Have you looked at the North Pole lately?

[Genghis Kush]

Climate change can alter the impact of forest pathogens in trees

https://phys.org/news/2017-05-climate-impact-forest-pathogens-trees.html


New research on projected climate changes from the University of Helsinki indicates that climate change has alarming potential to increase the damage caused to Norway spruce trees by a naturally circulating disease spreading fungus.

"This study shows the potential for future climate changes to alter the impact of forest pathogens, and the need to incorporate disease effects into future forestry planning as of now. As this is one of the first experimental tests of projected climate changes on a forestry host-pathogen system, there is an urgent need for further research on this topic," says Dr. Riikka Linnakoski from the department of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry.
While much research has addressed the effects of projected climate changes on tree species distributions and their productivity, the potential impacts of pests and pathogens have received far less attention. However, these represent some of the most important threats to global forest health, particularly in regions where climate change is expected to be most severe, such as northern Europe. To mitigate the impacts of climate change, understanding the factors that trigger the development of forest tree disease epidemics and host susceptibility is essential.
The group of researchers evaluated the effects of projected climate changes on Norway spruce seedlings experimentally infected with a forest pathogen capable of killing mature trees. In nature, a spruce bark beetle carries and transmits the disease to the trees. The researchers manipulated both temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels based on projections for Finland between 2030 and 2100, and compared disease outcomes in seedlings against current ambient conditions.
The researchers found that future climate changes have the potential to increase disease severity in fungal infected trees, with the most distant projections likely to be the most detrimental to tree health. However, an interesting result was that the effects of climate change on disease severity can vary markedly among fungal strains, i.e., genetic variations of the same fungal species.
Explore further: Changing climate could have devastating impact on forest carbon storage


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-climate-impact-forest-pathogens-trees.html#jCp

 

[Genghis Kush]

https://qz.com/994814/laughing-gas-is-seeping-out-of-the-arctic-thanks-to-climate-change/

Laughing gas is seeping out of the Arctic thanks to climate change


Nitrous oxide, known to most as laughing gas, occurs naturally in peatland permafrost, a type of frozen ground that covers about a quarter of the Arctic. In addition to causing goofy non sequiturs to pour out of dental surgery patients, nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas with 300 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. And as climate change continues to bake the Arctic at ever-higher temperatures, that nitrous oxide (N2O) may start seeping out of the peatland permafrost.

 

[trichrider]

!

 

[DocTim420]

...air pollution is great!!!!

There is that stupid childish lame binary argument again. If you question my conclusions then you are "evil"...if you agree with my conclusions then you are "good".

Those that hold a contrarian point regarding "climate change" and push for an immediate 2 degree Celsius decrease in temperature (at any cost) love and prefer dirty water over clean water...and desire air containing particles that you can see. Life is not binary, black or white, your way or the highway.

BTW fuckhead GK, thanks for the negative rep! What's that now? A dozen or so you blessed me these past few months?

Hmmm, I wonder if I will be as childish as you are and return the favor when I "grow up"?

 

[Genghis Kush]

 

[DocTim420]

LOL...stupidity of today's youth still amazes me.

BTW, giving a negative rep to someone that has their reputation disabled (which I have since the 1st week)...is about as effective as unscrewing all the light bulbs in Stevie Wonder's bathroom. No one but YOU will ever know...lol. Fools these days....(shakes head).

 

[Genghis Kush]

Republican Congressman Says God Will 'Take Care Of' Climate Change

A Republican congressman told his constituents that he believes God will "take care of" climate change if it proves to be a "real problem."
Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg said during a town hall in Coldwater, Mich., on Friday that while he believes climate change is real, it is not something for humans to solve.
"I believe there's climate change. I believe there's been climate change since the beginning of time," Walberg said. "Do I think man has some impact? Yeah, of course. Can man change the entire universe? No."
He continued: "Why do I believe that? Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I'm confident that, if there's a real problem, he can take care of it."

http://time.com/4800000/tim-walberg-god-climate-change/

 

[Genghis Kush]

The Air Is Making Us Sick, But We Could Fix It



Across the Atlantic, the American Lung Association’s 2017 State of the Air report found that 125 million Americans live with unhealthy levels of pollution, placing them at risk of premature death and other serious health

effects, such as lung cancer, asthma attacks, cardiovascular damage, and developmental and reproductive harm. Meanwhile, in India, half of Delhi’s 4.4 million children are blighted by permanent lung damage that they will

never fully recover from.



