An iceberg floats in a bay off Ammassalik Island,
Greenland in this July 17, 2007 file photo. A new study
found that natural causes as well as global warming are
to blame for recent dramatic Arctic warming.
(AP Photo/John McConnico, file)
Posted on 01/02/2008 7:11:37 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - There's more to the recent dramatic and alarming thawing of the Arctic region than can be explained by man-made global warming alone, a new study found. Nature is pushing the Arctic to the edge, too.
There's a natural cause that may account for much of the Arctic warming, which has melted sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature. New research points a finger at a natural and cyclical increase in the amount of energy in the atmosphere that moves from south to north around the Arctic Circle.
But that energy transfer, which comes with storms that head north because of ocean currents, is not acting alone either, scientists say. Another upcoming study concludes that the combination of both that natural energy transfer increase and man-made global warming serve as a one-two punch that is pushing the Arctic over the edge.
Scientists are trying to figure out why the Arctic is warming and melting faster than computer models predict.
The summer of 2007, like the summer of 2005, smashed all records for loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and ice sheet in Greenland. In September, the Arctic Ocean had 23 percent less sea ice than the previous record low. Greenland's ice sheet melted 19 billion tons more than its previous record.
The Nature study suggests there's more behind it than global warming because the air a couple miles above the ground is warming more than calculated by the climate models.
Climate change theory concentrates on warming of surface temperatures and explains an Arctic that is warming faster than the rest of the world as mostly because reduced sea ice and ice sheets means less reflecting solar rays.
Rune Graversen, the Nature study co-author and a meteorology researcher at Stockholm University in Sweden, said a shift in energy transfer explains the thawing more, including what's happening in the atmosphere, but does not contradict consensus global warming science.
Oceanographer James Overland, who reviewed Graversen's study for Nature, said the research dovetails with an upcoming article of his which concludes that the Arctic thawing is a combination of the two.
"If we didn't have the little extra kick from global warming then we wouldn't have gone past the threshold for the change in sea ice," said Overland, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's lab in Seattle.
Other researchers said Graversen's study underestimates the effect of global warming because it relied on older data that stopped at 2001 and wasn't the most accurate.
Overland and scientist Mark Serreze disagree over which effect — man-made or natural — was the big shove that pushed the Arctic over the edge, but they agreed that overall it's a combined effort.
"Think of it as a boxer that's almost going down for the count ... and that one blow to the noggin comes and he's down for the count," said Serreze, a senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.
Heretic.
Paging Mr. Rove.
Paging Mr. Rove.
An iceberg floats in a bay off Ammassalik Island,
Greenland in this July 17, 2007 file photo. A new study
found that natural causes as well as global warming are
to blame for recent dramatic Arctic warming.
(AP Photo/John McConnico, file)
A: Blame man, but say that nature may also play a part.
~~Anthropogenic Global Warming ™ ping~~
A glacier in Antarctica, November 2007. Norwegian artist Vebjorn Sand
unveiled an ice bridge made of frozen Antarctic water at a ceremony on the UN headquarters grounds
late Monday to highlight the threat of melting glaciers resulting from global warming.
(AFP/File/Rodrigo Arangua)
Quite simply...balderdash. No further expanations needed.
Apparently old Rune doesn't want to get called into the global warming inquisition and declared an heretic.
DENIER!
Simple...pass a law that bans nature from doing such a thing. Maybe get nature to reduce its contribution by about 50% by 2017 or something like that.
At one point, the Artic extended into Iowa (or so)... Is that the "normal" Artic that we wish to return to?
“Scientists are trying to figure out why the Arctic is warming and melting faster than computer models predict.”
My guess is that it’s because the models are wrong, but that’s just me.
Maybe it’s a Windows OS running the models....no wait...then the Arctic would be FREEZING more rapidly.
Remarkable. It's the dead of winter and the Arctic is melting? First I've heard of this.
Idiots with the Chicken Little brigade. They're wired into the man-made global warming explanation and even when evidence to the contrary appears, they still blame it on man and say that nature's normal fluctuations just make it worse.
‘The Arctic is screaming’ — summer sea ice could be gone in five years
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer WASHINGTON — An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004065899_webarctic11.html
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Something called the sun has something to do with it and the sun's natural oscillation. See articles at:
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