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.
NASA composite image shows a fully dark (city lights) full disk image centered on the North Pole. 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.(AFP/NASA-HO/File)
I would be curious what the exact ice cover was during summers in the years 900AD- 1250AD.
Has this thinning ice cover happened before. I’m sure it has.
If this keeps up, Greenland will become nice and balmly -
just like it was when the Vikings were there. (Gee - I wonder
why they called it “Greenland”???)
“Records dating back to 1958 have shown a gradual warming of Arctic temperatures which speeded up in the 1980s. “
How believable is this stuff? The 1980’s were the great global cooling era. They seem to skew the numbers to fit there agenda. Figures lie, liars figure.
It's all in God's hands anyway and everybody knows it!!!
Amen to that assessment.
Like thats a bad thing.
The media never understands this sort of thing. Science has been relatively consistent. The media’s portrayal of research has not.
Check out the wikipedia article on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
especially:
1974 and 1972 National Science Board
The Washington Post reports that in 1974 the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, stated:[15]
During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade.
This statement is correct (see Historical temperature record) although the Washington Post quotes it with disapproval. The Post says the Board had observed two years earlier:
Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end . . . leading into the next glacial age.
This quote is taken quite out of context, however, and is misleading as it stands. A more complete quote is:
Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end ... leading into the next glacial age. However, it is possible, or even likely, than human interference has already altered the environment so much that the climatic pattern of the near future will follow a different path. . .
It’s actually quite bad.
Unless you want beachfront property in Philadelphia.
Care to put a time frame on that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
Future sea level rise
In 2001, IPCC’s The Third Assessment Report IPCC predicted that by 2100, global warming will lead to a sea level rise of 9 to 88 cm. At that time no significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century had been detected.[10] Subsequently, Church and White found acceleration of 0.013 ± 0.006 mm/yr².[8]
These sea level rises could lead to difficulties for shore-based communities: for example, many major cities such as London and New Orleans already need storm-surge defenses, and would need more if sea level rose, though they also face issues such as sinking land.[11]
Future sea level rise, like the recent rise, is not expected to be globally uniform (details below). Some regions show a sea level rise substantially more than the global average (in many cases of more than twice the average), and others a sea level fall.[12] However, models disagree as to the likely pattern of sea level change.[13]
Hey! I missed you ping cause somehow I got logged out! I had ta go log back in! What’s up with that, anyhow???
Karma? lol
So what's this article supposed to induce in people's minds besides bolschivick boolchit???
Hey, I just post this pap so Jim has a place to put the FReepathonian banner ads up. :-)
You would think that they could point to a rise in mean ocean levels, since they are implying that all that ice is now seawater.
And then there was that Amundsen watch that traveled from the North Pole to the sea in three short years. Something must have pushed the buried package.
Accumulating snow spreading out under its own weight?
Their postulations are barely worthy of a piddling golden shower!!!
If I remember my history correctly, "Leif the Lucky" called it "Greenland" to attract additional settlers to what was largely a glacier covered Island (even at that time). It was disinformation, just as the name "Iceland" was designed to keep additional settlers away from a relatively green, smaller island.
Duly noted.. and well warranted, the criticism , that is.
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