Posted on 12/16/2008 9:34:31 AM PST by PreciousLiberty
WASHINGTON – More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.
More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.
NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren't complete yet, but this year's ice loss, while still significant, won't be as severe as 2007.
The news was better for Alaska. After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.
In assessing climate change, scientists generally look at several years to determine the overall trend.
Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice, increases sea levels very slightly. In the 1990s, Greenland didn't add to world sea level rise; now that island is adding about half a millimeter of sea level rise a year, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said in a telephone interview from the conference.
[snip]
Other research, being presented this week at the geophysical meeting point to more melting concerns from global warming, especially with sea ice.
"It's not getting better; it's continuing to show strong signs of warming and amplification," Zwally said. "There's no reversal taking place."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Half a mm/year?!? That is measurable? Reliably? 50mm or 2”/century?
WHICH “sea level”, since each ocean is different? i.e. Pacific vs Atlantic, as discovered when Panama Canal was built, if not before.
Or, is that a ‘calculated value’, based on volume of melted ice vs surface area of oceans?
Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice (WHICH DECREASES LEVELS ‘SLIGHTLY’), increases sea levels very slightly.
You don’t think NASA’s Hanson is “in on it”, let alone the prime mover pushing it?
I hope you meant 'test fired', as an experimental Global Warming Orbital Measuring System.
I did that some years ago. Believe me, you don't want to do it
1mm = ~1/25 inch; 0.1 mm = ~1/250 inch; 0.01mm = ~1/2500 inch = 4/10,000 inch?
I used to do machine shop QC, so I know just how small 1/10000 inch is.
Is this the REAL reason they insist on metrics in public articles?
No, I KNOW why they are used professionally; but what percentage of the Great Teeming Masses (or journalists either, for that matter) realize just HOW insignificant (if indeed really measureable in a dynamic system called 'Ocean') this amount is?
“Almost none of them. They focus on the plus or minus of what’s being described, even though it is swamped by variations due to warming and expansion of the water by the sun and by underwater volcanoes.”
The other fallacy that’s committed so often it’s never remarked on anymore, is the constant use of local conditions to reinforce some idea about global conditions. You just can’t do that, and our side is equally guilty when we focus on one small area of extreme weather (Southern California just got buried under 63 feet of snow! heh). It’s fine to mention extreme weather, just don’t draw unsubstantiated sweeping global conclusions as do these news articles.
As has been pointed out, there is complete lack of balance in stories in the other direction, as in the numerous local low temperature records that’ve been broken this year, or the massive recovery in arctic ice extent.
No, I see that he is.. I only skimmed through the article and wasn’t paying that close attention. I read way too many articles in a day, and with climate change, I just pick out what data they’re trying round off to fit in the square hole.
Perhaps I’ll write a letter to his boss, because the bias pretty darn obvious. I don’t want people like that in my space program. :)
Quick Hollywood,make another penguin movie. Those cute little guys are either marching or dancing. They must be saved at any cost!
We’ve lost .0074% of the land ice since 2003? At that rate, I calculate it will take more than 67,000 years to deplete the worlds ice.
(100% divided by .0074%) times (2008 minus 2003) = 67,578 (rounded)
Interestingly, if they would have come up with .0075% instead, the numbers actually compute out to 66,666.66666 (and on and on) years, so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that the “point oh-oh-seven-four percent” is sorta “fudg-ey”.
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