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Hunter Cutting

Troubling ice melt in East Antarctica - 0 views

www.sciencemag.org/...1630

climate change impact Antarctica glacier ice melt ice sheet East Antarctica global

shared by Hunter Cutting on 25 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Hunter Cutting on 25 Jun 10
     
    Report in Science: "Three studies, using different remote-sensing methods, show that East Antarctica has already begun to lose ice. A survey of laser altimetry data from the ICESat satellite, published in Nature in October 2009, found ice thinning in several spots along the East Antarctic coast at annual rates as high as nearly 2 meters. Another study, published in Nature Geoscience in November 2009, used the gravity-sensing GRACE satellites and found two areas along the East Antarctic coast each losing about 13 km3 of ice per year. A 2008 study in Nature Geoscience that compared ice flux off the edges of the continent with new accumulation of snow in the interior found a loss of about 10 km3 of ice per year at two areas." "Three studies, using different remote-sensing methods, show that East Antarctica has already begun to lose ice. A survey of laser altimetry data from the ICESat satellite, published in Nature in October 2009, found ice thinning in several spots along the East Antarctic coast at annual rates as high as nearly 2 meters. Another study, published in Nature Geoscience in November 2009, used the gravity-sensing GRACE satellites and found two areas along the East Antarctic coast each losing about 13 km3 of ice per year. A 2008 study in Nature Geoscience that compared ice flux off the edges of the continent with new accumulation of snow in the interior found a loss of about 10 km3 of ice per year at two areas." "It's too early to know what the ice loss in East Antarctica really means, says Isabella Velicogna, a remote-sensing specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "What is important is to see what's generating the mass loss," she says. Reductions in snowfall, for example, might reflect short-term weather cycles that could reverse at any time. But thinning caused by accelerating glaciers-as seen in West Antarctica-would warrant concern."
Hunter Cutting

Arctic sea ice at second lowest ever for July - 0 views

nsidc.org/...080410.html

climate change impact Arctic sea ice Arctic ice melt

shared by Hunter Cutting on 05 Aug 10 - Cached
  • July sea ice second lowest: oldest ice begins to melt Arctic sea ice extent averaged for July was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007. After a slowdown in the rate of ice loss, the old, thick ice that moved into the southern Beaufort Sea last winter is beginning to melt out.
  • Average ice extent for July was 8.39 million square kilometers (3.24 million square miles), 1.71 million square kilometers (660,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 mean, but 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) above the average for July 2007, the lowest July in the thirty-two-year satellite record.
  • The daily rate of decline for July was 77,000 square kilometers (29,700 square miles) per day, close to the 1979 to 2000 average of 84,400 square kilometers (32,600 square miles).
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Ice extent for July 2010 was the second lowest in the satellite record for the month. The linear rate of decline of July ice extent over the period 1979 to 2010 is now 6.4% per decade.
  • Older, thicker ice melting in the southern Beaufort Sea This past winter's negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation transported old ice (four, five, and more years old) from an area north of the Canadian Archipelago. The ice was flushed southwards and westward into the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, as noted in our April post. Ice age data show that back in the 1970s and 1980s, old ice drifting into the Beaufort Sea would generally survive the summer melt season. However, the old, thick ice that moved into this region is now beginning to melt out, which could further deplete the Arctic’s remaining store of old, thick ice. The loss of thick ice has been implicated as a major cause of the very low September sea ice minima observed in recent years.
Hunter Cutting

Greenland glacier calves island 4 times the size of Manhattan - 0 views

www.udel.edu/...greenland080610.html

climate change impact ice sheet ice melt Greenland calving

shared by Hunter Cutting on 06 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Greenland glacier calves island 4 times the size of Manhattan
  • A University of Delaware researcher reports that an “ice island” four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962.
  • “In the early morning hours of August 5, 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was born in northern Greenland,” said Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Satellite imagery of this remote area at 81 degrees N latitude and 61 degrees W longitude, about 620 miles [1,000 km] south of the North Pole, reveals that Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 43-mile long [70 km] floating ice-shel
  • The new ice island has an area of at least 100 square miles and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building. “The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water
  • The last time such a massive ice island formed was in 1962 when Ward Hunt Ice Shelf calved a 230 square-mile island, smaller pieces of which became lodged between real islands inside Nares Strait. Petermann Glacier spawned smaller ice islands in 2001 (34 square miles) and 2008 (10 square miles). In 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf disintegrated and became an ice island (34 square miles) about 60 miles to the west of Petermann Fjord.
Hunter Cutting

