A new study from NASA has revealed how Arctic sea ice thinned between the winters of 2004 and 2008. The study utilized NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite, known as ICESat, to allow researchers with NASA and the University of Washington in Seattle to, for the first time, measure ice coverage over the entire Arctic basin.
In the winter, Arctic ice thickens due to the sun setting for several months and ocean currents lessening. In the summer, there are long sunlight-filled days, stronger ocean currents, and wind to melt the ice. A lot of ice melts each year, but each year some thicker, older ice survives. This older ice is 9 feet thick, typically, as opposed to the single-year ice which is on average 6 feet thick.
According to the satellite measurements, the ice has been thinning at a rate of 7 inches per year for a total of 2.2 feet in the last year. Multi-year ice, meanwhile, shrunk by 42 percent. Ice cover, meanwhile decreased 595,000 square miles — nearly the size of Alaska’s land area.
It’s not all bad news:
A melting ice cap may unlock new oil deposits and shipping routes.
Guess we’ll soon be like the Dilbert characters, the Elbonians, whose land is under water and mud.
Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking | April 18, 2009
May I ask a question? Is it not LAND based ice melting that would be the problem? Ice takes up the same volume as water, so ice in water makes no difference. But, land ice melting would INCREASE the water level since there is a net gain of water…
Or, should I have stayed in grade 6 science instead of smoking Benson and Hedges in the parking lot?
@Named
When water freezes it increases in volume by about 10%.
Maybe it’s because alot of the ice is floating, only the parts that are under the water level are displacing an equivalent volume of water.
NASA have done a study where they expect there to be global cooling of 1 degree each year this century. I’d say that’s what’ll happen. Or else the earth will flood lots of places, kill a ton of us off, and thereby correct things. The earth will correct itself, the idea that we are going to destroy or save it is ridiculous.
We need to grow more sponges underwater to soak it up. <;)
# 3 Molloy said, “Maybe it’s because alot of the ice is floating, only the parts that are under the water level are displacing an equivalent volume of water. ”
You’re joking, right?
#1
The Antarctic is towards the South Pole.
The Arctic tends more towards the North Pole.
I’m glad to see you’re as accurate with your comments and as precisely on-topic as ever.
Now tell us how this whole thing is Obama’s fault, blah blah blah…
wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/08/accuweathers-joe-bastardi-the-science-is-in-crowd-does-not-want-them-to-see-facts-and-parts-of-us-to-have-year-without-a-summer/
# 6 WhereIsDead? said, “The Antarctic is towards the South Pole.”
Yes, but it is undisplaced ice and thus would influence sea level, the Arctic ice is already displaced…
I’m glad to see that you are as uneducated as ever…
#8,
Right, there’s a story about ice getting thinner at the north pole, so you quote a story about ice getting thicker at the south pole.
The two things obviously go together because – because you say so?
Obviously, what’s happening at the north pole is therefore… what? Not happening at all or not important at all? What’s your implication here? You’re an expert at changing sea levels? Where did you acquire that expertise? During the last Ice Age?
I guess you divined everything was all going to even out in the end during your ten years, giving scientific advice to the senior scientists where… at the south pole or at the north pole… or at both poles? You really get around, don’t you?
Can’t come up with any reason to blame Obama for this one yet? Come on! Where’s your imagination today?
just a couple other items.
iceagenow.com/Nisqually_Glacier_Growing.htm
iceagenow.com/Mount_St_Helens.htm
iceagenow.com/Glaciers_growing_on_Glacier_Peak_WA.htm
iceagenow.com/California_Glaciers_Growing.htm
iceagenow.com/Alaskas_Hubbard_Glacier_advancing_7_feet_per_day.htm
iceagenow.com/Alaskan_Glaciers_Advance_One_Third_Mile.htm
iceagenow.com/Alaskan_Glaciers_Grow_for_First_Time_in_250_years.htm
iceagenow.com/Largest_glacier_in_Argentina_advancing.htm
iceagenow.com/Glaciers_growing_on_Canada_tallest_mountain.htm
iceagenow.com/Glaciers_in_Norway_Growing_Again.htm
iceagenow.com/New_Zealand_Glaciers_Growing.htm
iceagenow.com/Mont_Blanc_glacier_almost_doubles_in_size.htm
iceagenow.com/Glaciers_Growing_in_Western_Himalayas.htm
iceagenow.com/Greenland_Ice_Sheet_Growing_Thicker.htm
iceagenow.com/Antarctic_ice_growing_not_shrinking.htm
#10
Good source you have there! I hope he sells lots of books – to lots of morons.
# 9 WhereIsDead? said, “Right, there’s a story about ice getting thinner at the north pole”
And then a comment from UD about rising sea levels…
Are you REALLY as dense as you appear?
Keep your powder dry….! Food riots to follow.
No worry about panic. Ennui and inaction are central to the American Way of politics.
Pundits and professional skeptics will simply move to higher ground. They can afford to.
You know what’s great about this discussion?
People can argue different points. They can make mistakes and others will correct them.
They can make assertions and others expect them to back it up with facts.
And we all learn through the process.
Isn’t this better than “The debate is over”?
