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Alister Doyle / Reuters file
Climate change is turning Antarctica's ice into one of the biggest risks for coming centuries, scientists say.
West Antarctica is warming almost twice as fast as previously believed, adding to worries of a thaw that would add to sea level rise from San Francisco to Shanghai, a study showed on Sunday.
Annual average temperatures at the Byrd research station in West Antarctica had risen 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 Farenheit) since the 1950s, one of the fastest gains on the planet and three times the global average in a changing climate, it said.
The unexpectedly big increase adds to fears the ice sheet is vulnerable to thawing. West Antarctica holds enough ice to raise world sea levels by at least 3.3 meters (11 feet) if it ever all melted, a process that would take centuries.
"The western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought," Ohio State University said in a statement of the study led by its geography professor David Bromwich.
The warming "raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise," it said. Higher summer temperatures raised risks of a surface melt of ice and snow even though most of Antarctica is in a year-round deep freeze.
Low-lying nations from Bangladesh to Tuvalu are especially vulnerable to sea level rise, as are coastal cities from London to Buenos Aires. Sea levels have risen by about 20 centimeters (8 inches) in the past century.
The United Nations panel of climate experts projects that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century, and by more if a thaw of Greenland and Antarctica accelerates, due to global warming caused by human activities.
The rise in temperatures in the remote region was comparable to that on the Antarctic Peninsula to the north, which snakes up towards South America, according to the U.S.-based experts writing in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Parts of the northern hemisphere have also warmed at similarly fast rates.
Annual bird counts give scientists climate clues
Several ice shelves - thick ice floating on the ocean and linked to land - have collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in recent years. Once ice shelves break up, glaciers pent up behind them can slide faster into the sea, raising water levels.
"The stakes would be much higher if a similar event occurred to an ice shelf restraining one of the enormous West Antarctic ice sheet glaciers," said Andrew Monaghan, a co-author at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.
The Pine Island glacier off West Antarctica, for instance, brings as much water to the ocean as the Rhine river in Europe.
The scientists said there had been one instance of a widespread surface melt of West Antarctica, in 2005. "A continued rise in summer temperatures could lead to more frequent and extensive episodes of surface melting," they wrote.
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West Antarctica now contributes about 0.3 mm a year to sea level rise, less than Greenland's 0.7 mm, Ohio State University said. The bigger East Antarctic ice sheet is less vulnerable to a thaw.
Helped by computer simulations, the scientists reconstructed a record of temperatures stretching back to 1958 at Byrd, where about a third of the measurements were missing, sometimes because of power failures in the long Antarctic winters.
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Maybe the global climate is going in cycles &it's now in the warm cycle? Then, shame on you ribs (libs?)!
Maybe there is global warming? Then, shame on you RWNJs.
Or, maybe, it's mating season for penguins? Too HOT and heavy??
.
Either way, mERRY CLIFF-Mess, courtesy of Speaker Boner the Penguin.
Fortunately, the Party of No, which reviles science but loves guns, will refute this until they are purple with apoplectic ignorance.
Oh, to have our very own American Taliban with the Reichwing.
according to the Milankovitch Cycles we should now be in a time of cooling, not warming. If liberals claimed the sky was blue, conservatives wingnuts would say it was green.
The way I see it Obama is holding our nation hostage to a small ideal of taxing success. Boehner cannot solve this crisis. ONLY Obama can now! My bet is that he has no intention of averting the "cliff" and hopes to use the suffering of Americans to further his political agenda and get Congress swapped to a Dem majority in 2014.
Until then enjoy the fruits of an Obama election in the form of high taxes, high unemployment and one fiscal emergency after another as America continues its accelerating decline into bankruptcy.
since the midwest is gripped in the first winter storm since the 1920's and even the westcoast is poised to have a white christmas in san diego...instead now lets focus on Antarctica since the US is too cold to mention..
perhaps global warming is due to the hot air emitting from liberal spin. short term memories from lib's the president can only do (1) big project, then he gets distracted..
so which do you want :
1) gun control
2) global warming
3) immigration reform
4) JOBS
5) you can forget a balanced budget, this has been going on 5 yrs and still no progress..