http://time.com/4798346/climate-change-paris-air-pollution/

 

[Floridian]

GK I would like to know exactly what you believe is the proper solution to this problem.Even the evildoers that don't agree with everything they are being fed want a better,cleaner world,I'm not sure you would agree with that by your posts but I'm pretty sure nobody here that disagrees with you wants a polluted,poison environment lol.It's all about solutions not science,and the solutions I've seen would be crippling to this country to put it mildly.Should we be the ones to sacrifice while the most guilty make no changes whatsoever?I do understand that it feels great to be a defender of the earthnand lock horns with the evil polluters that are going to bring down the planet.I think I've asked this before,either that or I'm on crack lol.What would you personally sacrifice?To what extent will you do without the things you are used to?It's a valid question man being that you are so sure that changes must be made.Personally,I am on the fence but leaning towards faith that we can solve the problem without draconian changes in our lifestyle.But only if the other major polluters also agree to change.Thats not gonna happen though.It's a laugh and a half when they say Nicarauga and Syria are the only non-compliant countries along with us lol.Like that would be an impact at all..Sounds fishy to me,lump us in with some real troubled nations and we should know better and are truly evil..For shame for shame

 

[Genghis Kush]

.

 

[stoned-trout]

My south pole could use some warming...��. Yeehaw

 

[igrowone]

My south pole could use some warming...��. Yeehaw

good to see you back out and about ST
a light moment was needed here, thank you

 

[DocTim420]

When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts

When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts

So, IF we assume that past human innovations are the cause of "climate change" (I don't, but let's assume that statement is true), then how will future human innovations impact the current "climate change" theory? Are those variables included in NOAA's methodology?...you know, the that packet of information NOAA is withholding from public scrutiny.

Let's take artificial intelligence, if history is an indicator of the future--then, IMO we have not seen anything yet! More polluted air for me to breathe, more slicing/dicing of birds & bats, and of course...more dirty water for me to drink...yum!

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will transform modern life by reshaping transportation,
health, science, finance, and the military [1, 2, 3]. To adapt public policy, we need to better
anticipate these advances [4, 5]. Here we report the results from a large survey of machine
learning researchers on their beliefs about progress in AI. Researchers predict AI will
outperform humans in many activities in the next ten years, such as translating languages (by 2024),
writing high-school essays (by 2026), driving a truck (by 2027), working in retail (by 2031),
writing a bestselling book (by 2049), and working as a surgeon (by 2053). Researchers believe
there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks in 45 years and of automating
all human jobs in 120 years, with Asian respondents expecting these dates much sooner than
North Americans. These results will inform discussion amongst researchers and policymakers
about anticipating and managing trends in AI.

Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.08807.pdf

 

[Genghis Kush]

Climate change is not really the concern, its the rate of change that is alarming scientists.

Anything that we are doing to contribute to that must be addressed because research has shown that past dramatic climate swings have been catastrophic.

If you think that NOAA is the only scientific group that is researching the current rate of change than you need to do some more research.

But as long as you are convinced that scientists are "elites" out to harm you than you will confused.

 

[DocTim420]

...But as long as you are convinced that scientists are "elites" out to harm you than you will confused.

LOL....if you know your "stuff" GK, you would know that NOAA is withholding both data and methodology from both Congress and Public (via FOIA requests) regarding the information they produced for the Climate Change Paris Agreement which was all about the "rate of change" in oceans' temperature--you know difference between antiquated vs modern technology (why NOAA used antiquated instead of modern--which is biased to higher nuimbers?). Duh!

It has ZERO...nacht, nada, zip to do with "elites out to harm you".

What a dumb ass you are! I guess having a college degree that is worthless in today's economy and living with mommy and daddy in their basement has...well, effected your ability to understand what others are saying. How many times in the other thread did I have to correct you in your interpretation of what I wrote? Dozens! Now you troll this thread, twist words and offer zero contributions...go away!

 

[DocTim420]

Why is NOAA withholding data and methodology?

Why is NOAA withholding data and methodology?

(Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch today announced it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia asking the court to compel the U.S. Department of Commerce to turn over all records of communications between a pair of federal scientists who heavily influenced the Obama administration’s climate change policy and its backing of the Paris Agreement (Judicial Watch v. Department of Commerce (No. 1:17-cv-00541)).

