Even Antarctic Ice Melted In 2005

Antarctic snowmelt is shown in new data
San Francisco Chronicle
For the first time in 30 years of U.S. satellite monitoring of Antarctica, there is "clear evidence" of snowmelt on some of the continent's highest and coldest areas.
......The scientists analyzed data from a satellite called QuikSCAT that has been flying over the Earth in polar orbit since 1999.
......Earlier satellites, now operated by the Defense Department, also measured snow cover in Antarctica and found no melting, the scientists said. The QuikSCAT spacecraft carries a unique scatterometer radar that detects changes in winds, ocean currents and snow cover.
......After analyzing the data for 2005, Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado at Boulder found that for the first time, the spacecraft had detected wide areas of melted snow in some of the least likely places in Antarctica.
......Snowmelt was found only 310 miles from the South Pole, where ice had been thought to be all but permanent, and at elevations as high as 6,600 feet, where it has always been extremely cold.
......In several areas, the scientists said, the spacecraft's radar found evidence that the snowmelt continued for as much as a week at a time, with temperatures rising to 41 degrees F, before freezing weather returned.
......"Warming changes have been seen and measured all over the world," Nghiem said in an interview, "but we have never seen it so widespread in Antarctica. We had thought that for some reason Antarctica was isolated from the effects of warming, and we've been totally surprised to see that it's happening there, too. We've never seen anything comparable there."

NASA Finds Vast Regions of West Antarctica Melted in Recent Past
Jet Propulsion Laboratory - See Map on Site
A team of NASA and university scientists has found clear evidence that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warm temperatures. This was the first widespread Antarctic melting ever detected with NASA's QuikScat satellite and the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades. Combined, the affected regions encompassed an area as big as California.
......Using data from QuikScat, they measured snowfall accumulation and melt in Antarctica and Greenland from July 1999 through July 2005.
......The observed melting occurred in multiple distinct regions, including far inland, at high latitudes and at high elevations, where melt had been considered unlikely.
......Evidence of melting was found up to 900 kilometers (560 miles) inland from the open ocean, farther than 85 degrees south (about 500 kilometers, or 310 miles, from the South Pole) and higher than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level. Maximum air temperatures at the time of the melting were unusually high, reaching more than five degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) in one of the affected areas. They remained above melting for approximately a week.
......"Antarctica has shown little to no warming in the recent past with the exception of the Antarctic Peninsula, but now large regions are showing the first signs of the impacts of warming as interpreted by this satellite analysis," said Steffen. "Increases in snowmelt, such as this in 2005, definitely could have an impact on larger-scale melting of Antarctica's ice sheets if they were severe or sustained over time."
......Nghiem said while no further melting had been detected through March 2007, more monitoring is needed.
......"QuikScat data, combined with data from NASA's IceSat and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites, along with aircraft and ground measurements, all contribute to more accurate estimates of how the polar ice sheets are changing."

SEE ALSO:
NASA Finds Arctic Replenished Very Little Thick Sea Ice in 2005 (April 3, 2007)
A new NASA study has found that in 2005 the Arctic replaced very little of the thick sea ice it normally loses and replenishes each year. Replenishment of this thick, perennial sea ice each year is essential to the maintenance and stability of the Arctic summer ice cover.

NASA Sees Rapid Changes in Arctic Sea Ice (September 13, 2006)
NASA data shows that Arctic perennial sea ice, which normally survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrunk abruptly by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005. According to researchers, the loss of perennial ice in the East Arctic Ocean neared 50 percent during that time as some of the ice moved from the East Arctic to the West [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 25, 2007]

Note: Antarctic snowmelt is ... NASA Finds Vast Region... NASA Finds Arctic Reple... NASA Sees Rapid Change...