[Rhodes22-list] For Ed, pull your head ouf of your, er, sand.

[Brad Haslett]

Rummy,

Glory Be!  Hallelujah!  I'm a believer now too!  Here's what I'm doing to
repent for my sinful ways!  Brad

http://freecarbonoffsets.com/home.do

On Dec 12, 2007 6:36 AM, <R22RumRunner at aol.com> wrote:

>
> Accelerating Arctic Melt Worries Experts
>
> AP
> Posted: 2007-12-12  07:13:53
> Filed Under: _Science News_ (http://news.aol.com/science)
>
> WASHINGTON (Dec. 11) - 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.
>
> Greenland's  ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the
> previous
> high mark, and  the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what
> it
> was just four  years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data
> obtained by
> The Associated  Press.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Photo Gallery: Effects of Global Warming
>
>
>
>
>
> John McConnico, AP
>
>
> A record amount of  Greenland's ice sheet melted this summer -- 19 billion
> tons more than the  previous high mark. And for the first time on record,
> the
> Northwest Passage was  open to navigation.
>
> (
> http://news.aol.com/story/_a/accelerating-arctic-melt-worries-experts/20071211220409990001#
> )
> (
> http://news.aol.com/story/_a/accelerating-arctic-melt-worries-experts/20071211220409990001#)
>  1 of 18
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior  scientist at the
> government's snow and ice data center in Boulder,  Colo.
>
> Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by
>  projecting
> that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could  disappear
> entirely by the summer of 2040.
>
> This week, after reviewing his  own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay
> Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic  Ocean could be nearly ice-free at
> the end
> of summer by 2012, much faster than  previous predictions."
>
> So scientists in recent days have been asking  themselves these questions:
> Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007  a blip amid
> relentless and
> steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new  climate cycle that
> goes
> beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer  models?
>
> "The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for  climate
> warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of
>  climate
> warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the  coal
> mines."
>
> It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that  produces
> carbon
> dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made  global
> warming.
> For the past several days, government diplomats have been  debating in
> Bali,
> Indonesia, the outlines of a new climate treaty calling for  tougher
> limits on
> these gases.
>
> What happens in the Arctic has  implications for the rest of the world.
> Faster melting there means eventual sea  level rise and more immediate
> changes in
> winter weather because of less sea  ice.
>
> In the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to  collide
> with
> moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in  some
> areas,
> including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a
>  former
> federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute.
>  Some
> regions, like Colorado, would likely get extra rain or snow.
>
> More  than 18 scientists told the AP that they were surprised by the level
> of
> ice melt  this year.
>
> "I don't pay much attention to one year ... but this year the  change is
> so
> big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you've got to stop  and say,
> 'What is going on here?' You can't look away from what's happening  here,"
> said
> Waleed Abdalati, NASA's chief of cyrospheric sciences. "This is  going to
> be a
> watershed year."
>
> 2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in  the following ways:
>
> • 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the  Greenland ice
> sheet,
> according to preliminary satellite data to be released by  NASA Wednesday.
> That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt,  beating
> 2005's record.
>
> • A record amount of surface ice was lost over  Greenland this year, 12
> percent more than the previous worst year, 2005,  according to data the
> University
> of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly  quadruple the amount that
> melted
> just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that  could cover Washington,
> D.C.,
> a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.
>
> •  The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this
> summer was  nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea
> ice
> already has  affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in
> northwest
> Alaska in  October for the first time in recorded history. Another first:
> the
> Northwest  Passage was open to navigation.
>
> • Still to be released is NASA data  showing the remaining Arctic sea ice
> to
> be unusually thin, another record. That  makes it more likely to melt in
> future summers. Combining the shrinking area  covered by sea ice with the
> new
> thinness of the remaining ice, scientists  calculate that the overall
> volume of ice
> is half of 2004's total.
>
> •  Alaska's frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But
> temperature  measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly
> four-tenths of a
> degree  from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University
> of
> Alaska.  While that may not sound like much, "it's very significant," said
> University of  Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.
>
> - Surface temperatures in the  Arctic Ocean this summer were the highest
> in
> 77 years of record-keeping, with  some places 8 degrees Fahrenheit above
> normal, according to research to be  released Wednesday by University of
> Washington's Michael  Steele.
>
> Greenland, in particular, is a significant bellwether. Most of  its
> surface
> is covered by ice. If it completely melted — something key  scientists
> think
> would likely take centuries, not decades — it could add more  than 22 feet
> to
> the world's sea level.
>
> However, for nearly the past 30  years, the data pattern of its ice sheet
> melt has zigzagged. A bad year, like  2005, would be followed by a couple
> of
> lesser years.
>
> According to that  pattern, 2007 shouldn't have been a major melt year,
> but
> it was, said Konrad  Steffen, of the University of Colorado, which
> gathered the
> latest  data.
>
> "I'm quite concerned," he said. "Now I look at 2008. Will it be  even
> warmer
> than the past year?"
>
> Other new data, from a NASA satellite,  measures ice volume. NASA
> geophysicist Scott Luthcke, reviewing it and other  Greenland numbers,
> concluded: "We are
> quite likely entering a new  regime."
>
> Melting of sea ice and Greenland's ice sheets also alarms  scientists
> because
> they become part of a troubling spiral.
>
> White sea ice  reflects about 80 percent of the sun's heat off Earth,
> NASA's
> Zwally said. When  there is no sea ice, about 90 percent of the heat goes
> into
> the ocean which then  warms everything else up. Warmer oceans then lead to
> more melting.
>
> "That  feedback is the key to why the models predict that the Arctic
> warming
> is going  to be faster," Zwally said. "It's getting even worse than the
> models
>  predicted."
>
> NASA scientist James Hansen, the lone-wolf researcher often  called the
> godfather of global warming, on Thursday was to tell scientists and
>  others at the
> American Geophysical Union scientific in San Francisco that in  some ways
> Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland
>  melt data.
>
> "We have passed that and some other tipping points in the way  that I will
> define them," Hansen said in an e-mail. "We have not passed a point  of no
> return. We can still roll things back in time — but it is going to require
>  a quick
> turn in direction."
>
> Last year, Cecilia Bitz at the University of  Washington and Marika
> Holland
> at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in  Colorado startled
> their
> colleagues when they predicted an Arctic free of sea ice  in just a few
> decades.
> Both say they are surprised by the dramatic melt of  2007.
>
> Bitz, unlike others at NASA, believes that "next year we'll be back  to
> normal, but we'll be seeing big anomalies again, occurring more frequently
> in  the
> future." And that normal, she said, is still a "relentless decline" in
>  ice.
>
>
>
>
>
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