The suit was filed after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”), a component of the Department of Commerce, failed to respond to a February 6 FOIA request seeking

All records of communications between NOAA scientist Thomas Karl and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy John Holdren.
The FOIA request covers the timeframe of January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017.

Karl, who until last year was director of the NOAA section that produces climate data, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), was the lead author of a landmark paper that was reported to have heavily influenced the Paris Agreement.

Holdren, a former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, director of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and long-time proponent of strong measures to curb emissions.

According to The Daily Mail, a whistleblower accused Thomas Karl of bypassing normal procedures to produce a scientific paper promoting climate alarmism:

A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. …

But the whistleblower, Dr. John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.

It was never subjected to NOAA’s rigorous internal evaluation process – which Dr. Bates devised.

His vehement objections to the publication of the faulty data were overridden by his NOAA superiors in what he describes as a ‘blatant attempt to intensify the impact’ of what became known as the Pausebuster paper.

***

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Bates accused the lead author of the paper, Thomas Karl, who was until last year director of the NOAA section that produces climate data – the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) – of ‘insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation … in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming pause, rushed so that he could time publication to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy’.

(President Donald Trump vowed to scrap the Clean Power Plan and withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.)

“This new lawsuit could result in the release of emails that will help Americans understand how Obama administration officials may have mishandled scientific data to advance the political agenda of global warming alarmism,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Separately, Judicial Watch is suing for records of communications from NOAA officials regarding methodology for collecting and interpreting data used in climate models to justify the controversial findings in the “Pausebuster” study. The data documents had also been withheld from Congress. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Commerce (No 1:15-cv-02088)).

Judicial Watch previously investigated alleged data manipulation by global warming advocates in the Obama administration. In 2010, Judicial Watch obtained internal documents from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) related to a controversy that erupted in 2007 when Canadian blogger Stephen McIntyre exposed an error in NASA’s handling of raw temperature data from 2000-2006 that exaggerated the reported rise in temperature readings in the United States. According to multiple press reports, when NASA corrected the error, the new data apparently caused a reshuffling of NASA’s rankings for the hottest years on record in the United States, with 1934 replacing 1998 at the top of the list.

Source: http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/climategate-update-judicial-watch-sues-records-key-obama-administration-scientists-involved-global-warming-controversies/

Three scientific advocacy groups have filed a legal brief in support of federal climate scientists who are being sued by the conservative organization Judicial Watch.

Judicial Watch has sought to force the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to release 8,000 pages of researchers' communications regarding a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Science in June 2015.

The study debunked the notion of a global warming "hiatus" between 1998-2012, an argument used by those who dispute the scientific consensus on climate change. A recent paper by a different group of researchers affirmed NOAA's findings, one of several confirmations.

Ordering the release of agency employees' emails "would harm (or halt altogether) government scientists' ability to collaborate with colleagues, damage the government's ability to recruit or retain top scientists, and deter critically important research into politically charged fields like climate change," said the amicus brief from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF), American Meteorological Society and Union of Concerned Scientists.

The anxiety of climate scientists because of the NOAA litigation has intensified since the start of the Trump administration. Charges against NOAA were revived this weekend in the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, and echoed by conservative media (followed by several refutations). Climate information has been deleted from federal websites and administration officials have clamped down on communications at federal scientific agencies.

"Now more than ever, it is critical that we defend climate scientists and their research," Lauren Kurtz, executive director of CSLDF, said in a statement. "Forcing the disclosure of scientists' private emails is invasive, unnecessary, and hugely detrimental to the scientific method."

The amicus brief notes the lawsuit is part of a decade-long trend where "groups across the political spectrum have attempted to discredit scientific studies they dislike...by seeking to use the scientists' emails and preliminary drafts against them."

In 2011, for instance, the American Tradition Institute (now called the E&E Legal Institute) requested thousands of emails from climate scientist Michael Mann. The case led to a Virginia Supreme Court decision that exempts university scientists' unpublished research from the state's Freedom of Information Act.

The Judicial Watch lawsuit was inspired by a Congressional subpoena from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, who denies the science of global warming and the need to take action. He accused the NOAA authors of "alter[ing] data" to "get the politically correct results they want."

Judicial Watch calls itself a "conservative, non-partisan educational foundation" that routinely uses the Freedom of the Information Act (FOIA) to promote "transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law."

Founded in 1994, Judicial Watch gets much of its funding from the Scaife Foundation, a leading donor to the conservative movement's think tanks and causes. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said his organization has no stance on climate science.

