[igrowone]

Originally Posted by sso

its bit curious.

the poles have melted alot yeah?

but you, looking down at the harbor and some beaches i remember quite intimately as a kid.

the waterlevel is not higher.

not really noticably.

that is true, relatively anyways
the northern icecap could melt completely, and the change in ocean level?
basically nothing, the northern ice cap is already displacing its water volume
there is some debate how small a change it would be
now the Greenland glaciers and the Antarctic ice sheets, those would do some shit
they're up on dry land

[purple_man]

perhaps due to "transpiration?", or how many "BIG STORMS" the world had worldwide, before all the experiments? who knows... seems like we "mortals n plebs" are not supposed to be in the know :(

ps.: yeah, that ish with the polar bears is CRAZY! read an article about it lately, and it aint lookin good for them homez!

[DiscoBiscuit]

The sea wall in Manhattan was built 5' above high tide. That level has risen 13" in the last century. So now it's a 4' wall. South Pacific islanders have had to move inland or to different islands altogether.

That doesn't sound like much and man isn't expected to deliver the final blow. But we could trigger natural events we can't possibly mitigate. Our permafrost is melting along with the North Pole and massive amounts of methane gas are suspended beneath the tundra. When this tundra melts, significant amounts of methane will be released. Methane is a far more dangerous as warming gas than CO2.

[Hash Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by sso

its bit curious.

the poles have melted alot yeah?

but you, looking down at the harbor and some beaches i remember quite intimately as a kid.

the waterlevel is not higher.

not really noticably.

so either the polarcaps never contained that much ice, comparatively to the ocean.

or its freezing up somewhere else or the water going somewhere.

probably the first explanation.dunno

there were some thoughts of the melting ice stopping the great "elevator" of the seas, the stream that keeps it all going.

but that would cool where im at, down severly and its actually hotter than ever, seem to be going into a "hot period".

kinda cool how this opens up the world yeah.

well what happens is a lot of it gets caught up in the atmosphere and makes weather patterns more extreme, which I love because I like to ski and it brings crazy snow storms.

[igrowone]

Originally Posted by Hash Zeppelin

well what happens is a lot of it gets caught up in the atmosphere and makes weather patterns more extreme, which I love because I like to ski and it brings crazy snow storms.

i can tell you in upstate NY last year's winter was completely crazy, snow fall was off the hook

[supermanlives]

my south pole is getting bigger gotta go LOL

[stihgnobevoli]

i hate to be the one (unless someone else already mentioned it) but i wonder how much of this we contribute to? im pretty sure those multiKilowatt grow shows are adding to the rate of pollution at a much faster rate than if we could use the sun.

[igrowone]

the time has come for the final update, the arctic minimum has been announced
by the NSIDC reckoning, this was the 2nd lowest arctic ice extent in the satellite record
but a very close #2, and some other researcher centers place it at #1
and so i leave this summary from NSIDC, which states the mainstream scientific view

The last five years (2007 to 2011) have been the five lowest extents in the continuous satellite record, which extends back to 1979. While the record low year of 2007 was marked by a combination of weather conditions that favored ice loss (including clearer skies, favorable wind patterns, and warm temperatures), this year has shown more typical weather patterns but continued warmth over the Arctic. This supports the idea that the Arctic sea ice cover is continuing to thin. Models and remote sensing data also indicate this is the case. A large area of low concentration ice in the East Siberian Sea, visible in NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery, suggests that the ice cover this year is particularly thin and dispersed this year.

Record drought in texas and this....

TORONTO (AP) — Two ice shelves that existed before Canada was settled by Europeans diminished significantly this summer, one nearly disappearing altogether, Canadian scientists say in new research.

The loss is important as a marker of global warming, returning the Canadian Arctic to conditions that date back thousands of years, scientists say. Floating icebergs that have broken free as a result pose a risk to offshore oil facilities and potentially to shipping lanes. The breaking apart of the ice shelves also reduces the environment that supports microbial life and changes the look of Canada's coastline.

