Posted on 09/28/2005 6:27:13 PM PDT by blam
Arctic ice cap 'will disappear within the century'
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 29/09/2005)
The Arctic ice cap is on track to disappear within a century, according to a study published yesterday.
The satellite survey by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), and the space agency Nasa reveals that for the fourth consecutive year there has been "a stunning reduction" in Arctic sea ice at the end of the northern summer, placing species such as polar bears at risk.
The reduction in ice levels places Arctic wildlife at risk
The survey recorded the lowest sea-ice extent yet seen - 2.06 million square miles on Sept 19 - 20 per cent below the mean average September sea-ice extent from 1978 to 2001.
That is the equivalent of 500,000 square miles - an area about twice the size of Texas.
This year "will almost certainly surpass 2002 as the lowest amount of ice cover in more than a century", said Julienne Stroeve, of the Centre. If current rates of decline in sea ice continue, the summertime Arctic could be ice-free well before the end of this century.
A recent assessment of trends throughout the past century indicates that the current decline also exceeds past low ice periods in the 1930s and 1940s.
From 1979 until 2001, the rate of September decline was slightly more than 6.5 per cent a decade. In 2002, the trend steepened to 7.3 per cent and is now approximately 8 per cent.
Walt Meier, of NSIDC, said: "Having four years in a row with such low ice extents has never been seen before in the satellite record. It indicates a downward trend, not just a short-term anomaly."
Cooler winter temperatures allow the sea ice to "rebound" after summer melting. But with the exception of May 2005, every month since December 2004 has set a new record low ice extent for that month. The winter recovery of sea ice extent in the 2004-05 season was also the smallest observed by satellites.
"Even if sea ice retreated a lot one summer, it would make a comeback the following winter, when temperatures fall well below freezing," said Florence Fetterer, of NSIDC. "But in the winter of 2004-05, sea ice didn't approach the previous wintertime level."
Compared to the past half century, average surface air temperatures from January until August 2005, were up to 3C (5.4F) warmer than average across most of the Arctic Ocean. Since 2002, satellite records have also revealed that springtime melting is beginning unusually early north of Alaska and Siberia.
This summer, the Northwest Passage was open except for a 60-mile swath of scattered ice floes, a far cry from earlier centuries when expeditions were lost as their crews tried to beat through thick ice. The Northeast Passage, north of the Siberian coast, was ice-free from Aug 15 until Sept 28.
The Arctic may be caught in a feedback loop caused by global warming. As sea ice melts there is less to reflect the sun's radiation back into space and experts fear that the downward trend is reaching a point from which the ice will not recover.
Arctic Ice Cap gone? Fine, I'll buy the earth a Chicago White Sox Cap to wear!! Yea! Go White Sox!!
Does this means that all those very high priced meteor fragments which are found there occasionally will now be less valuable because they will be easier to find without all the ice and snow?
So, yet another study by those stuffed pointy heads, crying "the Sky is falling!" They still don't get it that Mother Nature has its own way to deal with things.
For millions or billions of Years the Ice Caps had been there larger or smaller depending on the cycle.
Now all of a sudden we are going to loose all that within a 100 Years.
This is the biggest piece of horsesh!t I have ever heard in a long time.
It looks to me that it is budget time at this so called study outfit, and the tax payers ought to fork over more dough for this kind of nonsense.
Yup. Sell your meteorite stocks now.
They're talking aboutn the Arctic, not the Antarctic. There will be no change in sea level unless the Antarctic melts, although the glaciers over land melting would raise it some. Still most is over the land of the Antarctic.
It took me awhile but Ive pretty much figured that out on my own. Thanks anyway.
They are right dude or dudette.
Is your favorite movie "The Day after Tomorrow"?
Hi RightWhale :) Yes, it sounds like you have a magpie. Yes, we have them as well. I do not see them nearly as often as the grey jays, but I've had two of them hanging around for the past couple of weeks. I think the magpies are lovely and I love their voice. I have several grey jays that have become "pets". They come when I call out, "come on pretty birds", and they feed out of my hand. They love Purina Cat Chow. LOL I keep a container on the deck and the balcony, and they are sooooooo smart. They know where I get the food from, and if I neglect their daily feeding, they will try to lift the lid off of the container.
Read on.
lies.... where is tis ice being displaced to? The ocean? Or another region of the artic?
Don't worry, pepsionice, Santa is safe and well in North Pole, Alaska. He and his lovely wife have secure "operating grounds" and the reindeer are thriving. :)
Aren't the magnetic poles shifting? That would cause the north pole & south pole to swap polarity?
Would all of the north pole ice have to move to the south pole & the south pole ice move to the north pole?
Maybe new poles will form in the East & West. Sort of like maybe the Hawaii pole & the Cyprus or Sri Lanka pole.
We almost reached 40 today. Lows the past few days have been in the 20's. Hubby was pelted with wet snow today, but on the homestead we haven't had any yet....unless some flakes fell in the night. Deck was covered in a thin layer of ice this morning.
Bullcrap...
Global warming is truly happening.
The sea level has risen more than 120 meters since the peak of the last ice age,
about 18,000 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
Glaciers were up to a mile thick in North Dakota and up to 8,000 feet thick near Hudson
Bay during the last ice age . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier
Man had nothing to do with this gloabal warming.
"Our number one mission now...is to save Santa. If we have to relocate him...where?"
Lets call Mayor Nagin to take care of this.
We don't usually see any snow till around Halloween and none that stays till after Thanksgiving. I like winter for about two days, then it irritates me till spring.
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