The group sued for the emails in 2015 under FOIA. The case is before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judicial Watch is scheduled to file its first detailed legal brief by Feb. 20. Additional briefs from the plaintiffs and defendants are due in April.

The Department of Justice, which is representing the NOAA scientists, told the court in December, in the final weeks of the Obama administration, that the documents fall under Exemption 5 of FOIA. That exemption allows agencies to withhold records related to the "deliberative process"—discussions that take place before a final decision.

The withheld documents include drafts of the research paper, email discussions among study authors and peer review comments on early versions of the study.

It's unclear, however, whether or how the Trump administration would defend the researchers. NOAA and the Justice Department declined requests for comment.

But Kurtz and Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, speculated that the Justice Department may end up defending NOAA. That's because a win for Judicial Watch would make it easier for the media and the public to FOIA internal records from the Trump administration. Given the new administration's antagonistic attitude toward government transparency, they "might not want to set a precedent that all government information should be public," Halpern said.

Fitton said NOAA's refusal to release the documents is an example of the government's tendency to "withhold too much information under the deliberative process exemption."

Judicial Watch has also recently used FOIA to request documents about former attorney general Eric Holder's new job with the California legislature, and the costs of former President Obama's family vacations. It has mostly targeted Democratic politicians—with a particular focus on Hillary Clinton—but GOP lawmakers are not immune from scrutiny.

Since the election, Judicial Watch has criticized the House GOP attempt to terminate the Office of Congressional Ethics, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's close ties to Russia as top executive at ExxonMobil.

House Science Committee Digs In

The NOAA-led study gained national attention in July 2015, when Smith demanded all records associated with it. NOAA provided his office with related scientific data but refused to disclose internal emails. Smith responded with a Congressional subpoena, prompting harsh criticism from scientists and the ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee.

Two weeks later, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request asking for virtually the same documents. Fitton said the FOIA was intended to help Smith's request, but he said his group did not collaborate with Smith's office.

"Perhaps if we'd known the details of that fight earlier on, we could've sought a FOIA earlier," Fitton said.

Judicial Watch followed with a lawsuit in December 2015 when NOAA failed to provide the records. After negotiations, NOAA released about 200 pages of communications, but continued to withhold 8,000 pages under Exemption 5.

Exemption 5 is "designed to protect frank discussions within government agencies," said Alexander English, an environmental attorney who is owner and managing member of GreenSpring Legal, a Maryland-based law firm.

FOIA exemptions "exist for good reasons," but they've been abused by government agencies as an excuse to withhold more documents than they should, said Alex Howard, deputy director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates for transparency in government.

In NOAA's case, however, a victory for Judicial Watch risks "weaponizing" FOIA in a way that could intimidate agency scientists and drive them away from government service, Howard said.

Fitton said the FOIA exemption applies only to deliberations about policy, not science, and that NOAA's use of Exemption 5 for scientific documents is "not necessarily one the law provides for."

Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer who frequently handles FOIA litigation, said he wasn't aware of any distinction in how policy and science documents are treated under that FOIA exemption.

Moss said Fitton's argument could be more persuasive once Judicial Watch files its next legal brief, which should elaborate on Fitton's position.

If the court rules for Judicial Watch, that decision "has the potential to dramatically narrow the scope" of the FOIA exemption, English said.

"Considering the apparent policy of non-disclosure of the [Trump] administration, it seems like it would be in their best interest...to actually defend [NOAA] in this particular instance."

Source: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012017/climate-change-noaa-donald-trump-lamar-smith-global-warming-hiatus


All you need to know is in this quote:

Ordering the release of agency employees' emails "would harm (or halt altogether) government scientists' ability to collaborate with colleagues, damage the government's ability to recruit or retain top scientists, and deter critically important research into politically charged fields like climate change...

LOL, if the facts are on their side, then why hide em?

 

[DocTim420]

BTW, during my prior life I witnessed the governments' intrusion into a private company. Three "3 initial" agencies required two moving trucks to haul away all communications, records, and other written documents on premises, they gained access to ALL employee email accounts, removed harddrives (damaged all personal computers), and destroyed company's only file server by "accidentally spilling" coffee on the equipment.

