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.
You know Patrick you are often more confrontational than you need to be, but you get a slow clap for the Archimedes bit.
=)
So the arctic ice is melting. Instead of running around like chicken little, take advantage of the opportunity. One of the bigger problems we have today is the developing scarcity of fresh water, right? So why not develop ways to siphon off the melting ice (it’s fresh water) and send it to where it’s needed?
(by the way, if anyone uses this idea, I want 15% of the gross profits from your venture.)
People bring up Polar Bears all the time in equation. Like Noah Wyle doing his blatant lie TV commercial about how they are dying off.
Wonder why their population has increased almost 5 fold in the last thirty years then?
Using the map from the World Wildlife Fund you can clearly see that the PB population is INCREASING in the largest area for which they have accurate data. If you look real close you will also see that the PBs in that area are nowhere near the Arctic ice.
Let’s see now, you take meteorological (weather) data temps from gauges next to asphalt parking lots and air conditioner vents, then you place instruments on moving ice floes and say all the ice just disappeared.
What a bunch of dumbass chicken littles.
So much for my ridiculous idea that we could have a reasonable discussion of this topic.
The magnetic pole is moving fast – 40km a year.
Weather patterns are changing, The sun is frying UPSs in Datacenters around the world.
I’m off to watch the latest episode of Ice Road Truckers…
# 28 qb said, “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.”
Nothing new. This has happened before (while man walked the Earth) and we survived, flourished, multiplied, all with no more technology than fire & bear skins. And that was with temps higher than they are now or will be in 100 years…
At the same time period (particularly since late 1980’s) Mars poles are also melting… Guess we humans spew pollution way out there…
By the way, Mars poles are melting faster than Earth’s… Simplified guesstimate: our actions are actually reducing global warming due to the Sun, more pollution please or poles will melt faster.
North polar ice won’t add to ocean depth. It will affect salinity and currents – also very worrysome. Greenland and Antartica worry me more as far as the rising tides. Since we humans will face appocalypse at the end of 2012 it won’t matter very much if the weather gets harsher or the sea gets deeper.
I say this is Bullshit total, more politically motivated propaganda to the President Huessain will be pleased with his little NASA. Their reports are so tainted as to be silly to even consider then anymore.
Globally the temps have gone down 7.2 degrees wiping out the increases and making the new taxes for nothing other then making Demoncrats richer. According to Al Gore we should all be standing in several inches of water about now, has that happened, NO. Again Demoncrat BS, so they can rip off everyone.
Whatever……….
Traaxx
Has the arctic ice ever been this thin before?
I submit that it has.
You have to admire the pro-AGW folks, they sure don’t let the facts get in the way! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to paint my roof and my car white, I live in california after all!
One could argue that NASA is just trying to get on the good side of the boss by releasing this data.
usgovinfo.about.com/b/2009/06/11/nasa-budget-cut-by-congressional-committee.htm
#11
Besmirched me and the author – but you forgot to debunk or even debate the data….oops.
Why would NASA start sucking up to the boss now? They’ve been reporting these sorts of studies for years, even when Bush made it clear they were frowned upon.
@ 42
Right. Good point.
It’s all getting a little silly. Anything that disagrees with a sides point of view _must_ be due to some backhander, funding or ‘sucking up’. It’s all a scam… obviously.
Believe it or not most scientists have integrity and are trying to do good science.
Anyways – I still haven’t heard a good argument against trying to be more efficient. So if you don’t think global warming is happening why not buy into that.
The deniers argument is ‘we don’t know for sure’, ‘we don’t know for sure we make any difference’, ‘the climate changes deal with it’. So do nothing. But that’s not too smart, if the impact (even if unlikely) is huge and it avoids any of the advantages of doing something about it (efficiency).
A few more arguments of the form of climate change ‘doesn’t exist’/’we can’t do anything about it’ but we should try to be more efficient – would prove something. So far I haven’t seen one of those anywhere, which makes me dubious.
#41
In order to argue facts, there first must be facts to argue. There is no way to debunk or debate someone else’s imagination.
You can therefore cease being afraid. Calm yourself.
You’re perfectly safe inside your own mind – today and every day.
🙂
Whatever the final outcome (warming/cooling) it will be fun to watch. If you live in Canada warming would be great. MUCH more land for living and growing on…
Remember, climate change is a constant for this planet…
#43
Naw, ya missed what the Deniers are saying – not that I speak for them, but:
Not denying that climate changes.
Not denying that minimizing pollution is a positive, necessary aspect of human life (look at NYCity circa 1900 w/horses).
Not denying there are beneficial cost savings in being efficient.
WILL deny the premises that one person (Gore, Obama, etc) knows more than anyone else based on the power he temporarily has.
Will deny that the most effective/efficient way to produce ‘alternative’ fuel resources is for one single person to say so and then enforce the statement with taxes.
Will deny that any ‘alternative’ fuel developed by the mandate of one person (ie:government) will be successful.
Will deny that any climate change is man made and can be corrected by actions that men make – if only for the reason that people who are always wanting to take my money and tell me how to live my life are the only ones who are saying it’s true.
Will NOT deny that if fuel prices go up due to a true scarcity (ran out, radiated, contaminated, etc)and NOT a make believe government scheme to collect more taxes (or stock market scam), natural market forces will develop an alternative that works cheaper and more efficent than anything else.