6) maybe a tax increase for all , so the government can spend without limits, because it would be stupid to try and operate within its means..I wish I could spend recklessly and still have a place to live !
oh dont start puffing your chest that its all the Republicans fault about the BALANCED budget since the WH and dems had a super majority for the first 2yrs and could have passed anything they wanted and wasted it on Obamacare ! THANKS !!
Obama believed ObamaCare would do the greatest amount of damage to America so from the perspective of someone who wants America to fail all of his actions make a lot of sense.
"... add to sea level rise from San Francisco to Shanghai ..."
That's good. We don't want any more water in the Atlantic.
Milankovitch died in 1958 so his theories of global warming are quite outdated. He didn't live long enough to see the ever increasing emissions pouring into the atmoshere.
The warmest have no clue either.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/12/warmist-trenberth-directly-contradicts.html
Of course this is another sign of the Mayan calendar prophecy with the world ending 12/21 ...
never mind ;)
It"s about damn time, I have been waiting forever for that damn snow and ice to melt.
Maybe we will now have enough water to pump into world's deserts, thus reducing world's temperature by increased cloud cover and reflected sunlight. Let's flood half of Sahara and see this region spring back to life and productivity.
Uh, what are you going to grow with salt water?
It's easy to offer solutions when you don't understand the problem.
Gumps - here it is in a nutshell for you: salt water evaporates from flooded desert leading to significantly more rainfall in the area. More evaporation = more rain. This process works all over the world.
Max, here's a direct quote from you:
Yes, flood a wide area with salt water and let it evaporate. The result is a large region covered in salt. Kinda hard to make land covered in salt productive. Look at the Salton Sea, or the Dead Sea (the name should suggest something to you); both places are drying up leaving a vast wasteland.
No, it is not about making productive the land covered with salt. It is about making productive the surrounding area thanks to increased rainfall from salt water evaporation. The flooded land was unproductive before. Increased evaporation always leads to more rainfall. That is just simple physics. So by increasing the water surface area you are increasing evaporation. Dead Sea used to be much larger and generate more rainfall in the area but ever increasing water demand on fresh water feeding this sea (population growth in Israel) has led to dramatic drop in surface area and increased desertification of the surrounding area (groundwater levels dramatically dropped as well).
Maybe - the heat of debates from DC over fiscal CLIFF has reached this area? There has been heightened heat of debates recently.
Then we know - The GOP has been solely responsible for all the HEAT in political impasse in DC since the inauguration of Pres. Obama in January 2009.
What heat. Obama is enjoying a $4,000,000 vacation funded in part by you and Congress has given up.
Fact is we ARE going over the cliff and this would not have happened had Romney won the elections, so it seems pretty obvious there IS ONE person who has had the ability to avert the "cliff" this whole time but has chosen to hold all Americans hostage to his ideal of a socialist America where ALL Americans suffer equally and there is only poverty and hardship like other socialist nations around the world and throughout history.
I doubt Greece is in our future. We look a lot more like East Berlin.
You know, guys, when the reichwing fringe is known and accepted to be the crazy lunatic minority within our great nation they really won't have to worry so much because we liberals will just suffer their ignorance and keep on about our lives. I doubt that they would be so kind if they became the ruling majority.
It's only a matter of time before we have a civil war.
Gosh, if it heats up any more, then it'll start evaporating faster, and the oceans'll shrink, and more rain will fall in Paramus, NJ, and more snow'll fall - and we'll be right back where we started!
When flood water submerges all RepubliCONs, they are still arguing there is no such a thing as global warming. Their last word is 'NO,' so fitting for the party of 'NO'.
The last words of Democrats are 'told you so....'
Sadly...too late in both cases.
I only hear Obama saying NO... In fact all I hear is NO from Obama. Congress authorized ALL Americans an extension of the Bush tax cuts and instead here we are with Obama wasting another $4,000,000 of our money on his Hawaii vacation.
I hope the coming budget cuts eliminate funding for Air-force One so he can no longer steal from America!
Bush Spent 5 Times More On Flights To Texas Than Obama‘s Christmas Vacation Costs
http://www.politicususa.com/cost-obama-christmas-vacation-bush.html
You know... I get criticized for my "lack of hard science" to promote my facts..... So according to the article they are basing current warming trends on computer simulations (with long black out periods) and using that to predict a certainty.. If I turned in a paper with a third of the info missing... I would get an "F".
