Posted on 02/16/2008 10:26:17 PM PST by neverdem
There's an upside to the extreme cold temperatures northern Canadians have endured in the last few weeks: scientists say it's been helping winter sea ice grow across the Arctic, where the ice shrank to record-low levels last year.
Temperatures have stayed well in the -30s C and -40s C range since late January throughout the North, with the mercury dipping past -50 C in some areas.
Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years.
"It's nice to know that the ice is recovering," Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday.
"That means that maybe the perennial ice would not go down as low as last year."
Canadian scientists are also noticing growing ice coverage in most areas of the Arctic, including the southern Davis Strait and the Beaufort Sea.
"Clearly, we're seeing the ice coverage rebound back to more near normal coverage for this time of year," said Gilles Langis, a senior ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa.
Winter sea ice could keep expanding The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year, Lagnis added.
"The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that's a significant increase," he said.
If temperatures remain cold this winter, Langis said winter sea ice coverage will continue to expand.
But he added that it's too soon to say what impact this winter will have on the Arctic summer sea ice, which reached its lowest coverage ever recorded in the summer of 2007.
That was because the thick multi-year ice pack that survives a summer melt has been decreasing in recent years, as well as moving further south. Langis said the ice pack is currently located about 130 kilometres from the Mackenzie Delta, about half the distance from where it was last year.
The polar regions are a concern to climate specialists studying global warming, since those regions are expected to feel the impact of climate change sooner and to a greater extent than other areas.
Sea ice in the Arctic helps keep those regions cool by reflecting sunlight that might otherwise be absorbed by darker ocean or land surfaces.
Nothing like a gubmint hack who works for NASA on your dime and does not recognize that the Universe is not static, and that Earth on that scale is not big enough to be recognized as a speck of errant dust, and this nitwit is talking about a piece of ice.
SAVE THE ICE!
Save the whales is so last year...
Calling the Goron. Oh Al... Calling Al...
Well, D U H. Winter. Cold. Freeze. Hello?? Guess you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be a scientist any more.
What are you people, idiots? This WINTER has been much colder than the last several WINTERs and the sea ice has expanded this WINTER compared to previous WINTERS. Can’t you even follow that?
Top psychiatrist concludes liberals are nuts!
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So really what they are saying is any type of weather proves global warming. But in reality it seems the earth has a way of keeping itself in check from getting too hot or too cold.
Scientists find that cold causes ice to form. Amazing.
So, with ice melting, the Polar Bears feel threatened, and the result is their populations are... er... uh... well, they’re growing rapidly, ahem...
But it’s only because they feel threatened with extinction by the melting ice, right?
OK, so here’s my question:
Now that the ice is returning, and the Polar Bears can once again live the life of Riley, just floating around, and not having to swim after their dinners, will they now become fat and lazy, and stop breeding, because, hey, life is good again, right?
In other words, will the return of ice threaten Polar Bears with extinction?
Read: Normal winter.
In other news, naturalists in Yellowstone National Park have made stunning breakthroughs in studying the toilette habits of wild grizzlies.
Winter makes ice! News at 11!
Been watching the “Old Faithful” streaming video site and I noticed that NO bears are poopin’ anywhere near the geyser. But I see a lot of people gathered around watchin’...bears are smarter? Scientific observation.
Two million square km ought to float a few polar bears. Someone call Algore and his disciples and tell them that the “crisis” is over. I’m sure he’ll write a sequel retracting the alarmist bs he’s been preaching. Now that would be a REALLY inconvenient truth!
And just how long has mankind had an accurate idea of the extent of the ice? I believe accuracy didn't arrive until we had satellite coverage which has only been in my life time. Prior to that, we might have had a couple of decades of aerial photography but this wasn't done over the entire Arctic so you can't measure what you don't see. Before that? Anecdotal recordings from various explorers.
My point is, they've only been measuring the totality of the sea ice for thirty years or so. Therefore, the fact that 2007 had the lowest level recorded means squat. Who can say what it was 100 years ago? What about during the Medieval Warm Period, when Vikings were grazing cattle and growing wheat in Greenland?
It's all hype and propaganda.
And they're trying to blame mankind, specifically the industrialized, capitalist West. You and me.
WE must give up our lifestyle for this melodramatic speculation.
It’s called winter. Happens every year.
Yeah, water freezes pretty well at temperatures like that. Just watch, come May, they’ll be in a tailspin about “global warming” melting the sea ice again.
Idiots.
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