Antarctic glaciers melting faster than thought

Antarctic glaciers melting faster than thought

news.yahoo.com

GENEVA – Glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster and across a much wider area than previously thought, a development that threatens to raise sea levels worldwide and force millions of people to flee low-lying areas, scientists said Wednesday.

Researchers once believed that the melting was limited to the Antarctic Peninsula, a narrow tongue of land pointing toward South America. But satellite data and automated weather stations now indicate it is more widespread.

The melting "also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

"That's unusual and unexpected," he told The Associated Press in an interview.

By the end of the century, the accelerated melting could cause sea levels to climb by 3 to 5 feet — levels substantially higher than predicted by a major scientific group just two years ago.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This worry's me, simply the thought of the glaciers melting at all is enough but these things seem to melting a lot faster then we had thought before. Raising sea levels coming closer to catostrophic preportions? I think so and for all those who don't believe in the global warming thing, well here is some proof for ya. What will we do when the flooding starts? We can't re freeze the polar ice caps now can we. This is a bad sign indeed.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Propaganda, the glaciers aren't going anywhere. Glaciers have variance, its a normal cycle.

This just really helps justify the new carbon tax.

I am personally sick of hearing about the global warming fraud, the entire solar system is warming. Its the sun, nothing we can do about it, but the government thinks that taxing us for farts and emissions will solve it.

reply to post by xstealth


Your theory sounds good enough, but I think that global warming has been proven and it continues even as I type this.

en.wikipedia.org...

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2009) — Multidisciplinary research from the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 provides new evidence of the widespread effects of global warming in the polar regions. Snow and ice are declining in both polar regions, affecting human livelihoods as well as local plant and animal life in the Arctic, as well as global ocean and atmospheric circulation and sea level.

www.sciencedaily.com...

On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role. The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.

topics.nytimes.com...

Have you ever noticed in all these glaciers are melted stories few if any ever show yearly photos taken over a time period to show that the glaciers are really melting.

Its like we will claim the glaciers are melting and very few people will ever see these glaciers and know if we are telling the truth anyway.

Claims with no evidence= BS

[edit on 26-2-2009 by ANNED]

reply to post by ANNED


Here's some info for you




video.nationalgeographic.com...

Originally posted by alyosha1981

Antarctic glaciers melting faster than thought

news.yahoo.com

GENEVA – Glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster and across a much wider area than previously thought, a development that threatens to raise sea levels worldwide and force millions of people to flee low-lying areas, scientists said Wednesday.

Researchers once believed that the melting was limited to the Antarctic Peninsula, a narrow tongue of land pointing toward South America. But satellite data and automated weather stations now indicate it is more widespread.

The melting "also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

"That's unusual and unexpected," he told The Associated Press in an interview.

By the end of the century, the accelerated melting could cause sea levels to climb by 3 to 5 feet — levels substantially higher than predicted by a major scientific group just two years ago.

(visit the link for the full news article)

lol...these people really are doing a great job of trying to scare us..and obviously they are also doing excatly whats needed to keep that funding coming..

imagine if a climate change scientist ever came out and said hes found out that it would appear they have been wrong...he wouldnt have a job..

reply to post by alienesque


It's not fear mongering to raise funds...this is real! watch the videos. Do a quick search if you have to but this is going on and it's documented, filmed, studied, and alarming.

Your not showing me anything all glaciers do that and always have.
its called a calving glaciers.
www.alaska.net...
www.britannica.com...
they have done this for millions of years this is nothing new

And have you also noticed to these retreating glaciers are always in remote areas where we have to take the word of the people that claim they are melting that it is really happening.

Your not showing me anything all glaciers do that and always have.
its called a calving glaciers.
www.alaska.net...
www.britannica.com...
they have done this for millions of years this is nothing new

And have you also noticed to these retreating glaciers are always in remote areas where we have to take the word of the people that claim they are melting that it is really happening.

Originally posted by alyosha1981
reply to post by xstealth

 

Your theory sounds good enough, but I think that global warming has been proven and it continues even as I type this.

Glaciers grow and recede in cycles, sometimes very rapidly sometimes very gradually, it has been that way for millions of years.

Proving the temperature over a timeframe is changing is easy, claiming(or insinuating) to have proved it is a result of mans actions over the past 150 years is extremely naive, but it gives the government another reason to tax us.

Scientists work in this field because funding is available for climate research, the funding is available mainly from sources that have an intrest in 'green' technology or taxes coming into fruition. Science isn't necessarily unbiased.