Oh yea... no biased "fuzzy" science here... nope just hard facts... (Sheesh)
Core samples going beyond the ice and deep into the Earth in the Antarctic clearly show a climate history and an acceleration that is not a part of a normal cycle. As the warming trends continue and the ocean warms (salinity and density impact temperatures), it throws off what would be considered "normal" weather patterns. The models do give a good picture with the data that's collected. Unfortunately, it's a snowball effect. The more the ice melts, the more trapped gases are also released, further speeding up the process.
Comparing all of Bushes flights over 8 years to one Obama vacation? Do you liberals really think that stupidly?
Guess you didn't read the part where the Bush numbers were just for flying himself on Airforce 1 and didn't include any numbers for staff, etc. etc. (something that IS included in Obama's vacation) It's just an idiotic reichwing ploy to be criticising Obama for his Christmas vacation. Do you reichwingers really think that stupid? Obviously so.
True. If the permafrost is allowed to thaw the decomposition of accumulated organic matter which is only being held in check by being frozen would release millions of tons of additional CO2 as well as the much more potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. I had listened to a NPR radio show with Will Steger and I even called in and asked him a question about the heat waves that occured in Euroupe and Russia in 2008 and he said that the warming is much more pronounced in the Arctic and Antarctic regions during the summer months and he agreed that heat waves and droughts in the temperate areas are very likely to be influenced by an ever increasing CO2 levels and he said that permafrost thawing especially in the large areas of the Canadian and Siberian regions at or above the Arctic circle will release huge amounts of methane and CO2 into the atmosphere. This he said this will have pronounced effect and could lead to more and more warming and subsequent ice melt that could increase ocean levels and reduce summer floating sea ice and will most likely have devastating effects to coastal areas. He even thanked me for the question too. I am a medical professional but before I decided to pursue that I was originally interested in teaching science and I have taken many courses in Biology and Earth science and I really value the work being done by scientists. We need to listen to the scientists more and the politicians less.
Gusto Guy: One of Will Steger's lifetime goals (early on) was to paddle the NW passaage in a kayak. Has the ice melted enough yet?
Howard. I don't know about the NW passage but a ship sailed from Korea to Murmansk throough the NE passage a few years ago. The NW passage has a lot of islands that hinder seagoing vessels. Just look at a map some time.
Gustoguy - I'm glad to see some more science on the thread. Unfortunately, nature's natural means of absorbing CO2 is reaching peak saturation levels. A sponge can only soak up so much and we're nearing another type of tipping point.
Howard, the Northwest passage is actually open (summer months), with shipping companies ready to take advantage. Although I don't think I'd want to take a kayak through it. I'm not that adventurous.
Well, sh.it...
SwellSurfer,
Best post of the day!
Antarctic ice has been having a net increase for years. Even for NBC this is a stupid story. Do your own research. Monthly trends are not important.
Now there is some truth finally.
Wrong again. Antarctic ice extent has been increasing in parts of the Antarctic, but total volume has been dropping for many years based on satellite gravitational measurements.
Wow, talk about not doing your research. Try science next time. It works.
Fubarak... Have you seen photos from space over the years which definitely show how the ice sheets in Antarctica and the glaciers worldwide are shrinkiing?
The denier's degree of ignorance staggers the mind.
water wings anybody?
Not true at all, Fubarak. If you want to speak intelligently on the subject I invite you to read the skeptical science link on the issue.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm
Or if you prefer to keep spewing denial BS you may do so, but only at the cost of appearing ignorant. Your choice, dude.
ok.... ice thinning or thickening.... you can't have both.... wait a sec you can... and here is the proof that the article "info" is definitely suspect:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1806-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-is-thickening.html
Now IF you believe JPL... with a record of bout oh.... 90+ % accuracy in metrology (science of measuring) I'm not a Mathematician but IF that ice gain is true then we are far from the ice loss they say. AND the articles figures are a little "off" on the the purported "sea rise" they said:
But the "experts" who even support the idea of global warming say:
http://www.livescience.com/21677-antarctica-facts.html
So forgive my Creationist, Christianity, Bible believing brainwashed self..... your facts.. are lacking facts.
I have plans for an ark if anyone is interested, I'll put them on ebay.
