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Thread: interesting news perspective on melting Arctic Ice

  1. #1
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    Default interesting news perspective on melting Arctic Ice

    this news story is getting a lot of coverage ...



    (snip)"Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change

    By Steve Connor, Science Editor
    Friday, 27 June 2008

    Scientists warn Arctic sea ice is melting at its fastest rate since records began

    It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

    The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

    "From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

    If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

    Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally icefreeNorth Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by hugeswathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

    This one-year ice is highly vulnerable to melting during thesummer months and satellite data coming in over recent weeksshows that the rate of melting is faster than last year, when therewas an all-time record loss of summer sea ice at the Arctic.

    "The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the NorthPole is covered with extensive first-year ice – ice that formed last autumn and winter. I'd say it's even-odds whether the North Pole melts out," said Dr Serreze. "(snip)


    but this related news story requires a lot of 'digging' to find (ultimately in the foreign press) ...



    (snip)"PARIS (AFP) — Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

    The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.

    Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.

    But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.

    What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.

    Previous research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.

    "On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study.

    But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system.""(snip)

  2. #2
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: interesting news perspective on melting Arctic Ice

    I don't understand, Mel. The projected disappearance of the Arctic ice cap is old news.

    Are you suggesting that volcanoes are melting Arctic ice? Are they doing the same for Antarctic ice, the Greenland ice sheet, and mountain glaciers?

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    Default Re: interesting news perspective on melting Arctic Ice

    I believe the determinant of arctic ice is air temperature not any influence from water temp at 13,000 feet below. At that depth all the earth's oceans are within a degree or two. If that had any influence shouldn't there be equatorial icecaps?

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    Default Re: interesting news perspective on melting Arctic Ice

    ^^^ it would appear that

    "Are you suggesting that volcanoes are melting Arctic ice? Are they doing the same for Antarctic ice, the Greenland ice sheet, and mountain glaciers?"

    and

    "influence from water temp at 13,000 feet below. At that depth all the earth's oceans are within a degree or two."

    are both making the same point. Heating deep water via volcanic action causes the water to get warmer for starters. Additionally, heating deep water in particular locations causes it to rise rapidly, thus raising the temperature of local surface water ! However, the marginally warmer water does also mix with and raise the average temperature of all other ocean water it contacts.


    don't understand, Mel. The projected disappearance of the Arctic ice cap is old news.
    the scientific news value may be 'stale', but the news story itself is again being thrust into the headlines ... complete with 'stranded polar bears'. As you point out, the reasons for mainstream media giving this story new attention is probably motivated by other reasons than the simple announcement of a new scientific discovery.

    is but one current example.

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    Default Re: interesting news perspective on melting Arctic Ice

    so the increase in hurricanes is the direct result of more butterflies in africa beating it's wings??

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    Default Re: interesting news perspective on melting Arctic Ice

    actually, increasing hurricane frequency has now been linked to COOLER temperatures !



    (snip)"In further research that supports the hypothesis that global warming may reduce damage from hurricanes, NOAA published a preview of upcoming research today (Warmer Ocean Could Reduce Number of Atlantic Hurricane Landfalls). New research indicates that increased ocean temperatures will, as expected, increase wind shear over the oceans which in turn, may reduce the number of landfalling Atlantic hurricanes:

    A warming global ocean — influencing the winds that shear off the tops of developing storms — could mean fewer Atlantic hurricanes striking the United States according to new findings by NOAA climate scientists. Furthermore, the relative warming role of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans is important for determining Atlantic hurricane activity.

    The article, to be published on January 23 in Geophysical Research Letters, uses observations to show that warming of global sea surface temperatures is associated with a secular, or sustained long-term increase, of vertical wind shear in the main development region for Atlantic hurricanes. The increased vertical wind shear coincides with a downward trend in U.S. landfalling hurricanes…

    This comes on the heals of research earlier this year that demonstrated a correlation between global temperatures and hurricane frequency that indicated that perhaps hurricane frequency is heightened by cooler temperatures (Hurricanes Frequent in Cooler Times)."(snip)


    ... of course this finding comes from the NOAA and was published in Geophysical Research Letters, but feel free to attempt to write off the credibility of this finding as the opinion of mere 'weathermen'.

    However, if you accept this finding, then that would lead to a potential conclusion that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita might have been caused by global cooling instead of global warming ...

    (snip)"Cold Reception

    Tuesday we told you about several areas around the planet experiencing record cold and snowpack — in the face of all the predictions of global warming.

    Now there is word that all four major global temperature tracking outlets [ NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Remote Sensing Systems, the UK's Hadley Center for Climate Research, plus U of A Global Hydrology & Ciimate Center - sic ]have released data showing that temperatures have dropped significantly over the last year. California meteorologist Anthony Watts says the amount of cooling ranges from 65-hundredths of a degree Centigrade to 75-hundreds of a degree.

    That is said to be a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. It is reportedly the single fastest temperature change ever recorded — up or down.

    Some scientists contend the cooling is the result of reduced solar activity — which they say is a larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases."(snip)

    from

    ... but since these findings come from four different mere 'weathermen', and were reported by Fox News, feel free to discount them as well ! Of course there are some corroborations from 'non-weathermen' ...

    (snip)"“Confirming what many of us have already noted from the anecdotal evidence coming in of a much cooler than normal May, such as late spring snows as far south as Arizona, extended skiing in Colorado, and delays in snow cover melting in many parts of the northern hemisphere, the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), published their satellite-derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008,” Watts reported on June 3.

    “It is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008,” Watts explained.

    “But even more impressive is the change since the last big peak in global temperature in January 2007 at 0.594°C, giving a 16 month of -0.774°C which is equal in magnitude to the generally agreed upon ‘global warming signal’ of the last 100 years,” he added.

    Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer, formerly of NASA and currently principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, commented on the new data. “If you exclude the anomalous 1992 cooling from the Pinatubo volcano eruption, it’s the coolest May in 20 years,” Spencer said.


    Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl, formerly of Harvard University, also reacted to the new temperature data. “The global anomaly was -0.17 °C, the coldest reading after January 2000 and the third coldest monthly figure after September 1993. Yes, I mean that anomaly-wise, May was even colder than all the cool months of 2008, despite the dramatically weakening La Nina that now seems likely to change to ENSO neutral conditions this month. For example, the month-on-month cooling from April 2008 was by 0.19 °C while May 2008 was more than 0.75 °C cooler than January 2007. The average anomaly for the first five months of 2008 is negative. 1994 was the last year whose average annual anomaly was negative,” “The Sun has been spotless at least for 9 days. The standardized May sunspot number was 2.9, equal to April, and the solar flux was even slightly lower than in April, namely 68.4,” Motl wrote."(snip) from


    ... so now that physicists and climatologists offer not only corroborating evidence of the cooliing recorded by the 'mere weathermen' but also offer an alternate theory which explains both historic and recently monitored temperatures very well (solar activity, or lack thereof), feel free to attempt to impugn the credibility of these individual 'dissident' physicists and climatologists ...


    Trying to circle back to the original point, it still strikes me as highly 'convenient' that mainstream US news media totally avoided reporting on Arctic ocean undersea volcanic eruptions, yet saw fit to mention (man-made) global warming complete with a Polar Bear on thin ice picture, in their 're-released' news story about Arctic Ice melt.
    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 06-28-2008 at 03:57 PM.

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