Arctic sea ice at record low for June - 0 views

nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews

Arctic sea ice Arctic climate change impact

shared by Hunter Cutting on 01 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Average June ice extent was the lowest in the satellite data record, from 1979 to 2010. Arctic air temperatures were higher than normal, and Arctic sea ice continued to decline at a fast pace. June saw the return of the Arctic dipole anomaly, an atmospheric pressure pattern that contributed to the record sea ice loss in 2007.
  • At the end of May 2010, daily ice extent fell below the previous record low for May, recorded in 2006, and during June continued to track at record low levels
  • The linear rate of monthly decline for June over the 1979 to 2010 period is now 3.5% per decade. This year’s daily June rate of decline was the fastest in the satellite record; the previous record for the fastest rate of June decline was set in 1999
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  • Ron Kwok of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) reports that Nares Strait, the narrow passageway between northwest Greenland and Ellesmere Island is clear of the ice “arch" that usually plugs southward transport of the old, thick ice in the Lincoln Sea. Typically the ice arch forms in winter and breaks up in early July. This year the arch formed around March 15th and lasted only 56 days, breaking up in May. In 2007 the ice arch did not form at all, allowing twice as much export through Nares Strait than the annual mean. Although the export of sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean through Nares Strait is very small in comparison to the export through Fram Strait, the Lincoln Sea contains some of the Arctic’s thickest ice.
Hunter Cutting

Global C02 levels approaching tipping point for Arctic - 0 views

content.usatoday.com/...1

climate change impact Arctic sea ice Arctic

shared by Hunter Cutting on 01 Jul 10 - Cached
  • "Our findings indicate that CO2 levels of approximately 400 parts per million are sufficient to produce mean annual temperatures in the High Arctic of approximately 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees F)," author Ashley Ballantyne said in a release. "As temperatures approach 0 degrees Celsius, it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain permanent sea and glacial ice in the Arctic. Thus current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere of approximately 390 parts per million may be approaching a tipping point for irreversible ice-free conditions in the Arctic."
  • Hunter Cutting on 01 Jul 10
     
    [Ed. note -The impact of global warming on the Arctic sea ice is watched closely not only because the status of the ice serves as an early warning system, but also because the huge polar ice cap serves as an air conditioner for the planet (via the albedo effect). If the Arctic tips and the sea ices disappears, global warming will accelerate.]
Hunter Cutting

Key Greenland glacier retreats in July - 0 views

voices.washingtonpost.com/..._eyeballs_glacial_melt_in.html

glacier glacial retreat ice loss Greenland climate change impact

shared by Hunter Cutting on 14 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Greenland, swiftly lost a 2.7-square mile chunk of ice between July 6 and 7, NASA announced late last week. The ice loss pushed the point where the glacier meets the ocean, known as the "calving front," nearly one mile farther inland in a single day. According to the space agency, the new calving front location is the farthest inland on record.
  • The Jakobshavn Isbrae is what is known as an outlet glacier, which the National Snow and Ice Data Center defines as "a valley glacier which drains an inland ice sheet or ice cap and flows through a gap in peripheral mountains." In other words, it serves as a drainage pipe from the land ice into the ocean. According to NASA, the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which is located in western Greenland at about 69 degrees north latitude, is the largest outlet glacier in Greenland, draining 6.5 percent of Greenland's ice sheet area.
  • NASA reports that "as much as 10 percent of all ice lost from Greenland is coming through Jakobshavn, which is also believed to be the single largest contributor to sea level rise in the northern hemisphere."
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  • Interestingly, this particular glacier has been retreating especially rapidly in recent years. As the below image shows, the ice front receded more 27 miles in 160 years, but in recent years the ice loss rate has increased, with six miles of retreat observed in just the past decade.
Hunter Cutting

