present rate, we'd be paying $30 a loaf for bread by the year 2000. It's about $2 a loaf now, and people gripe, but in 1966 dollars it's about right where it was then. Pay no attention to that funny man behind the sheep.

[StormEye]

Pseudo-scientific reports like this from what's supposed to be a scientific organization
point out that NASA needs a radical makeover. NASA -- stop wasting the taxpayers
money on junk science and enviromental wackos.