...... Shifting wind patterns in the 1980s and 1990s forced much of the thick sea ice out of the Arctic ocean into the North Atlantic where it drifted south and melted. It was replaced with a thinner coverage of sea ice that ebbs and flows, but is gradually vanishing, leaving more open water to absorb heat from the sun, driving a cycle of warmer waters and increased melting.
ANTARCTIC ICE
......A team of British scientists raise concerns over four of the largest glaciers in the Antarctic, warning they may pose a disproportionate threat to global sea level rises as they slide into the ocean.
...... Thinning of the Antarctic ice sheets is countered, and in some places, compensated for, by heavier snowfall that acts to rebuild the ice packs to around 2km thick.
...... They identified the four glaciers as retreating in unison, driving the thinning of the ice sheets and representing the greatest risk to sea levels.
...... The Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers on the western Antarctic ice sheet, and the Totten and Cook glaciers on the eastern Antarctic ice sheet are now sliding into the water between 20% and 100% faster than in recent decades.
......"Although the amounts of water aren't yet that large, the concern is that we simply don't know what's causing this acceleration of these glaciers. It may be that warm ocean water is getting underneath them and making them flow more easily," said Dr Wingham.
...... The four glaciers are similar, lying in deep-seated basins that flow directly into the ocean, said Dr Andrews. "These glaciers are vulnerable to small changes in ocean temperature, such as those that have occurred over the 20th century. A rise of less than 0.5C could have triggered the present imbalance," he said.
SOURCE:..... Arctic may lose all ice by 2040
---------------------------------
RECALL:
Ice melt doubts in new climate report
Many top U.S. scientists reject the rosier IPCC numbers for sea level rise, saying the calculations don't include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations.
Note: Arctic may lose all ic...
Ice melt doubts in new...
Stumble It!
What bothers me, is that all this talk about reducing greenhouse gases may be just another smoke screen, masking the reality that the earth is simply getting warmer and that the warming has almost nothing to do with human activity.
Before I get jumped on, I'm in no way suggesting that we should continue pumping out garbage into our atmosphere, water, and land. All of those things should be reduced as much as possible. If a global warming scam scares people into cleaning up their act, I'm all for it, but I doubt that's the intention because most scams of a global nature are designed to allow governments and corporations to rule over the people with greater power.
<br />
Check out the politicians, jumping about, tring to figure out how to cut emissions, yet keep their big party contributors happy...........<p>---<br>"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." <br />
-Max Planck<br />
<br />
<br />
CO2 does trap heat. Decreasing CO2 will decrease amount of heat trapped. “synthetic trees” would be helpful. <br />
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2784227.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2784227.stm</a><br />
-------------------<br />
<br />
RE: it may be just "that the earth is simply getting warmer and that the warming has almost nothing to do with human activity.”<br />
<br />
I have gone through 4 “solar irradiance” papers to see if solar output has increased enough to explain warming. So far I have not found good evidence for this position. Here is one that tore apart the sunspot-temperature correlation: <a href="http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf">http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf</a><br />
<br />
I have not seen any paper showing correlation between sunspot number and solar energy output.<br />
<br />
That said, there may be some other mechanism.<br />
-------------------<br />
<br />
RE: “If a global warming scam scares people into cleaning up their act, I'm all for it, but I doubt that's the intention because most scams of a global nature are designed to allow governments and corporations to rule over the people with greater power. “<br />
<br />
I share this fear.<br />
-bracewell<br />
There was only one little problem with the graph that's as plain as day to see once you've been made aware of it: the correlated change in CO2 is about 800 years *after* the change in temperature!
So how do we explain that one? Well if we use Al Gores' logic, then a rise in temperature *is the cause* of a rise in CO2, and a dip in temperature *is the cause* of a dip in CO2 levels, which is the exact reverse of what Al Gore was arguing.
Of course there may be some explanations for the reversal, such as limitations and inaccuracies with how the CO2 and temperature levels were estimated from ancient core samples, or perhaps there's some strange feedback system at work, who knows.
The point is "Who knows?".
In the meantime, it is a safe bet that polluting the entire earth with billions of tonnes of junk is not a brilliant idea. We should NOT be focusing on CO2 content alone, but on all the crap that humans do, which includes a massive destruction of forests and the extinction of animal life, and perhaps even worse, the production of GMOs.
One more thing about global warming. CO2 contains two atoms of oxygen combined with one atom of carbon. A basic question to ask is this:
As CO2 levels rise (and our oxygen producing forests are depleted) what's been happening to the level of atmospheric oxygen? It takes a lot of oxygen to burn fossil fuels, therefore the level of oxygen should be going down, especially since the oxygen producing forests are being destroyed at the same time.
If I were a government paid global warming researcher, I'd be much more worried about asphyxiation than overheating.