Mercury Levels In Arctic Seals May Be Linked To Global Warming - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...090504165950.htm

climate change impact Arctic sea ice Arctic species seals

shared by Hunter Cutting on 14 Jun 10 - Cached
  • high mercury levels in certain Arctic seals appear to be linked to vanishing sea ice caused by global warming.
  • The scientists analyzed the mercury content in muscle samples collected from ringed seals between 1973 and 2007. They then compared the levels to the length of the so-called "summer ice-free season," a warm period marked by vanishing sea ice in the seals' habitat. They found that the seals accumulated more mercury during both short (2 months) and long (5 months) ice-free seasons and postulate that this is related to the seals' food supplies. Higher seal mercury concentrations may follow relatively short ice-free seasons due to consumption of older, more highly contaminated Arctic cod while relatively long ice-free seasons may promote higher pelagic productivity and thus increased survival and abundance of Arctic cod with the overall result of more fish consumption and greater exposure to mercury. Longer ice-free seasons resulting from a warming Arctic may therefore result in higher mercury levels in ringed seal populations as well as their predators (polar bears and humans).
  • Hunter Cutting on 14 Jun 10
     
    Science Daily
Hunter Cutting

Arctic sea ice at record low on summer solstice - 0 views

www.climatecentral.org/...summer_solstice_arctic_ice

climate change impact Arctic Arctic sea ice

shared by Hunter Cutting on 21 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Based on satellite measurements taken during a baseline period from 1980-2000, the ice covering the Arctic Ocean ranges from an average late winter peak of about 6 million square miles (more than twice the area of the lower 48 states), to a typical late summer minimum of well less than half of that. The melt is in full swing by the summer solstice each year, when the baseline ice extent averages about 4.6 million square miles. But this year, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center , the melt-back reached that level by June 1, three weeks early, and since that time, has been at record low levels for the period. This is particularly remarkable because throughout April, daily ice extents hovered very close to average baseline levels (as noted at the time by some commentators eager to suggest the globe is not warming). In other words, the ice retreated with exceptional speed this May — a speed close to the average melt rate of July.
Hunter Cutting

Arctic Sea Ice Volume at Record Low for May - 0 views

psc.apl.washington.edu/...MASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png

climate change impact Arctic Arctic sea ice sea ice ice melt

shared by Hunter Cutting on 09 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Hunter Cutting on 09 Jun 10
     
    A graph from the Polar Science Center charting the decline trend of Arctic Sea Ice Volume from 1980 through May, 30, 2010, depicting a record-breaking low for the month of May.
Hunter Cutting

Numerous meltwater lakes forming in Greenland - 0 views

hot-topic.co.nz/its-grim-up-north-2

Arctic Greenland ice sheet ice melt

shared by Hunter Cutting on 14 Jun 10 - Cached
  • From NASA’s eyes in the sky, this is a view of the west coast of Greenland downloaded earlier today, looking down on the Ilulissat Icefjord — the outlet for the Jakobshavn Isbrae, the biggest outlet glacier in Greenland and the largest in the northern hemisphere.
  • I’m posting it to show the numerous large lakes of glacial meltwater that have appeared on top of the ice sheet over recent weeks. At the edge of the ice sheet, the winter snow has melted revealing the greyer ice underneath, but as you climb up the ice away from the coast you get back up into unmelted snow (bottom right). And there are lakes like this a very long way up the west coast, all primed to deliver their water down through moulins to the base of the sheet and thence out to sea, or over the surface in glacial rivers.
Hunter Cutting

Arctic ocean full up with carbon dioxide - 0 views

www.nature.com/...news.2010.372.html

climate change impact carbon_dioxide Arctic_Ocean

shared by Hunter Cutting on 22 Jul 10 - Cached
  • As climate scientists watched the Arctic's sea-ice cover shrink year after year, they thought there might be a silver lining: an ice-free Arctic Ocean could soak up large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, slowing down the accumulation of greenhouse gases and climate change. But research published in Science today suggests that part of the Arctic Ocean has already mopped up so much CO2 that it could have almost reached its limit1. Wei-Jun Cai, a biogeochemist at the University of Georgia in Athens and an international team sampled the amount of CO2 in the surface waters of the Canada Basin, in the western Arctic Ocean. "We found that ice-free basin areas had rather high CO2 values that approached atmospheric levels," says Cai. "It was not expected." Although the Arctic Ocean accounts for only 3% of the world's ocean surface area and is mostly covered in ice, it takes up 5-14% of all the CO2 absorbed by the planet's oceans. It tends to take in proportionately more CO2 because gases dissolve more easily in cold water. Scientists had previously thought that open water would promote the exchange of CO2 between the air and the ocean and that the increase in light reaching the water would also trigger the microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton to transfer more CO2 from the atmosphere to the ocean through photosynthesis2. But that "prediction was based on observations of either highly productive ocean margins or ice-covered basins prior to a major ice retreat," says Cai. Very few scientists had surveyed CO2 concentrations in offshore waters.
Hunter Cutting