[and for those afraid of things that go bump in the night, the closet door has been opened a crack in the middle/far east]
Does that simplify things for ya….or just make it more confusing?
@ 46
Gotcha.
They are out to get you. You hear them in the night. They and their puppets. There are lots of them. You are very very very scared.
What’s so scary? The government. Those wacky scientists. Al Gore.
You’d think it was a dictatorship, and they were hunting you down for the dog you are. But you live in the land of the free. Or so you preach at the sad unenlightened idiot nations of the Earth.
Quick lets spread American style democracy around the world. It scares the bejesus out of you, but its great. Or is it to scare the sh*t out of everyone else too?
What a load of old rubbish.
There there. It will be alright. The evil guvvy wuvvy won’t come and go bump in the night. You’ll be alright…
Boo.
Note the detail on multi-year ice. That is thrown in because ice levels increased instead of producing an ice-free arctic as some predicted.
They can talk about a low level of 2-year ice, and then the next year a low level of 3-year ice.
Until you’ve tried Elbonian cuisine, you haven’t experienced the full scale of human barbarity.
those pic are photoshopped. they’re exactly the same with the ice erased — see ref. the clouds
#46
I’m really sorry but I only speak, read and write English. I appreciate your efforts but I simply didn’t comprehend most of what you wrote.
Maybe it’s all this smog, so thick I can’t hardly see through it. It must be volcanoes causing it, right?
#48
Tell it to the Inuit. They live up there. They say there’s a problem with less ice.
I don’t live up there, so I can’t testify firsthand.
Do you? Live up there, I mean? You seem so sure of yourself! When is the last time you walked the Arctic ice?
I was reading at the doctor’s office an article in a Science magazine, about the the ESA putting a satellite in space (in April) to accurately measure the earth’s gravity. And determine a more correct “sea level” or zero altitude, over the globe. And NASA has a similar satellite program to map earth’s gravity over ten years (apparently it changes).
So all this maps and recalculating what is zero altitude, calls into question…. How can they say with any accuracy what thickeness sea ice is, was, or should be, based on the older, less accurate standard of “sea level” determination. That method can be off by 20 inches or more, I believe. So it doesn’t sound like we ought to get out the waders just yet, if their two foot decline in sea ice, is based on a measurement method from the early 20th century (level surveying from the coast, inland). And gravity is stronger at the poles, versus the equator. Causing the sea level there to be deeper, as it “holds onto” more water. That, and the slower circulation patterns and colder temps, is what causes sea ice to form. IF, sea ice is thinning. It could be the result of any number of factors. A change in water flows, solar activity, less atmospheric pollutants (blocking the sun) than existed decades ago (either man-made or from volcanic sources). Not just “it’s man’s fault”, so “let’s blame America”. Well what about the increased industrial production in China and Russia? They could be pumping warmer waste waters into the currents that effect the arctic.
But it seems that if America can’t be solely blamed, the international cabal of global climate crybabies don’t want to hear about it.
See it live and know that global ice stopped shrinking but instead is above normal levels.
cryosphere.com
#50, dano… you are right! It’s been photoshopped. Would any Gore believers like to explain that?
#53 RSweeney
What does one of those phony ‘this domain name is for sale’ alleged search engines have to do with anything except spam and infecting people’s Windows computers with spyware?
#51, no I haven’t been there, but the Catlin Ice Survey had an expedition earlier this year.
They were going to take important measurements of the ice on their way to the North Pole, with real time tracking on their web site. Turns out the live biometric data on the site was a fake, it was TOO COLD for them to finish their journey, and they had to be airlifted out, while leaving behind fuel drums and the like as litter.
The point only a fool would deny global warming is not quite true. Only an individual with no understanding of basic environmental science would deny global warming. All scientists agree with the physical model of global warming. External radiation is either reflected back into space, or enters the earths atmosphere. At this point some of the energy it either trapped or radiated back into space. The trapped radiation plays a part in warming the planet allowing the relatively stable climate, that allows the planet to support the multitude of life that we have. The argument is whether or not man has the ability to effect this equilibrium. The jury is still out, except to those with an agenda on both sides. If all the ice at the north pole were to melt there would be no major difference in sea levels due to the apparent addition of water. Simple third grade experiment place ice and water in a glass, mark the level of the water. Wait for the ice to melt, note any difference in water level. The reason ice floats is that as it reaches 4C the molecular lattice expands as the like charges repel each other. The density of water changes as it gets colder; water becomes more dense per unit volume as it cools. Don’t believe me jump into a lake during the summer warm water on top, now dive down even as little as five feet and notice the temperature change. Ice is less dense than the liquid water, IE it floats like oil on water. Not due to the principal of displacement (battle ship in a bathtub analogy). The salinity aspect changes are a significantly more troubling issue, as some climate models show a potential for fast and extreme cooling leading to severe cold weather for north America and Europe. This is not a change in the overall global climate on the short term, but more of an expanded aspect of a micro climate.
“The inability to respect the views of another in common discourse without resorting to name calling is the sign of ones own insecurity”
clancys_daddy
Our coastlines can not be saved by carbon credit cards with introductory low interest rates.
Al Gore sued by over 30.000 Scientists for fraud
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ
The “debate” may be over but the court case is not.
It is all about robbing the average Joe via legalized theft a.k.a. taxes.
I thought the sky was falling…