Increase twice the size of Germany: "colder weather" to blame.
Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has indicated a dramatic increase in sea ice extent in the Arctic regions. The growth over the past year covers an area of 700,000 square kilometers: an amount twice the size the nation of Germany.
With the Arctic melting season over for 2008, ice cover will continue to increase until melting begins anew next spring.
The data is for August 2008 and indicates a total sea ice area of six million square kilometers. Ice extent for the same month in 2007 covered 5.3 million square kilometers, a historic low. Earlier this year, media accounts were rife with predictions that this year would again see a new record. Instead, the Arctic has seen a gain of about thirteen percent.
William Chapman, a researcher with the Arctic Climate Research Center at the University of Illinois, tells DailyTech that this year the Arctic was "definitely colder" than 2007. Chapman also says part of the reason for the large ice loss in 2007 was strong winds from Siberia, which affect both ice formation and drift, forcing ice into warmer waters where it melts.
Earlier predictions were also wrong because researchers thought thinner ice would melt faster in subsequent years. Instead, according to the NSIDC, the new ice had less snow coverage to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, resulting in a faster rate of ice growth.
Most concern has focused on the Arctic regions, rather than Antarctica. Recent research has indicated Antarctica is on a long-term cooling trend, for reasons which remain unclear.
Earlier this year, concerns over global warming led the US to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing.
BTW, the Antarctic, the other end of the planet, has been gaining ice for years.
Clovis
quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
"very ing alarmed", huh? as opposed to what, Al?
are you living-in-a-tree-drinking-your-own-piss alarmed? or are you parroting-demagogue-rhetoric-to-ridicule-others-who-don't-completely-agree-with-you while-living-the-life-of-Ryan alarmed?
i can't question the commingling of science and marketing, and look at a broader perspective of counter arguments in order to make an informed decision about how i live without some uppity 20-something who thinks he's got everything figured out already telling me i'm delusional. way to engender society, .
thats great you understand the "scope of the problem". better than anybody else i assume? the acual source of the problem is beyond debate, right? wtf then separates you pschologically from the deists you mock at the drop of a hat?
As opposed to sticking sticks in the spokes of progress on the issue which is what you seem to enjoy doing.
I'm not parroting anything beyond the actual issues I have read about which are facing various parts of the planet. The polluting of our oceans, atmosphere, and waterways, the dead zones, the over-fishing, the amount of plastic accumulating which won't biodegrade for millions of years, the destruction of huge areas of old growth forest around the globe and the general disregard for the natural world which sustains our lives.
It's a ing problem, and we need to start doing something about it. That means not having "debates" over whether or not humanity is having an impact on the earth.
We are smarter than this, and we should be able to figure out better ways to live.
LatinLover
Why are we talking about global warming? The far left should concentrate on real issues about Americans and not if not of the well being of the polar bears
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by Clovis
That means not having "debates" over whether or not humanity is having an impact on the earth.
societal debate, as large as the one we are currently in, is an animal all it's own. and you want to squash it? theres a term for that you know?
the idea of stifling debate, to force others to accept what you think as, dare i say gospel, is as close-minded as anybody could be.
so far, in the face of contradicting evidence, you're proving the notion that environmentalism is the new religion.
Increase twice the size of Germany: "colder weather" to blame.
Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has indicated a dramatic increase in sea ice extent in the Arctic regions. The growth over the past year covers an area of 700,000 square kilometers: an amount twice the size the nation of Germany.
With the Arctic melting season over for 2008, ice cover will continue to increase until melting begins anew next spring.
The data is for August 2008 and indicates a total sea ice area of six million square kilometers. Ice extent for the same month in 2007 covered 5.3 million square kilometers, a historic low. Earlier this year, media accounts were rife with predictions that this year would again see a new record. Instead, the Arctic has seen a gain of about thirteen percent.
William Chapman, a researcher with the Arctic Climate Research Center at the University of Illinois, tells DailyTech that this year the Arctic was "definitely colder" than 2007. Chapman also says part of the reason for the large ice loss in 2007 was strong winds from Siberia, which affect both ice formation and drift, forcing ice into warmer waters where it melts.
Earlier predictions were also wrong because researchers thought thinner ice would melt faster in subsequent years. Instead, according to the NSIDC, the new ice had less snow coverage to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, resulting in a faster rate of ice growth.
Most concern has focused on the Arctic regions, rather than Antarctica. Recent research has indicated Antarctica is on a long-term cooling trend, for reasons which remain unclear.
Earlier this year, concerns over global warming led the US to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing.
BTW, the Antarctic, the other end of the planet, has been gaining ice for years.
There you go, you've just proven you don't fully understand what you're talking about.