Greenland land mass rising as ice sheet melts - 0 views

www.upi.com/...UPI-46691274215832

climate change impact Greenland ice melt land rise sea level rise

shared by Hunter Cutting on 19 May 10 - Cached
  • Greenland's ice is melting so quickly the land underneath is rising at an accelerated pace. Researchers said some coastal areas are rising by nearly 1 inch per year
  • "It's been known for several years that climate change is contributing to the melting of Greenland's ice sheet," Professor Tim Dixon, who led the study, said. "What's surprising, and a bit worrisome, is the ice is melting so fast that we can actually see the land uplift in response. Even more surprising, the rise seems to be accelerating, implying melting is accelerating."
Hunter Cutting

Polar heat pushing jet stream south, bringing Harder Winters for U.S./E.U./Japan - 0 views

www.ipsnews.net/news.asp

climate change impact Arctic sea ice Arctic jet stream snowmaggedon snow USA Japan Europe winter

shared by Hunter Cutting on 17 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Last winter's big snowfall and cold temperatures in the eastern United States and Europe were likely caused by the loss of Arctic sea ice, researchers concluded at the International Polar Year Oslo Science Conference in Norway last week.Climate change has warmed the entire Arctic region, melting 2.5 million square kilometres of sea ice, and that, paradoxically, is producing colder and snowier winters for Europe, Asia and parts of North America. "The exceptional cold and snowy winter of 2009-2010 in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America is connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic," said James Overland of the NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in the United States. "In future, cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception" in these regions, Overland told IPS.
  • Temperatures in January were -2C over the water, while the land was -25C, making conditions far windier and producing more snowfall than normal. Heavy snow on the remaining ice insulates it from the cold air, preventing it from thickening during the long winter.
  • This huge mass of warmer air over the Arctic in the late fall not only generates more wind and snow locally, several studies have now documented the impacts on global weather patterns. The winter of 2005-6 was the coldest in 50 years in Japan and eastern Eurasia, reported Meiji Honda, a senior scientist with the Climate Diagnosis Group at Japan's Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. Honda's studies show that the air over the Arctic was quite warm in the fall of 2005, which altered normal wind patterns, pushing the jet stream further south and bringing arctic cold to much of Eurasia and Japan. He also documented the same mechanism for the colder winters of 2007-8 and 2009-10, he told participants. In eastern North America, the same conditions of 2007-8 produced increased precipitation and colder temperatures in the winter. As the sea ice declines, big impacts are likely to be seen in this region, said Sara Strey of the University of Illinois.
Hunter Cutting

Arctic ice melt in June fastest ever - 0 views

news.discovery.com/...tic-warming-amplification.html

climate change impact Arctic sea ice

shared by Hunter Cutting on 28 Jun 10 - Cached
  • "June is going to be a new record low (for sea ice extent)," said Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The rate ice has been receding is also faster than any other June on record, she said, as was May.
Hunter Cutting

Ice cap on Uganda's Rwenzori Mountain range split after melting 2010 - 0 views

www.google.com/...M5jjOy4Fe84Tycip2QGecoGX7PyQyA

climate change impact Africa Uganda ice Rwenzori

shared by Hunter Cutting on 28 May 10 - Cached
  • Ugandan wildlife authorities say the ice cap on the country's western Rwenzori mountain range has split after extensive melting caused by global warming.Nelson Guma says ice covering Mount Margherita, the second highest peak in Africa, has melted forming a large crevasse some 6 metres (nearly 20 feet) wide.Guma said Tuesday the split occurred on the climbing route to Mount Margherita and that tourists can no longer climb that peak, but authorities are working to create another route to the peak. The East African peak has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Environmental protection officer Henry Mujuzi says that because of global warming, the ice cap, which in the 1950s had covered four square miles, now covers less than a square mile.
  • Hunter Cutting on 28 May 10
     