I am all for cleaner emissions and less pollution, who wouldn't want to live in a cleaner world after all, but we have to be extremely cautious in accepting top down imposed changes on our lifestyle based on potentially misleading studies like this.

reply to post by ANNED

There is widespread evidence that glaciers are retreating in many mountain areas of the world. Since 1850 the glaciers of the European Alps have lost about 30 to 40% of their surface area and about half of their volume (Haeberli and Beniston, 1998). Similarly, glaciers in the New Zealand Southern Alps have lost 25% of their area over the last 100 years (Chinn, 1996), and glaciers in several regions of central Asia have been retreating since the 1950s (Fitzharris, 1996; Meier, 1998). For three glaciers in the US Pacific Northwest, the seven-year average rate of ice loss was higher for the period since 1989 than for any other period studied (Hodge et al., 1998). Glacial retreat is also prevalent in the higher elevations of the tropics. Glaciers on Mt. Kenya and Kilimanjaro have lost over 60% of their area in the last century (Hastenrath, 1991; Hastenrath and Greischar, 1997), and accelerated retreat has been reported for the Peruvian Andes (Mosley-Thompson, 1997). By contrast, losses in the Arctic have been less pronounced (0-6% in area and 1-14% in volume), partly because those glaciers are much colder and the extra meltwater refreezes in the ice mass (M. Meier, pers. comm.). Although there is considerable variability at the regional and local scales and over shorter time periods, the overall global signal shows mass loss and retreat of glaciers during the last century. For the period 1884 1978, the mean global glacial retreat corresponds to a calculated warming of about 0.7°C per century (Oerlemans, 1994).

www.ucsusa.org...

Using images of the earth taken from space, Wessels, along with over 50 other GLIMS researchers from 23 countries, is tracking changes in nearly all of the 160,000 glaciers around the world, only about 1,000 of which have been previously studied. Wessels's newest data come from NASA-operated ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer), which takes detailed color and infrared images of the entire earth. Data collection using ASTER is still in the early stages, but by comparing the newest data with older records, Wessels and his colleagues have already noted some major changes in the sizes of many glaciers around the world. "The majority of these glaciers are receding," says Wessels. Some growing and shrinking is normal for glaciers, and debris-rimmed lakes within some glaciers may come and go. Despite these fluctuations, glaciers usually maintain their size over the long term. But Wessels has seen a shift in the balance of this cycle. "At first glance, there's more shrinkage than growing," he says, "and there's now a trend for the lakes to stay and grow," rather than drying up or freezing over. The newest images show that, in the Alps, where many years of records track the mountains' ice formations, several glaciers have disappeared in as little as 40 years. In Argentina, glaciers in the Patagonian ice fields have receded by an average of 1.5 kilometers over 13 years. And in the Himalayan mountains, glaciers are losing bulk as continued melting feeds lakes that sometimes run off to flood surrounding areas. Recently, a lake atop one Himalayan glacier threatened to overflow its natural dam within days, forcing local Nepalese engineers to quickly perform a controlled drain.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov...

reply to post by alyosha1981


Was the ice measured before or after they found the 193,000 sq miles of sea ice? That's the size of California, by the way.

You can't say that global warming has been proven. I can find as many scientists who say it isn't real as you can find that say it is.

Also, I seriously don't think anyone knows anything about what's going on in the antarctic. Most previous reports say between 1979-1999 antarctic ice grew by 30%. Now the AP reports that antarctic ice "melting faster than we thought". I thought we thought it was growing. I'm confused.

Video This is a worldwide problem, so the funding theory holds no water with me(no pun intended).

Originally posted by alyosha1981
Video This is a worldwide problem, so the funding theory holds no water with me(no pun intended).

Being a global problem has no association with research being funded or not.

Many groups funding research like this are 'Global' or 'International', they still draw their funds from national governments.

reply to post by Ridill


Ok research costs money, that's a given.Many college organizations vollenteer their time and efforts in this area of study, why because they are concerned.They don't do it for the funding or for profit, they do it because it's alarming and they wish to find out more about it.

Ya know, I don't know which is more alarming, the fact that every time a new study comes out the scientists predict faster warming, or that there is still a large percentage of our population who discount these findings. One thing is for sure, no matter which side of the argument you support, one has to admit there is definitely a lot of misinformation making its way into the discussion. Which side is more responsible for this misinformation is increasingly becoming an issue of opinion.

the extremely positive thing if this is real is that we'll get to see what is under the ice on this continent.

i'm real curious as there might be some amazing surprises

Originally posted by alyosha1981
reply to post by Ridill

 

Ok research costs money, that's a given.Many college organizations vollenteer their time and efforts in this area of study, why because they are concerned.They don't do it for the funding or for profit, they do it because it's alarming and they wish to find out more about it.

It is alarming because of sensationalist clamor based on flawed research, they sure have you alarmed.

Careful use of "Could", "May", and "Unusual" by both the media and scientific community highlight the fallacy.

Just thought I would add an article.

www.iberianature.com...