The word "warming" is the wrong word. It's climate "change".
Yes the earth is getting warmer but some parts are not.
To explain the article above, there is a strong current which runs from the equator, around the tip of Africa and all the way up to Greenland. I believe it's called the Atlantic Current and dictates a lot of the weather patterns in western Europe and eastern USA.
The main theory is that the melting of large amounts of polar ice caps (mainly Antarctica) due to global increases in temperature actually cool this current. Therefore, less warm currents are carried north and this results in places like the UK and the Arctic actually getting colder.
It also has an effect on the rise in bad weather in the Caribbean and US.
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by Fledz
The word "warming" is the wrong word. It's climate "change".
oh right, the religion has been "re-branded" so to speak. my bad.
quote:
Originally posted by Fledz
The main theory is that the melting of large amounts of polar ice caps (mainly Antarctica) due to global increases in temperature actually cool this current.
does the fact that the Antarctic has been GAINING ice for years and has been colder than model predictions have any effect on your "Main Theory"?...and wtf is a "Main Theory" anyway?
furthermore, where is this "mean" or "global" temperature increase you're attributing to current cooling and the recent rapid replenishment of Arctic ice?
quote:
The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.
"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."
In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it's also possible that something more mysterious is going on.
That becomes clear when you consider what's happening to global sea level. Sea level rises when the oceans get warm because warmer water expands. This accounts for about half of global sea level rise. So with the oceans not warming, you would expect to see less sea level rise. Instead, sea level has risen about half an inch in the past four years. That's a lot.
Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.
"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years," he says.
One possibility is that the sea has, in fact, warmed and expanded — and scientists are somehow misinterpreting the data from the diving buoys.
But if the aquatic robots are actually telling the right story, that raises a new question: Where is the extra heat all going?
Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says it's probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet.
That can't be directly measured at the moment, however.
"Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says.
It's also possible that some of the heat has gone even deeper into the ocean, he says. Or it's possible that scientists need to correct for some other feature of the planet they don't know about. It's an exciting time, though, with all this new data about global sea temperature, sea level and other features of climate.
"I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."
Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat.
Originally posted by LatinLover
Why are we talking about global warming? The far left should concentrate on real issues about Americans and not if not of the well being of the polar bears
Do you blame the "far left" for global warming?how about terrorism?you balme the far left for that too? or how about all those hurricanes?blame the far left right?:rolleyes:
You are one in ignorant prick seriously.At typical yank with the typical " the world,it is all about America" attitude.
Dj Smitty20
quote:
Originally posted by hardcore trancer
Do you blame the "far left" for global warming?how about terrorism?you balme the far left for that too? or how about all those hurricanes?blame the far left right?:rolleyes:
You are one in ignorant prick seriously.At typical yank with the typical " the world,it is all about America" attitude.
Informed Americans are quite embarassed of people like him I'm sure. He has simply fallen for the Republican scare tactics and fear mongering and bought into this entire war on terror business without questioning the logic. Nothing else can explain his idiocy.
Krypton
Here's my conclusion. We're f***ed. Start building your underground bunkers already.
diesel_tron3000
quote:
Originally posted by Krypton
Here's my conclusion. We're f***ed. Start building your underground bunkers already.
yup :toothless :toothless :toothless
there's really nothing mankind can do at this point because globalisation and commodification are entrenched into the world politcal economy. every country wants to grow and compete commercially, and this just means more pollution. this is the reality.
technology is the only solution because energy is the key to the whole spread globalisation/raise living standards mantra. something like fusion power. it's funny to think humanity's fate could rest on something like fusion, but it's not too far fetched because it's one process that results in almost unlimited energy potential. next to energy, the other 'real' problem is fresh water supply. however, there's plenty of salt water. desalination is the option to go to, although the water tastes funny...it takes a hell of a lot of electricity to run the chemical process but that would be covered in the fusion front.
if technology can't solve the problems, it means the world will either have to join together, and socialism will finally replace capitalism in some strange new world order...or yeah build your bunker and get the pump shotty because it's gonna be a crazy
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by Clovis
As opposed to sticking sticks in the spokes of progress on the issue which is what you seem to enjoy doing.
I'm not parroting anything beyond the actual issues I have read about which are facing various parts of the planet. The polluting of our oceans, atmosphere, and waterways, the dead zones, the over-fishing, the amount of plastic accumulating which won't biodegrade for millions of years, the destruction of huge areas of old growth forest around the globe and the general disregard for the natural world which sustains our lives.
It's a ing problem, and we need to start doing something about it. That means not having "debates" over whether or not humanity is having an impact on the earth.
We are smarter than this, and we should be able to figure out better ways to live.
