Arctic melt faster than forecast

Source: BBC

Arctic ice is melting faster than computer models of climate calculate, according to a group of US researchers.

Since 1979, the Arctic has been losing summer ice at about 9% per decade, but models on average produce a melting rate less than half that figure.

The scientists suggest forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may be too cautious.

The latest observations indicate that Arctic summers could be ice-free by the middle of the century.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6610125.stm

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Thank goodness global warming is a leftist myth! :sarcasm:

I'll have to have my people move my yacht to a better harbor now.

:cry:

:sarcasm:

Ice that is free-floating, such as the Arctic ice cap, already displaces its own volume of water. Melting the ice only dilutes and cools the water it is floating it.

However, if the Arctic ice cap is melting, so are the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica, which sit on land. Once that volume of melt hits the oceans....

:hi:

> However, if the Arctic ice cap is melting, so are the
> glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica, which sit on land.
> Once that volume of melt hits the oceans....

It gets more exciting than that! It's now being realized that
a little bit of meltwater greatly lubricates the passage of
land-borne ice to the sea. So it may turn out that we don't
actually need to entirely melt the Greenland and Antarctic
ice caps to see their total effect on sea level, we just
need to see the ice slough off into the ocean.

But maybe a Republican political pundit or some Fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute can prevent all that, ehh?

Tesha

There are three words that should terrify anyone reading this: positive-feedback loop.

The white ice used to reflect a lot of the incoming light back out into space, but without it the oceans will warm faster, which will increase global temperatures even further. Then you get methane release from the Arctic tundra and methane hydrates under the ocean. Methane is 20X as effective as CO2 in trapping heat, so global warming increases even further.

It's scary to say that the BEST-CASE scenario is for all that fresh water to shut down the Atlantic thermohaline cycle and initiate a rapid cool-down in the Arctic and Europe. That might short-circuit the positive-feedback loop long enough for the Arctic ice to reform.

get around to melting all the ANTARCTIC ice PDQ, too. I suspect those models will have to be revised, also.

We will see oceans rise 20+ ft before I die. Things are accelerating, maybe exponentially. We have screwed things up but good.

that show what areas will be effected as the sea levels increase:
http://flood.firetree.net/
http://geongrid.geo.arizona.edu/arcims/website/slrus48prvi/viewer.htm

It's disturbing to think how many areas are currently highly populated could be underwater if things continue as they are. :(

Whenever they up the timetable it stresses me. If the Artic goes I will stay dry.If the Antarctic goes I am toast. It seems every week they are upping the timetable of the melting.

:think:

lets fight it on it's own territory so that it can't hurt us in America.

:evilgrin:

And England, with LONDON at the same Latitude as ANCHORAGE, ALASKA, suddenly gets the same CLIMATE.

Oh, and those lovely climates in the South of France and Spain.....

You think we've seen Illegals from MEXICO. HAH!

The alternative seems to be a runaway greenhouse effect, and who knows where that will stop. At least plunging Europe into a deep freeze should put some ice and snow on the ground to reflect light back into space.

Where should we buy that future ocean front property? Vermont or Kansas?

because people were so against the idea of global warming.

:kick:

Source: Boston Globe

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent | May 1, 2007

WASHINGTON --The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said Tuesday.

This means the ocean at the top of the world could be free or nearly free of summer ice by 2020, three decades sooner than the global panel's gloomiest forecast of 2050.

No ice on the Arctic Ocean during summer would be a major spur to global warming, said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Center in Colorado.

"Right now ... the Arctic helps keep the Earth cool," Scambos said in a telephone interview. "Without that Arctic ice, or with much less of it, the Earth will warm much faster."


...


Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/01/arctic_ice_cap_melting_30_years_ahead_of_forecast/

in Vermont.

Ahead of time and under budget. It's the American way, you know.

I attended a panel discussion on global climate change. One professor was a geologist and I asked him, afterwards, based on what he was saying and showing, "are we heading into another ice age?" He said yes, after we get through this period of warmth.

The northern territories of Canada are "cold deserts", with very little snowfall. One possibility is that there is a lot more evaporation from an open Arctic Ocean and a lot more snowfall in northern Canada.

The formation of glaciers doesn't require colder temperatures. It requires that more snow falls in the winter than melts in the summers.

Thus, the opening of the Arctic Ocean might be the trigger for a new Ice Age.

how global warming would start a new ice age. Nice simple explanation.
I guess I should have known...but forgot! Maybe we should buy land in the Appalachian Mountains to be safe from both extremes. I wonder how global warming will effect their rainfall? Maybe they'll have more mud slides. :shrug:

... the permafrost will stop melting, and thus stop decaying and producing greenhouse gases.

I can't say I'd like living under a mile of ice, however. :-(

But it won't be mine. ;(

expressing confidence that science will find a way to fix this. Science always finds a way.

I hope they are right! And I hope we have the will to do what the scientists say we must do.

Rather soon I would say!

that will evolve from this new and unprecedented event. Adventurers will revel in the new opportunities at the top of the world.

Honeybees disappearing, and climate crisis nipping at our heels. :(

for hip waders and sunscreen.

All of these things interact with each other and one breakdown has side-effects down the line, they are all collapsing now, I fear we waited too long.

until, suddenly, one day, enough of the ice cap is gone that even a freeper can see what's going on, and then it isn't. At this point, republicans will say things such as: "No one could have predicted this, after all, the globe warmed much more rapidly than early predictions." "It's Bill Clinton's penis' fault." "Glug." "Global warming isn't a lie, and it was predictable: not by science, of course, but by Revelation. This proves conclusively that the coming of Christ is imminent."

Seriously, if this works out to go this rapidly, we are in deep doo doo. Globe warms, people turn up air conditioning, more fossil fuels are burned, globe warms more, etc.

...how many nuclear and chemical facilities will end up below sea level?

How many waste dumps and industrial sites below sea level?

How many acres of vegetation will rot after being inundated, thus contributing more greenhouse gases?

There are a lot of consequences to a rising sea level people haven't even begun to consider.

will melt faster, driving Greenland's ice and the Antarctic shelves into the ocean sooner, which will IMMEDIATELY raise the ocean's levels, well before all of that fallen ice melts.

If Greenland gets slippery and starts shedding ice quickly as some scientists believe will happen, we will see the oceans rise every day that a new chunk of ice plops into the water.