Hello all,
Just one more post from me here on Global Warming today. This one is an article about how ice is melting much faster than originally supposed at the poles. I wonder if you all realize what happens when the ice is done melting? Do you realize how much more heat it takes to melt ice than to warm water up? All this excess heat that is melting the North Polar ice cap and the glaciers across the world, where do you suppose it goes when the ice cap is melted?
We are like a glass of iced tea on a warm day. The glass is nice and cool, but only as long as it has ice. Here's the article, for all the good it will do, I look forward to your predictable responses. -Roger Pink
GENEVA (AFP) — Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting
faster and in a more widespread manner than expected, raising sea
levels and fuelling climate change, a major scientific survey showed
Wednesday.
The International Polar Year (IPY) survey found that
warming in the Antarctic is "much more widespread than was thought,"
while Arctic sea ice is diminishing and the melting of Greenland's ice
cover is accelerating.
Rising sea levels and changes in ocean
temperatures triggered by the melting ice also heralded shifts in
weather patterns worldwide and potentially more coastal storm surges,
scientists said.
"We're beginning to get hints of change in ocean
circulation, that'll have a dramatic impact on the global climate
system," IPY director David Carlson told journalists.
The frozen
and often inaccessible polar regions have long been regarded as some of
the most sensitive barometers of environmental change and global
warming because of their influence on the world's oceans and atmosphere.
Preliminary
findings from the two year survey by thousands of scientists revealed
new evidence that the ocean around the Antarctic has warmed more
rapidly than the global average, the World Meteorological Organisation
and the International Council for Science said in a statement.
Meanwhile,
shifts in temperature patterns deep underwater indicated that the
continent's land ice sheet is melting faster than reckoned.
"These changes are signs that global warming is affecting the Antarctic in ways not previously suspected," the statement added.
"These
assessments continue to be refined, but it now appears that both the
Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising
sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing."
Shrinking
sea ice was expected around Antarctica, while Arctic sea ice decreased
to its lowest level since satellite records began.
Special IPY expeditions in the Arctic in 2007 and 2008 also found an "unprecedented rate" of floating drift ice.
But
the focus was on the erosion of land-based ice sheets of Greenland and
the Antarctic, which hold the bulk of the world's freshwater reserves
and can generate sea level changes of global scale as they melt.
"That was an urgent question three years ago and I think today it's now a more urgent question," Carlson said.
When
the survey began in 2007, Greeenland and Antarctica's land areas were
viewed as largely stable despite some worrying signs of fringe melting.
The
joint statement concluded: "The message of IPY is loud and clear: what
happens in the polar regions affects the rest of the world and concerns
us all."
The survey also revealed that the melting has the potential to feed more global warming in turn as the permafrost melts faster.
Permafrost,
the expanse of continuously frozen soil in polar land areas, was found
to have larger pools of carbon than expected and the melting could
unleash more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The scientists
also found that global warming caused substantial changes that were
tantamount to a greening of the Arctic landscape.
Vegetation and
soil were changing in the region, with shrubbery taking over grassland
and tree growth shifting according to changing snowfall, while insect
infestation increased and species move from lower latitudes into polar
regions.
Those shifts also disrupted native animals, hunting and
local livelihoods, while building was taking place in previously
uninhabited areas, the scientists found.
The survey around both
poles was the first of its kind for half a century, revisiting areas
that have not been seen since the 1950s and mobilising 10,000
scientists around the world.
Scientists Find Larger Than Expected Polar Ice Melt
Re: Scientists find bigger than expected polar ice melt
