Posted on 04/03/2007 9:38:42 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Global warming may already be having an effect on the Arctic which in 2005 only replaced a little of the thick sea ice it loses and usually replenishes annually, a NASA study said Tuesday.
Scientists from the US space agency used satellite images to analyze six annual cycles of Arctic sea ice from 2000 to 2006.
Sea ice is essential to maintaining and stabilizing the Arctic's ice cover during its warmer summer months.
But "recent studies indicate Arctic perennial ice is declining seven to 10 percent each decade," said Ron Kwok from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"Our study gives the first reliable estimates of how perennial ice replenishment varies each year at the end of the summer.
"The amount of first-year ice that survives the summer directly influences how thick the ice cover will be at the start of the next melt season."
The team observed that only 4.0 percent, about 2.5 million square kilometers (965,000 square miles) of thin ice survived the 2005 summer melt to replenish the perennial cover.
It was the weakest ice cover since 2000, and so there was 14 percent less permanent ice cover in January 2006 than in the corresponding period the year before.
"The winters and summers before fall 2005 were unusually warm," Kwok said. "The low replenishment seen in 2005 is potentially a cumulative effect of these trends.
"If the correlations between replenishment area and numbers of freezing and melting temperature days hold long-term, it is expected the perennial ice coverage will continue to decline."
Records dating back to 1958 have shown a gradual warming of Arctic temperatures which speeded up in the 1980s.
"Our study suggests that on average the area of seasonal ice that survives the summer may no longer be large enough to sustain a stable, perennial ice cover, especially in the face of accelerating climate warming and Arctic sea ice thinning," Kwok added.
So what you're saying is that the Washington Post was hedging its bets back in the days when global cooling/new Ice Age was all the rage. Maybe the Post should adopt a similarly neutral stance today, just in case we don't all burn up in ten years.
Well, what you’re doin is a good thing! Keep feedin Jim them postings so’s he can slip in those solicitious messages for such a good cause. I’m goin ta bed!!! (another good cause!)
I’m right behind you..
G’Nite SW
and Folks, what would you do without FR?
Thats what we have always assumed. And there is probably some truth in it. The fact remains that they farmed it, and did well enough for a couple hundred years. Then, as the "little ice age" began to kick in, their crops began to fail, and by the fourth century or so they had disappeared. Starved out, returned to Iceland, no one knows.
Archaeologists are digging up a viking farm that was covered over as the glaciers advanced, pushing sand ahead of them. The farm is almost still as they left it, supposedly, they said you could still smell the manure. As the ice is receding now, it is being exposed.
Saw an article recently, a guy in Greenland is buying up farmland and is running livestock and growing crops; its the first time anyone has done it since the vikings. The difference in temperature is about a degree and a half, but thats enough to make all the difference between crops and no crops.
My opinion is that a little warming is a blessing. A little less Maldive Islands, which is a bummer, mainly if you're Maldivian, but longer growing seasons in Saskatchewan and Siberia are a rich compensation.
Assuming there is a correlation in the first place..
Then one is required to assume the temp ranges and behaviors will "hold long-term"..
There is no evidence that the "expected" decline of ice coverage is the eventual outcome..
A more accurate statement would be "GW enthusiast's hopes" that ice coverage will continue to decline..
Records dating back to 1958 have shown a gradual warming of Arctic temperatures which speeded up in the 1980s.
49 years out of the last 10,000 years of post Ice Age warming is probably not considered "statistically significant" in any scientific conversation.. ( except a pro-GW one, that is..)
Their study suggests that politics and greed are still in full control of the pro-GW movement..
And we’re supposed to get a couple inches of snow tonight night here and more tomorrow. Lows in the 20s for the next week. Cool!
“My opinion is that a little warming is a blessing.”
Amen to that. The industrial revolution to date has added 40+ years to human life expectancy over the past 300 years.
This Arctic thaw will make drilling for oil much easier!
This is excellent news, as it will open up new and very rich fishing grounds.
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
New!!: Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
Here is the actual sea ice extent by day going back to 1978. It goes up and down with the seasons (not unexpectedly) but it also shows the summer minimum (september) has been relatively stable for the past 16 years. 1999 was the lowest year.
The satellite that takes these images is probably in a polar orbit and sees the Antarctic just as well. Why no second opinion from the south pole to confirm thinning ice? I bet because it shows a thickening. Had they been pushing global cooling they would have selected to show Antarctica data instead.
It is apparent from that graph that the yearly average ice cover has only diminished by about 10% since 1978 (about 10.5 million km**2 vs about 9.5 million km**2). Hardly a crisis. We could have a couple of cooler seasons and be right back to normal. Funny how the sun works.
It’s the sun. We have to control the sun.
yup.
Just noting that the chart I linked to above, was completely reworked over the last 24 hours.
The historical records have been completely changed so the chart now shows a more-or-less steady decline in arctic sea ice extents over the whole record.
So whatever point I was trying to make is now Moot.
There is a long history of this in the climate research community. Whenever the historical datasets don’t show the global warming trends they want to show anymore, someone just goes back and adjusts all the old records and databases.
Temperatures are a good example. The current trendline shows an increase of 0.8C since 1900. But the historical temperature records have been adjusted (over several phases) by a total of 0.7C in terms of changing the trend upward.
So there is no way to win in this debate. The authorities which maintain the climate record databases are also the ones trying to prove the global warming theory. One can always archive the old records and point to the old trendlines - but some global warmer will just come along and say “this is not what the sea ice extent chart says - its right here” and you are dead in the water.
Much time has been wasted.
The Northwest Passage was open then. although there were complaints that it was icing over by 1400.
Here is how much they have changed it. 2006 minimum was lowered by 1.25 million km2 or about 25% (WOW - brazen)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.