I am 99% sure we are one day closer to both an ice age and or a warming trend. Now that is real science.
Flamerdude,
You have to separate sea ice from land mass ice to get a comprehensive picture of this. OK, so maybe the sea ice has been growing. Most if not all of it melts every summer down in Antarctica anyway. Means nothing. Land mass ice is a different critter.
Nice little example of "creationist" logic you showed us. Thanks. I'll stick with the scientists on this one.
Ah--computer simulations. Based on those, we should all mount our homes on pontoons and await the flood. If we don't stop all those cow farts from reaching the atmosphere, we're doomed I tell you!!!
But it can't be "global warming"... The land masses are going to get smaller over the next 50 years....or sooner
Enough with the global warming propaganda - all this is doing is getting a very few people rich at the expense of ALOT of others.....
Especially moving companies as people with ocean front properties are forced inland.
And who told you that? Limbaugh? This BS about global warming scientists being in on some "Al Gore" scam is just total crap. Incredible that people bring it down to that level. Ask a Russian scientist studying the fast melting tundra if he plans to get rich off his studies. Ask him if he knows Al Gore. You deniers are really nuts, you know.
And as it continues, a lot of people are going to get wet too.
All this talk about warming, and yet Canada just had 2 feet of snow. They could use some warming.
Weather is NOT climate. Did you think global warming means no more rain or snow anywhere ever?
Never mind. Go gas up your SUV. Ignorant and proud of it, aren't you?
And 2 feet of snow this time of year is pretty typical, nothing out of the norm.
Canada is not the globe, just a small region of the globe.
Snow is precipitation not temperature. Warmer air holds more moisture and leaves more snow. When it melts and Minot ND gets destroyed again along with other cities on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers you will probably say there is no drought in the Midwest.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Screamed the scientists that want more money and a bigger paycheck.
Bullcrap.
i'm sure the oil companies making BILLIONS in PROFIT each quarter are quite pleased with your post. Nice job
Is GHX for real? This is an article about global warming not Obama. What a dufus.
What...Russia is 50 below, Alaska, 40 below....that has got to be making ice somewhere. Oh...that is at the north pole. At the south pole it's summer. Ice is melting. Is that the scary news?
Not that I'm going to provide it, but since global warming and political party seem to be so intertwined in the comment section, it would be interesting to see how political party voting, and water level rise flooding correspond. For instance a six inch rise in ocean waters would correspond to so may voters of a particular party displaced in a state such as Florida, New York, or California. Of these displaced, a certain percentage would be Democrats, a certain percentage would be Republicans, a certain percentage would be Independents if an election would be held today. You don't have to ponder Bangladesh, as they are not registered to vote in the US.
What was the temperature in the region during the "Little Ice Age" which ended in 1850, and during which there was an average 10 degree drop in temperatures in the northern hemisphere, resulting in a rapid decline in ocean levels, and an increase in the glaciers? If not for this little Ice Age, the Vikings would have been the first to establish major colonies in North America. The Little Ice Age destroyed the colonies that had established in Iceland and norther eastern Canada.
I wonder if the global warming alarmists practice what they spew? Do you have a dedicated windmill to power your home? If it's no, you're a fraud. Do you drive an electric car and charge the battery from your windmill? If it's no, you're a fraud. Do you refuse to use mass transit that is powered by ff? if it's no, you're a fraud. Do you refuse to work for an employer who uses electricity powered by ff? If it's no, again, you're a fraud.
Ridiculous.
No.
A person doesn't have to "Zero out" the carbon emissions to be responsible. I do drive a car, but I only drive it 10-15 miles a week. I walk a lot, I live near where I work, and I do use public transportation from time to time. I keep my thermostat set at a reasonable temp, turn off lights (those 'funny looking bulbs'), etc. when not in use, and am just mindful of what I use and if it is really necessary.
The 'either/or,' black/white, "with us or against us" mentality never contributes much to a real discussion.
Also see "current national gun control debate."
The way I see it is that once Liberals tied global warming to tax increases all was lost. Once the answer to global warming becomes something other than a need to increase taxes then perhaps we can take a closer look but right now it just looks like another liberal nightmare.
Maybe, but that's because you're seeing it through an empty head. There isn't enough brainpower there to process what you see.
That's why nobody takes you seriously. Don't worry about it.