#12
I’d point out you are a spectacularly stupid troll who makes up transparently ridiculous stories about topics of which you are utterly ignorant — but that would violate the Commenting Guidelines, so I won’t.
You see, I’m familiar with stupid people because I have to deal with them everyday. That makes me qualified to Comment on them.
Just once, I’d like to read your real qualifications about anything at all and please, not the imaginary ones. That list is just way too long.
By the way, how did you become an expert on changing sea levels? Just curious.
#17, Mr. Fusion, is that you hiding in another name again?
The thickness of the sea ice doesn’t have much if anything to do with sea level anywhere. However this comes and goes. At the height of little ice age Iceland spent at least one summer with sea ice all around it. Since they lived by fishing at the time this may have done a good deal to reduce the local population unless they went fishing with success through the sea ice. A lot of people starved and froze to death during that time frame.
Due to low sunspot activity it should be expected that the planet is cooling. There is a known connection.
People who think they know how the climate is going to act with any great certainty are out of their freaking minds. There are to many factors we are still discovering that aren’t even in our modals.
Dust storms in Africa impact the hurricane season in the America’s hugely and those move a lot of energy around. Okay they both do but you do get the idea.
Some guy is now predicting long range major weather events for months in advance just based on solar activity and he’s either awful lucky or he has a point: Solaris rules!
18, Liberty Lover
Can’t you tell by the semantic usage that it’s NOT Fusion? You’re obviously not an investigator…
# 18 LibertyLover said, “#17, Mr. Fusion, is that you hiding in another name again?”
It does sound like his typical response to being totally owned. Definitely a sock puppet.
# 17 WhereIsDead? said, “By the way, how did you become an expert on changing sea levels? Just curious.”
Read up on Archimedes and you too can become an “expert” on displacement. ROLFLMAO!
21, Paddy-0 (Still a ZERO! Extremely clever!)
Nah. Only certain people here change names, but never their words…
ಠ_ಠ
Glad to see you and LL are still BFFs…
#21, His worship of you was the giveaway.
I’m beginning to think there is really only one fasciso-liberal on this board and he goes by many names . . .
24, LibertyLover
Was that a pun? Cause if it was, a capital would have made it even better! Good job, old man!
# 24 LibertyLover said, “I’m beginning to think there is really only one fasciso-liberal on this board and he goes by many names . . .”
I think that theory has merit.
#21
It does sound like his typical response to being totally owned. Definitely a sock puppet.
LOL. Magnificent LOL argument on your LOL own behalf. LOL How do you LOL come up with these LOL insightful LOL innovations in LOL discourse? LOL. Can’t answer any LOL questions, can you LOL?
LOL ROLFLMAO
#22
Read up on Archimedes and you too can become an “expert” on displacement. ROLFLMAO!
LOL. You didn’t LOL answer any LOL questions LOL again. What are you, LOL, a petulant LOL child? ROLFLMAO.
Anyone can say LOL “look this up”. LOL. Anyone. Any LOL idiot on the LOL face of the LOL Earth.
So, exactly where LOL does LOL Archimedes LOL explain the LOL last LOL displacement of LOL the entire LOL Arctic LOL ice mass?
ROLFLMAO
Somehow, I don’t think you’re actually laughing, Patrick. Could you please stop using those silly lines of meaningless characters? They’re irritating and they make you appear to be a child or an immature juvenile.
WhereIsDead?
It is this simple. When you fill your glass of ice with water to the very rim, does it overflow when the ice melts? The answer, BTW, is NO.
This is also the case for sea ice. The only difference is scale. As Patrick pointed out, the Archimedes principle is all you need to know.
Beyond that, if you cannot understand the significance of ice forming at the South Pole (On Land) and how it will cause the sea level to go down due to less water in the oceans/less ice in the oceans, you really are the idiot you have lead one to believe.
And as has been noted above in the comments and as can be found all over the place, the ice is growing again at the NP and shows no signs of slowing down. This approaching winter will, obviously, show a MASSIVE increase in 3rd year ice so I cannot wait to see how Hansen and Gore are going to respond to this.
See, unlike the credit scam, global warning can be detected by ANYONE. When there are colder summers, more rain/snow and more ice forming all over the place, you cannot “wag the dog” near enough to “prove” that there is still global warming.
I know someone well who lives on the arctic circle and is a naturalist for Parks Canada. This is what she’s seeing.
I don’t know about ice but the animal populations are having problems or changing. They are seeing birds and insects (birds follow insects, right?) that have never been seen before and Inuit are inventing new words for things like robins and starlings.
The polar bears are suffering since the pack ice is melting sooner. They often starve because they can’t hunt seals on the ice long enough anymore.
If you really want to know what’s going on in the arctic, don’t ask Al Gore, ask someone who’s lived on the land all their life.
The real agenda behind Climate Change.
EPA May Have Suppressed Report Skeptical Of Global Warming – “The big question is: there is this general rule that when an agency puts something out for public evidence and comment, it’s supposed to have the evidence supporting it and the evidence the other way,” (CBS)
Only fools or Republicans (same thing really) would argue global warming. I just don’t understand their opposition. It’s a chance to rip off the silly Democrats by offering to manage their money for them during this climactic period.
They have proved themselves to be so adept at handling that task haven’t they.