The crime? No crime, my boss had just bought the company and the EPA, IRS and FBI had discovered products manufactured by the company dozens of years ago were just found at a EPA Super Site. The products produced ten years ago were not the problem...it was chemical contaminants dumped by others at the site. To "preserve evidence" (statute of limitations was expiring within a few months...so the Government moved fast), all this happened without any notice. Yep, they had their paperwork signed, but it took five years of lawyering before EPA agreed to clear the company of any wrong doing.

Why tell the story Doc? To illustrate how intrusive the legal system is when the requester for information is the "Government"...and how lax it is when the requester is the "people" (Judicial Watch). NOAA scientists work for the government...taxpayers pay salaries of government employees...therefore "government scientists" work for taxpayers and should not bias their work to enhance a particular political agenda; if they want to be political--then get out of "public service" and become an academic!

 

[Genghis Kush]

NASA discovers a new mode of ice loss in Greenland






A new NASA study finds that during Greenland's hottest summers on record, 2010 and 2012, the ice in Rink Glacier on the island's west coast didn't just melt faster than usual, it slid through the glacier's interior in a gigantic wave, like a warmed freezer pop sliding out of its plastic casing. The wave persisted for four months, with ice from upstream continuing to move down to replace the missing mass for at least four more months.

This long pulse of mass loss, called a solitary wave, is a new discovery that may increase the potential for sustained ice loss in Greenland as the climate continues to warm, with implications for the future rate of sea level rise.

The study by three scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was the first to precisely track a glacier's loss of mass from melting ice using the horizontal motion of a GPS sensor. They used data from a single sensor in the Greenland GPS Network (GNET), sited on bedrock next to Rink Glacier. A paper on the research is published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Rink is one of Greenland's major outlets to the ocean, draining about 11 billion tons (gigatons) of ice per year in the early 2000s—roughly the weight of 30,000 Empire State Buildings. In the intensely hot summer of 2012, however, it lost an additional 6.7 gigatons of mass in the form of a solitary wave. Previously observed melting processes can't explain that much mass loss.
The wave moved through the flowing glacier during the months of June through September at a speed of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) a month for the first three months, increasing to 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) during September. The amount of mass in motion was 1.7 gigatons, plus or minus about half a gigaton, per month. Rink Glacier typically flows at a speed of a mile or two (a few kilometers) a year.
The wave could not have been detected by the usual methods of monitoring Greenland's ice loss, such as measuring the thinning of glaciers with airborne radar. "You could literally be standing there and you would not see any indication of the wave," said JPL scientist Eric Larour, a coauthor of the new paper. "You would not see cracks or other unique surface features."
The researchers saw the same wave pattern in the GPS data for 2010, the second hottest summer on record in Greenland. Although they did not quantify the exact size and speed of the 2010 wave, the patterns of motion in the GPS data indicate that it must have been smaller than the 2012 wave but similar in speed.

During the two summers when solitary waves occurred, the surface snowpack and ice of the huge basin in Greenland's interior behind Rink Glacier held more water than ever before. In 2012, more than 95 percent of the surface snow and ice was melting. Meltwater may create temporary lakes and rivers that quickly drain through the ice and flow to the ocean. "The water upstream probably had to carve new channels to drain," explained coauthor Erik Ivins of JPL. "It was likely to be slow-moving and inefficient." Once the water had formed pathways to the base of the glacier, the wave of intense loss began.
The scientists theorize that previously known processes combined to make the mass move so quickly. The huge volume of water lubricated the base of the glacier, allowing it to move more rapidly, and softened the side margins where the flowing glacier meets rock or stationary ice. These changes allowed the ice to slide downstream so fast that ice farther inland couldn't keep up.
The glacier gained mass from October through January as ice continued to move downstream to replace the lost mass. "This systematic transport of ice in fall to midwinter had not been previously recognized," Adhikari emphasized.
"Intense melting such as we saw in 2010 and 2012 is without precedent, but it represents the kind of behavior that we might expect in the future in a warming climate," Ivins added. "We're seeing an evolving system."
Greenland's coast is dotted with more than 50 GNET stations mounted on bedrock to track changes below Earth's surface. The network was installed as a collaborative effort by the U.S. National Science Foundation and international partners in Denmark and Luxembourg. Researchers use the vertical motions of these stations to observe how the North American tectonic plate is rebounding from its heavy ice burden of the last ice age. Adhikari, Ivins and Larour were the first to quantitatively explore the idea that, under the right circumstances, the horizontal motions could reveal how the ice mass was changing as well.
"What makes our work exciting is that we are essentially identifying a new, robust observational technique to monitor ice flow processes on seasonal or shorter time scales," Adhikari said. Existing satellite observations do not offer enough temporal or spatial resolution to do this.
The GNET stations are not currently being maintained by any agency. The JPL scientists first spotted the unusual behavior of Rink Glacier while examining whether there were any scientific reasons to keep the network going.
"Boy, did we find one," Ivins said.





Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-nasa-mode-ice-loss-greenland.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-nasa-mode-ice-loss-greenland.html#jCp

 

[Genghis Kush]

A huge crack across one of Antarctica’s largest ice shelves is nearing its breaking point




A long-growing crack in the Larsen C ice shelf, one of Antarctica’s largest floating platforms of ice, appears to be nearing its endgame.

Researchers with Project MIDAS, working out of Swansea University and Aberystwyth University in Wales and studying the shelf by satellites and through other techniques, have released an update showing that the crack grew a stunning 11 miles in the space of just one week between May 25 and May 31. It now has just 8 miles to go before an iceberg roughly the size of Delaware breaks free into the Southern Ocean.

“There appears to be very little to prevent the iceberg from breaking away completely,” the researchers write.

Elsewhere in their post, they note that the crack has curved toward the front of the ice shelf and the ocean, meaning that the time when a major break could occur “is probably very close.”

Here’s an image from the researchers showing the progression of the crack, and how its growth has sped up since mid-2016 and especially since the beginning of this year.

The researchers have estimated that the section of ice set to break off could be about 2,000 square miles in area. The U.S. state of Delaware isn’t much larger than that.

“When it calves, the Larsen C Ice Shelf will lose more than 10% of its area to leave the ice front at its most retreated position ever recorded; this event will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula,” write the Project MIDAS team. “We have previously shown that the new configuration will be less stable than it was prior to the rift, and that Larsen C may eventually follow the example of its neighbour Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event.”

The prospect of an enormous iceberg afloat in the seas around Antarctica could draw further attention to the threat of climate change at a time when President Trump is considering whether to exit the Paris agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

An ice shelf is the floating extension of a glacier that itself grows from the land out into the ocean. The loss of a large iceberg from Larsen C would not raise the sea level, since the ice is already afloat. However, the thinning and loss of ice shelves leads glaciers to flow more rapidly into the sea, and as ice is transferred from atop the land into the water, sea levels will rise somewhat.

However, there is not nearly as much ice held behind Larsen C as there is behind other glaciers in East and West Antarctica, which have also begun to lose mass in recent decades.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...elaware-sized-iceberg/?utm_term=.d4ace33ca16b

 

[Genghis Kush]

Arctic Sea Ice Extent In April 2017 Tied For Lowest Ever (For April) … Tied With April 2016





The Arctic sea ice death spiral continues at pace, with April 2017 tying April 2016 for lowest Arctic sea ice extent ever (for an April). To be more specific, every day of April 2017 either set a new record low for Arctic sea ice extent or came within 36,000 square miles of doing so.

In other words, it’s looking increasingly likely that 2017 will see a new record-low sea ice extent set in the Arctic later this summer.

Temperatures in the region are also up considerably. “Temperatures averaged up to 14° Fahrenheit above normal in part of the Arctic last month, fueling the melt season. Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said the rate of ice loss was about average,” Climate Central notes.

“But after hitting a record low maximum in March, there’s simply less sea ice to melt. That means even in an average month, records are more likely to be set. One of the biggest issues for sea ice is its increasingly youthful appearance. Young ice is more susceptible to the vagaries of weather, whether it be warm air or water or storms that knock it around and break it up.

“Ice older than 5 years in age now only comprises 5% of the Arctic’s ice pack. It accounted for 30% of all Arctic sea ice in 1984, but relentless warmth driven by rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has slowly squeezed it out of existence. Young ice has sprung up in its place and now accounts for nearly 70% of all Arctic ice, up from just 35% just 3 decades ago.”

In the press announcement from the NSIDC that revealed the state of Arctic sea ice extent was this line (that’s particularly worth reposting): “The group noted that the ice was unusually broken up and reduced to rubble, with few large multi-year floes, forcing the pilots to land on refrozen leads that at times were only 70 centimeters (28 inches) thick. Pilots remarked that they had never seen the ice look like this.”

We’ll keep you posted as the Arctic melt season gets further underway






https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/0...-2017-tied-lowest-ever-april-tied-april-2016/