Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 6:13 pm Post subject: Re: Record Ice Loss in Arctic 2008
Thanks, Tanada, but your link isn't working.
Tale of the tape, the most up to date, day-to-day record of what is happening in the Arctic I have found, is now really falling off a cliff. This may be the big melt-off event we have been anticipating/dreading this year. The next few days will tell.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3920 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:47 pm Post subject: Re: Record Ice Loss in Arctic 2008
dohboi wrote:
Thanks, Tanada, but your link isn't working.
Tale of the tape, the most up to date, day-to-day record of what is happening in the Arctic I have found, is now really falling off a cliff. This may be the big melt-off event we have been anticipating/dreading this year. The next few days will tell.
I edited it to fix, you should be able to get it HERE too.
Basically its a color map of sea surface temps. _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject: Re: Record Ice Loss in Arctic 2008
Thanks again. I notice that the color code doesn't go beyond +5 degrees. Does that mean that the super hot spot in the middle of the Beaufort Sea could be even hotter?
If anyone finds any new about the effect all this newly heated ocean water is having on the underlying clatharates, I'd be very interested...on the other hand, maybe I don't want to know.
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 6:01 am Post subject: Re: Record Ice Loss in Arctic 2008
Quote:
Ice at the North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, with leading scientists warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer by 2013.
Satellite images show that ice caps started to disintegrate dramatically several days ago as storms over Alaska's Beaufort Sea began sucking streams of warm air into the Arctic.
As a result, scientists say that the disappearance of sea ice at the North Pole could exceed last year's record loss. More than a million square kilometres melted over the summer of 2007 as global warming tightened its grip on the Arctic. But such destruction could now be matched, or even topped, this year.
'It is a neck-and-neck race between 2007 and this year over the issue of ice loss,' said Mark Serreze, of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado. 'We thought Arctic ice cover might recover after last year's unprecedented melting - and indeed the picture didn't look too bad last month. Cover was significantly below normal, but at least it was up on last year.
'But the Beaufort Sea storms triggered steep ice losses and it now looks as if it will be a very close call indeed whether 2007 or 2008 is the worst year on record for ice cover over the Arctic. We will only find out when the cover reaches its minimum in mid-September.'
This startling loss of Arctic sea ice has major meteorological, environmental and ecological implications. The region acts like a giant refrigerator that has a strong effect on the northern hemisphere's meteorology. Without its cooling influence, weather patterns will be badly disrupted, including storms set to sweep over Britain.
At the same time, creatures such as polar bears and seals - which use sea ice for hunting and resting - face major threats. Similarly, coastlines will no longer be insulated by ice from wave damage and will suffer erosion, as is already happening in Alaska.
Other environmental changes are likely to follow. Without sea ice to bolster them, land ice - including glaciers - could topple into the ocean and raise global sea levels, threatening many low-lying areas, including Bangladesh and scores of Pacific islands. In addition, the disappearance of reflective ice over the Arctic means that solar radiation would no longer be bounced back into space, thus heating the planet even further.
On top of these issues, there are fears that water released by the melting caps will disrupt the Gulf Stream, while an ice-free Arctic in summer offers new opportunities for oil and gas drilling there - and for political disputes over territorial rights.
What really unsettles scientists, however, is their inability to forecast precisely what is happening in the Arctic, the part of the world most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. 'When we did the first climate change computer models, we thought the Arctic's summer ice cover would last until around 2070,' said Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University. 'It is now clear we did not understand how thin the ice cap had already become - for Arctic ice cover has since been disappearing at ever increasing rates. Every few years we have to revise our estimates downwards. Now the most detailed computer models suggest the Arctic's summer ice is going to last for only a few more years - and given what we have seen happen last week, I think they are probably correct.'
The most important of these computer studies of ice cover was carried out a few months ago by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Using US navy supercomputers, his team produced a forecast which indicated that by 2013 there will be no ice in the Arctic - other than a few outcrops on islands near Greenland and Canada - between mid-July and mid-September.
'It does not really matter whether 2007 or 2008 is the worst year on record for Arctic ice,' Maslowski said. 'The crucial point is that ice is clearly not building up enough over winter to restore cover and that when you combine current estimates of ice thickness with the extent of the ice cap, you get a very clear indication that the Arctic is going to be ice-free in summer in five years. And when that happens, there will be consequences.'
This point was backed by Serreze. 'The trouble is that sea ice is now disappearing from the Arctic faster than our ability to develop new computer models and to understand what is happening there. We always knew it would be the first region on Earth to feel the impact of climate change, but not at anything like this speed. What is happening now indicates that global warming is occurring far earlier than any of us expected.'
Thought this is the most cringeworthy science reporting.
Quote:
Other environmental changes are likely to follow. Without sea ice to bolster them, land ice - including glaciers - could topple into the ocean and raise global sea levels, threatening many low-lying areas, including Bangladesh and scores of Pacific islands. In addition, the disappearance of reflective ice over the Arctic means that solar radiation would no longer be bounced back into space, thus heating the planet even further.
A new United States study says Canada should brace for an invasion of Pacific Ocean species along its Arctic and Atlantic coasts as warmer waters and ice-free conditions continue to transform the polar region and reopen a migration route for sea creatures that has been closed for more than three million years.
Just as last year's record melt along the Northwest Passage stoked renewed interest in trans-Arctic shipping, marine animals in the North Pacific are likely to begin moving into and across the unlocked Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic, say University of California marine ecologist Geerat Vermeij and California Academy of Sciences paleontologist Peter Roopnarine in an article to be published today in the magazine Science.