When it comes to climate change, I don't listen to the liberals or the conservatives. I listen to the scientists.
Typical right wing nonsense, I'll bet you're anti Christmas also.
Hate to break it to you guys, but the Mayan solstice thing was real. All it meant was that an old world was dying and a new world being born. We're just in the middle of the changes and haven't noticed it right in front of our face yet. But it is happening all around in little increments (for the reichwingers amongst us that means little by little). Species are migrating all over the planet, both plant and animal, climates are becoming uncertain, food production is being effected, etc. etc. And yes, the ice caps and glaciers are melting.........much faster than predicted. You guys still get up, drive to work, cuss the traffic jams, put your time in, drive home to drink your beer and play with the wife or the computer and just don't catch all the little signs of what is taking place. And then get angry or abusive if someone tries to tell you things are changing all because certain people with vested interests in avoiding anti-pollution controls on their industries have been paying high dollar demagogues to tell you that global warming is a scam. And you deniers are dumb enough to fall for it. It's gonna end up biting your asses.
Well Plotinus, if he Mayan's were right then why do you think we can stop it. I can tell you one thing for sure though. We are one day closer to the end of the world. How is that for a prediction? We are also one day closer to either global cooling or global warming. I'll stake my life on that. Everything else is nonsense.
Have you ever considered that we might be making the changes much worse? Maybe making them speed up so fast that we actually see mass starvations and wars knocking on our doors? I'll tell you what nonsense is. It's denying that global warming is taking place. Especially if the denial is politically motivated.
There's no denying that the denial is politically motivated.
I have plans for an ark if anyone is interested, I'll put them on ebay. Does anybody know how long a cubit is? I can't seam to find a tape measure at Home Depot that measures in cubits.
Remember to take two of everything, except those asexual things like amoebas, hydras, and Richard Simmons.
Ya, I'm having a little trouble with Customs though and my HOA has pretty strict rules. I'm not sure if it says anything about elephants----I'll have to check.
white reflects heat ,less ice ,more heat absorbed .
Exactly, and that is what has been happening since the last ice age. At one time, ice was all the way down to IL.
Too much ice, and you can't taste the whiskey.
Whats the temps on the East Antarctic? Not to mention this winter in Europe that you all ignore.. -50 in Russia.
There's two data points......continue....
A little temperature data the article ignored.
What the first paragraph is talking about is WINTER. In WINTER, coastal areas may get above freezing. It doesn't even mention what happens in summer.
And by the way, Vostok (other than being on the same continent) is no where near the W. Antarctic Ice Sheet this article is talking about
..a little data in your lying post
Don't you see, they have to come up with this crap to get their government funding and what people don't understand, is that we are the government and that funding comes from us. If their computer models don't meet what they are suppose to, they just tweek them a little. No problem, just keep the money coming. What a scam!
Yeah, OK. So the antarctic ice pack is growing. Most if not all will be melted by summer. Big deal. Makes for some good denial reporting though, doesn't it?
Rayndie,
You guys think in such small boxes. As if the only people researching this are here in the US. It's called "global" warming for a reason. It's not only happening around the globe, it's also being studied around the globe. This whole crap about these scientists studying global warming for some kind of monetary scam was started by Limbaugh and Koch bros. funding. But that story they are creating rings chimes for people with Rand mindsets. Gets their jollies going.
You guys don't even have a box.
Don't need one.
"global warming caused by human activities"
How much global warming is there in the rocket exhaust of only one space shot???
My guess: The military and the space program create more heat in the atmosphere that all of the cars in the U.S. all year long...
"All that stratospheric damage may increase rates of skin cancer and cataracts, but what effect might rockets have on global climate change? The exhaust from space-ship engines does add several kilotons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. But that's just a smidgen compared with the several hundred kilotons produced by aircraft, as Ross and his co-authors point out. Aircraft, in turn, are responsible for just 2 percent to 5 percent of the world's CO2 emissions. Even with major growth in the space industry, the authors say, it's unlikely that rockets will become a significant issue vis-à-vis climate change."
I think I was wrong...
We really have to do something about all the hot air coming from D.C.
"West Antarctica holds enough ice to raise world sea levels by at least 3.3 meters (11 feet) if it ever all melted, a process that would take centuries. "
We should be good.