    Associated Press article
Hunter Cutting

Ice melt in Northwest Passage a month ahead of schedule - 0 views

ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/...0000_FECN14CWIS_0005060285.txt

climate change impact Northwest Passage Canada Arctic Arctic sea ice

shared by Hunter Cutting on 13 Jul 10 - Cached
  • ISSUED BY ENVIRONMENT CANADA ON 01 JULY 2010.
  • Taking all of the above into consideration, the current pack ice pattern in the Western Arctic resembles that normally seen in the last two weeks of July. The consolidated sea ice pattern in the Central Arctic at the end of June resembles conditions normally seen at this time, except for the region spanning Barrow Strait to M'Clure Strait which more closely resembles that seen at the end of July or in early August.
Hunter Cutting

Arctic sea ice at record low volume for March (2010) - 0 views

psc.apl.washington.edu/...IceVolume.php

climate change impact Arctic sea ice

shared by Hunter Cutting on 04 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Total Arctic Ice Volume for March 2010 is 20,300 km^3, the lowest over the 1979-2009 period and 38% below the 1979 maximum. September Ice Volume was lowest in 2009 at 5,800 km^3 or 67% below its 1979 maximum.
Hunter Cutting

Families sailing through ice-free Northwest passage - 0 views

www.desmoinesregister.com/...areness-about-health-of-oceans

climate change impact Arctic sea ice Arctic sailing Northwest Passage

shared by Hunter Cutting on 07 Jul 10 - Cached
  • David Thoreson has sailed to the ends of the Earth and now carries a message, as if gathered from sea winds.The 50-year-old Iowan and the crew of the 64-foot cutter Ocean Watch finished an epic 382-day journey of 27,524 nautical miles around the Americas on June 17, ending on the very dock they started last May in Seattle.
  • On his first attempt to sail through the Northwest Passage in 1994, he was stopped cold by ice; his second trip in 2007 was a rare success. This time, Ocean Watch was among a circus of boats ripping through, the ice a victim of a warming climate, he said."A sure sign that change is afoot was seeing standard-production sailboats with families going through the Northwest Passage."
Hunter Cutting

Greenland rapidly rising as ice melt continues: Science Daily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...100518170218.htm

climate change impact Greenland ice melt land rise sea level rise

shared by Hunter Cutting on 04 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Greenland's ice is melting so quickly that the land underneath is rising at an accelerated pace.
  • "What's surprising, and a bit worrisome, is that the ice is melting so fast that we can actually see the land uplift in response," he says. "Even more surprising, the rise seems to be accelerating, implying that melting is accelerating."
Hunter Cutting

Last Pacific glacier now pounded by rain, not snow - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2010070100394_pf.html

climate change impact Indonesia glacier

shared by Hunter Cutting on 01 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The 3-mile- (4,884-meter-) high glacier was pounded by rain every afternoon during the team's 13-day trip, something the American scientist has never encountered in three decades of drilling ice cores. He lay awake at night listening to the water gushing beneath him. By the time they were ready to head home, ice around their sheltered campsite had melted a staggering 12 inches (30 centimeters). "These glaciers are dying," said Thompson, one of the world's most accomplished glaciologists. "Before I was thinking they had a few decades, but now I'd say we're looking at years."
  • The mountain has lost about 80 percent of its ice since 1936 - two-thirds of that since the last scientific expedition in the early 1970s. Thompson says he thinks temperatures are rising twice as fast in high altitudes as at the earth's surface, which, if true, could have broad implications on people who depend on glaciers for water during the dry season, such as in the Himalayas.
  • Geoffrey Hope, a professor at Australian National University who took part in the 1971 expedition to Puncak Jaya, noted that Papua has the wettest mountain region in the world, so high precipitation levels didn't come as a great surprise. Still, his own experience was markedly different. "The roof of our marque tent fell in on many evenings due to the weight of the snow," he recalled, "and all water coming from the glacier would freeze by 8 p.m. each night."
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