Luke Copland is an associate professor in the geography department at the University of Ottawa who co-authored the research. He said the Serson Ice Shelf shrank from 79.15 square miles (205 square kilometers) to two remnant sections three years ago, and was further diminished this past summer.

Copland said the shelf went from a 16-square-mile (42-square-kilometer) floating glacier tongue to 9.65 square miles (25 square kilometers), and the second section from 13.51 square miles (35 square kilometers) to 2 square miles (7 square kilometers), off Ellesmere Island's northern coastline.

This past summer, Ward Hunt Ice Shelf's central area disintegrated into drifting ice masses, leaving two separate ice shelves measuring 87.65 and 28.75 square miles (227 and 74 square kilometers) respectively, reduced from 131.7 square miles (340 square kilometers) the previous year.

"It has dramatically broken apart in two separate areas and there's nothing in between now but water," said Copland.

Copland said those two losses are significant, especially since the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has always been the biggest, the farthest north and the one scientists thought might have been the most stable.

"Recent (ice shelf) loss has been very rapid, and goes hand-in-hand with the rapid sea ice decline we have seen in this decade and the increasing warmth and extensive melt in the Arctic regions," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, remarking on the research.

Copland, who uses satellite imagery and who has conducted field work in the Arctic every May for the past five years, said since the end of July, pieces equaling one and a half times the size of Manhattan Island have broken off. Co-researcher Derek Mueller, an assistant professor at Carleton University's geography and environmental studies department, said the loss this past summer equals up to three billion tons. Copland said their findings have not yet been peer reviewed since the research is new, but a number of scientists contacted by The Associated Press reviewed the findings, agreeing the loss in volume of ice shelves is significant.

Scambos said the loss of the Arctic shelves is significant because they are old and their rapid loss underscores the severity of the warming trend scientists see now relative to past fluctuations such as the Medieval Warm Period or the warmer times in the pre-Current Era (B.C.).

Ice shelves, which began forming at least 4,500 years ago, are much thicker than sea ice, which is typically less than a few feet (meters) thick and survives up to several years.

Canada has the most extensive ice shelves in the Arctic along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island. These floating ice masses are typically 131 feet (40 meters) thick (equivalent to a 10-story building), but can be as much as 328 feet (100 meters) thick. They thickened over time via snow and sea ice accumulation, along with glacier inflow in certain places.

The northern coast of Ellesmere Island contains the last remaining ice shelves in Canada, with an estimated area of 217 square miles (563 square kilometers), Mueller said.

Between 1906 and 1982, there has been a 90 percent reduction in the areal extent of ice shelves along the entire coastline, according to data published by W.F. Vincent at Quebec's Laval University. The former extensive "Ellesmere Island Ice Sheet" was reduced to six smaller, separate ice shelves: Serson, Petersen, Milne, Ayles, Ward Hunt and Markham. In 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf whittled almost completely away, as did the Markham Ice Shelf in 2008 and the Serson this year.

"The impact is significant and yet only a piece of the ongoing and accelerating response to warming of the Arctic," said Dr. Robert Bindschadler, emeritus scientist at the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Bindschadler said the loss is an indication of another threshold being passed, as well as the likely acceleration of buttressed glaciers able to flow faster into the ocean, which accelerates their contribution to global sea level.

Copland said mean winter temperatures have risen by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade for the past five to six decades on northern Ellesmere Island.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects in paragraph 3 that Serson Ice Shelf shrank to two remant sections three years ago, not five years ago; and in paragraph 13 the size of the last remaining ice shelves in Canada. Minor style edits, For global distribution.)

[igrowone]

there are events that just kind of beg to be noted, even if it's not popular with all
a new record low ice extent at the arctic sea, pics say a lot, it's not your daddy's climate any more
2-3 weeks more melting for the season, it could get extreme