North Pole Ice May Melt by September, Accelerate Global Warming

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North Pole Ice May Melt by September, Accelerate Global Warming

Melting Arctic sea ice endangers habitat for many species, including the threatened polar bear.

POLAR HEAT: Scientists say this summer may be the first time in recorded history that Arctic sea ice melts completely. They warn the melting could lead to a faster rate of global warming.

by Patricia McFadden
Informify Staff Writer
July 1, 2008

If last summer's record melting trend continues, the ice that usually floats on the surface of the Arctic Sea year-round may be gone by September. More than 70% of the current Arctic sea ice is less than a year old and only 60 inches deep. Mark Serreze, a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, said there's a 50% chance that ice at the North Pole will melt completely this summer.

Planet Needs Polar Ice

Losing year-round polar ice could heat the planet faster than expected.

The Arctic ice pack helps cool the Earth in several ways:

The ice's reflective surface bounces the sun's rays back out of the atmosphere. Known as "albedo," this reflective property prevents rays from heating the ocean.
More ice keeps the ocean from absorbing heat.

Without the ice pack, the Earth's temperatures could rise:

Less ice means the ocean absorbs more heat, causing sea ice to melt even faster.
A rise in ocean temperatures may accelerate global warming.

"On any given day, sea ice cover in the oceans of the polar regions is about the size of the U.S.," said Thorsten Markus, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Far-flung locations like the Arctic and Antarctic actually impact our temperature and climate where we live and work on a daily basis." (Science Daily, 6/30/2005)

Ice in Antarctic Increases

Although Arctic sea ice is rapidly diminishing, the amount of sea ice worldwide hasn't changed much. This is because the sea ice sheath that forms around the Antarctic each year is growing.

Dylan C. Powell, co-author of a 2005 NASA-funded study, said that the increase in Antarctic sea ice is consistent with the study's projections.

"Findings from our simulations suggest a counterintuitive phenomenon," Powell said. "Some of the melt in the Arctic may be offset by increases in sea ice volume in the Antarctic." (Science Daily, 6/30/2005)

The Antarctic ice is expanding because the seasons at the South Pole are opposite to those at the North Pole. Melting sea ice in the north means there's more moisture in the atmosphere. This causes more precipitation worldwide. So more snow falls in the Antarctic where it is winter, forming greater quantities and thicker ice.

This increase of ocean ice in the Antarctic helps keep ocean levels constant, but may have as-yet-unknown consequences for the global climate.

Pole Ice Melt Depends on Weather

Though there is a good chance that the Arctic ice will melt by the end of the summer, it's not a certainty.

"It will probably come down to how cloudy it is this summer," Mahoney said, "If there's clear skies and if atmospheric patterns resemble last year's, you're going to see a lot more melt." (ABC News, 6/30/08)

Melting Arctic Ice Opens Northwest Passage

Melting Arctic sea ice isn't bad for everyone, though. For centuries, explorers looked for a shorter route between Europe and Asia, across the top of the world, but were thwarted by the year-round ice on the Arctic sea.

Last September, the legendary "Northwest Passage"—an open waterway from Greenland to Alaska—was navigable for the first time.

Andy Mahoney, a researcher at the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center said, "If the North Pole melted out, the shipping industry would be paying very close attention." (ABC news, 6/30/08)

Question for Readers:

Some people say that polar ice melting is a result of global warming. Others say it is just part of the normal climactic changes the Earth has always experienced. What do you think?

Polar ice formation is part of a huge, global ocean heat pumping system called thermohaline (or saline) circulation. Here's how it works:

Deep ocean water makes contact with the atmosphere in Polar Regions.
When it reaches the poles, water on the surface freezes and releases salt into the underlying water, making it heavier and colder.
Cooler, saltier water sinks down and flows back toward the equator.
As it travels, the heavier water begins to warm up again, eventually circling once more toward the poles where the cycle repeats.

This huge mass of constantly moving, heating and cooling water affects weather conditions all over the globe.

The Russian government warned the Arctic ice cap might melt completely by 2070, which would obliterate animals such as polar bears and flood out indigenous peoples.

Russia's Upper House of Parliament North Affairs Committee member Yury Vorobyov said that, over the last 30 years, the thickness of Arctic Ocean ice has halved. And, in the past 100 years, it has shrunk by almost a third.

(Source: ABC News, 6/30/08)

Story Sources

This summer may see first ice-free North Pole (Associated Press, 6/30/08)

Warmer air may cause increased Antarctic sea ice cover (Science Daily, 6/30/2005)

Arctic's first ice-free summer possible even this year (ABC News, 6/30/08)

What's really up with North Pole sea ice? (The New York Times, 6/27/08)

Today's Other Stories

Accelerated polar melt is a precursor to Gulf Stream slowdown, as the planet puts into place its failsafe cooling mechanism. An organism that dwells in hostile space environments needs survival contingences

This planet is responding to a perceived threat, man made or not. It’s a done deal.
Unless there is a global coalition of consensus to bring about clear decisive structured plans for the mitigation of radical climatic change

www.philipclarkson.blogspot.com

July 19, 2008

Al gore is wrong

Jay said:

Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:55 AM

By: Phil Brennan Article Font Size

Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?
Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.
Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.
The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankind’s alleged impact on the global climate.
Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.
As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.
As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception — Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.
Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.
Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman, and northern Saudi Arabia report the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. In Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people. Even Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.
AFP news reports icy temperatures have just swept through south China, stranding 180,000 people and leading to widespread power cuts just as the area was recovering from the worst weather in 50 years, the government said Monday. The latest cold snap has taken a severe toll in usually temperate Yunnan province, which has been struck by heavy snowfalls since Thursday, a government official from the provincial disaster relief office told AFP.
Twelve people have died there, state Xinhua news agency reported, and four remained missing as of Saturday.
An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam's northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.
In Britain the temperatures plunged to -10 C in central England, according to the Express, which reports that experts say that February could end up as one of the coldest in Britain in the past 10 years with the freezing night-time conditions expected to stay around a frigid -8 C until at least the middle of the week. And the BBC reports that a bus company's efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.
Meanwhile Athens News reports that a raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend and continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill on Monday in the wider Athens area, while ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses in the more severely-stricken prefectures were also closed.
Scores of villages, mainly on the island of Crete, and in the prefectures of Evia, Argolida, Arcadia, Lakonia, Viotia, and the Cyclades islands were snowed in.
More than 100 villages were snowed-in on the island of Crete and temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.

July 18, 2008

Look the inconveneint truth for AL Gore

Jay said:

Read and print a new story about global warming For Al Gore this in the inconvient truth

July 18, 2008

Global warming? Global climate change?

Llana from California said:

Obviously this is a result of both. Its very plain to see that our climate has been gradually warming since the ice age. It is also very plain to see that we generate a lot of pollution that is affecting our atmosphere and delicate o-zone layer. There is nothing to "believe" here. Both are contributing factors. Anyone who says otherwise is probably not worth listening to.

That said, this is a shift of epic proportions, having the north pole melt. I don't know what all the ripple effects will be, but I'm sure they're huge. You can be certain there will be drastic changes as a result of this. Weather changes, extinction of species... but in a really big way. Wow. I know I'll be at the edge of my seat on this one. I don't think we've seen anything this big since earth was struck by that meteor in the days of the dinosaurs.

July 08, 2008

More ice this year than last year

Joel from Canonsburg, Pa said:

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/...1.2007.gif

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.7.3.2008.gif

There is more sea ice on Earth this year than last year at this time. Regardless of the reason, which is not known, that is an undeniable fact.

Pat, in your article, you stated "Though there is a good chance that the Arctic ice will melt by the end of the summer, it's not a certainty." Did you mean that there is a good chance the ice will melt completely? And if so, what are you basing that statement on?

Your article also stated that, "the sea ice sheath that forms around the Antarctic each year is growing." but you just posted a comment below mine that said, "the ice at the Poles IS disappearing" How can you believe both at the same time?

July 03, 2008

Polar ice melt fact not fantasy

Pat from Paonia, CO said:

Thanks for all the responses!

George, Interesting find. While it's true that the arctic sea ice fluctuates a great deal depending on the local weather, the ice at the Poles IS disappearing--and not just the sea ice but land-mass glaciers, the deeper layers of which are thousands of years old. This is not the result of a few seasons of unusually warm weather, but an indication of dramatic climate change. And it's happening much faster than anyone predicted.

Arthur, I, personally,think that arguing about the reason for what is a clearly significant event is begging the question. Whether the sun or global warming is causing the polar ice to disintegrate, the fact remains that it IS disitegrating and that no one really knows what the ultimate outcome of such a huge change in the Earth's geophysical make-up will be.

Perhaps it will be the scenario that Brad suggests and perhaps not, though that is certainly a good possibility, and one many experts are currently embracing.

I do believe that the Earth by the middle of this century will be as different from the world of today--geographically, climatically and in many other ways--as today's world is from the Earth of the last Ice Age. We can either recognize and prepare for the changes that are--whether we like it or not--already happening, or we can go the way of the many other species who were not able to adapt and ultimately perished.

Fairy story? I wish.

July 01, 2008

Read the Science Journals

R Ordway from Boulder CO said:

#1 and #2. Read the leading world-wide peer-reviewedm juried science journals (Science, Nature, Geophysical letters, Climate, etc. as I have for eleven years.

You would know that climate change is not what happens in a single area at a single time. It is averages, averages, averages over a 30-50 year period and in many different locations.

Both of your comments are based on short term data,opinions beliefs, not rigorously examined long-term records and facts that follow a continous line of evidence since the 1824 writings of Jean-Baptiste Fourier.

Read the non-peer reviewed book "Censoring Science" by Bowen with copies of federal emails included, to get a feel for why you believe what you believe...but can't prove.

July 01, 2008

The Arctic Melted During the Year Without a Summer 1816

GeorgeR from Islamorada, FL said:

Look What I Found from 1817
"It will without doubt have come to your Lordship's knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.

(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November 1817

July 01, 2008

What a nonsense article!

Arthur LEMAY from Paris, France said:

This article is just silly. We have seen global cooling in the last ten years, and the patterns in the 20th century are in no way atypical of the normal fluctuations of the climate.

The IPCC makes apocalyptic predictions of climate doom, and every year, their predictions are completely wrong. They don't even have any evidence, never mind proof that global warming exists. All they have to go on is a great number of climate computer models. Not a single one of these predicted the cooling we are now seeing.

The ice packs do receded every summer, but in this winter season they were thicker than ever. And, the polar bears are increasing, not being threatened.

The other planets are warming and cooling in the same pattern as the earth, and most scientists say it is because the sun's energy variations have dominant control over the climate, not just for the earth, but for the other planets too.

Global warming? Tell us more fairy tales, but I guess you must believe in the tooth fairy too.

June 30, 2008

Predictable result of warmer poles

Brad Arnold from Mpls, MN said:

A predictable result of less sea ice at the poles is a pole-ward movement of the jet streams which will accelerate rapid ecosystem collapse:

"Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them." --Dr James Lovelock's lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. '07

June 30, 2008

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