The study, titled The Coming Arctic Invasion, says that, along with the "poleward expansion" of some southern species -- highlighted recently in Canada by reports of grizzly bears encroaching on polar bear habitat -- "an even more dramatic inter-oceanic invasion will ensue in the Arctic: North Pacific lineages will resume spreading through the Bering Strait into a warmer Arctic Ocean and eventually into the temperate North Atlantic."
The researchers say a similar trans-Arctic migration occurred about 3.5 million years ago, when a warm period created favourable feeding conditions for hundreds of different marine creatures that moved eastward from the Bering Sea to colonize the Arctic and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.
The proof, the authors state, is found in fossil records of various Pacific mollusk species in Greenland. However, that window of warmth soon closed and "sea-ice expansion in the coastal Arctic Ocean ended trans-Arctic dispersals."
This really helpful for anticipating future changes. Looks like the Siberian side is going to get it this week with a big loss in ice thickness and warm temperatures.
Just to be Pedantic the Siberian passage is the North East passage, Canada is the North West.
Has anyone got a link to a recent ice age image? I am very curious how the fist year ice has held up so far, I frankly admit there is a lot more of it left than I had expected in March. _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3920 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 5:54 am Post subject: Re: Record Ice Loss in Arctic 2008
Perhaps I was wrong according to NSIDC the melt for August is breaking records for the speed at which it is taking place.
Quote:
The pace of sea ice loss sharply quickened in the past ten days, triggered by a series of strong storms that broke up thin ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Amundsen's historic Northwest Passage is opening up; the wider and deeper route through Parry Channel is currently still clogged with ice.
_________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Joined: Aug 13, 2004 Posts: 1185 Location: Richmond, VA, Pale Blue Dot
Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:47 pm Post subject: Re: Record Ice Loss in Arctic 2008
Tanada wrote:
I frankly admit there is a lot more of it left than I had expected in March.
Same. At this point it's up the weather conditions as to whether we break last year's record. We're closer to the record than the norm so a hot one next year that breaks the record is in the cards. There's a lot of thin ice. The Arctic must have had a cool, cloudy summer. Any other ideas as to why? Not that I'm complaining of course. _________________ "If you are a real seeker after truth, it's necessary that at least once in your life you doubt all things as far as possible"-Rene Descartes
"When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth"-Sherlock Holmes
This year, we had to cope with exceptional heavy ice coverage", says chief scientist Prof. Gerhard Kattner. The sea ice covered the Arctic almost down to latitude 72° in southern direction. Perpetual winds from the Northwest have moved the ice into the central area of the Fram Strait since the beginning of summer. The main focus of the expedition lied in this region: the moorings along 78°50' N, and the so-called "AWI-Hausgarten".
Quote:
Return of Pacific waters near Greenland? The polar water near Greenland, which flows south along the Greenland coast into the Atlantic, consists of water masses of various origins. A part of it originates in the Pacific, which covers the long distance from the Bering Strait through the Arctic Ocean. "We have been documenting this water mass for years near Greenland", says Prof. Gerhard Kattner. "It was almost impossible to provide evidence of it since 2004." This points at a considerable change of the Arctic ocean current system. Current examinations again show a small part of Pacific water. Measurements in the next years will show if this trend is to continue.
Last edited by dorlomin on Thu Aug 14, 2008 4:29 pm; edited 2 times in total
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3920 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject: Re: Record Ice Loss in Arctic 2008
turmoil wrote:
Tanada wrote:
I frankly admit there is a lot more of it left than I had expected in March.
Same. At this point it's up the weather conditions as to whether we break last year's record. We're closer to the record than the norm so a hot one next year that breaks the record is in the cards. There's a lot of thin ice. The Arctic must have had a cool, cloudy summer. Any other ideas as to why? Not that I'm complaining of course.
IMO when all is said and done for this years melt season and the effect is studied it will turn out that spring was cloudier coupled with the fact that the warm zone in the seas around the arctic basin was in the north west this year while the majority of the first year ice was in the north east area. This buffered the seasonal effect as it had to melt its way through the 2-6 year old ice in the Beaufort Sea which was pushed there by currents over the winter before it worked its way to the one year ice in the Arctic Basin.
Now that the Beaufort is basically ice free the warm sunlit waters and waves are directly working on the southern edge of the one year ice filling that portion of the Arctic basin proper and are doing yeoman's work at meting it rapidly, coupled with a change in weather pattern drawing warm air into that exact quadrant of the Arctic.
At the same time though the cold air mass remains on the North East side of the basin over Siberia the ice there has been thinning gradually for months and is almost entirely one year thin ice to start with. Now that melting has accellerated in the East Siberian and Laptev seas this fragile thinned first year ice is undergoing its own rapid melting. While the Siberian air mass is colder than the one over the Canadian Archepeligo/Beaufort Sea area it is also pretty clear allowing sunlight unimpeded access to the open waters which have already formed in the North East Arctic. Acording to NSIDC at this stage of the melt season sunlight is the key factor because while sun angle is decreasing every day any open water is absorbing almost all of the sunlight which actually strikes it.
Therefore if the sky is cloudless the open water effect is a lot greater even if the temperature is lower, so long as the temperature is above freezing.
It is a race now between the open water, the sun, and about September 21 when the Geographic North Pole goes into six months of night. The next few weeks should be.....interesting. _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
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