Sea ice in the Arctic and new data from Cryo-Sat-2
Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing at a far greater rate than previously expected, according to data from the first purpose-built satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth’s polar caps.
Preliminary results from the European Space Agency‘s CryoSat-2 probe indicate that 900 cubic kilometres of summer sea ice has disappeared from the Arctic ocean over the past year.
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CryoSat-2 is the world’s first satellite to be built specifically to study sea-ice thickness and was launched on a Dniepr rocket from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 8 April, 2010. Previous Earth monitoring satellites had mapped the extent of sea-ice coverage in the Arctic. However, the thickness of that ice proved more difficult to measure.
The US probe ICESat made some important measurements of ice thickness but operated intermittently in only a few regions before it stopped working completely in 2009. CryoSat was designed specifically to tackle the issue of ice thickness, both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. It was fitted with radar that can see through clouds. (ICESat’s lasers could not penetrate clouds.) CryoSat’s orbit was also designed to give better coverage of the Arctic sea.
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“Before CryoSat, we could see summer ice coverage was dropping markedly in the Arctic,” said Rapley. “But we only had glimpses of what was happening to ice thickness. Obviously if it was dropping as well, the loss of summer ice was even more significant. We needed to know what was happening – and now CryoSat has given us the answer. It has shown that the Arctic sea cap is not only shrinking in area but is also thinning dramatically.”
Graphic: shrinking ice caps
Prof. Dr. Peter Wadhams of the U.K. has been going under the Arctic sea ice in U.S. submarines for decades, using radar to measure it, and has been publishing on the rapid decline since 1990. The U.K. Met Office and other scientific bodies in the U.K. chose to ignore his work and that of his colleagues.
Those who had tried to model the decline did not use his results, so modelling efforts have all been grossly incorrect, with forecasts of ice-free summers occurring only by 2040-2060.
The Arctic is warming 2 to 4 times faster than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, and this has changed weather patterns until we can hardly recognize them.
This year’s extreme drought in the Midwest in now 10 times more likely to occur than it was 50 years ago.
We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!
It will be interesting if
after the failure of Communism, it only takes Capitalism fifty years to destroy life on earth.
We can live without Social Security… though I hate to see the Liars win.
We can even live without Constitutional Rights… though I hate to see the End of the Idea of America.
But we are not going to be able to live when they have destroyed the planet.
So what can we do about it?
Just an observation – the amount of industrialization is increasing, not decreasing, worldwide. As some of you know, I moved to Bellingham, WA when I retired. The local news is whether the coal train comes through Bellingham on it’s way to China. This must be some sort of carbon exchange – huh? Anyway, the citizens are losing the local fight to keep the open coal cars out and China is getting it’s coal to continue to ramp up their way to modernization.
I make this point only to ask how anything changes when coal miners need their jobs, coal owners need their profits, trains need their cargo, ports need their business, emerging economies need their energy, and people need their manufactured goods? I also observe that existing industries do not seem to want or care about solutions or the future. Maybe the outcomes are inevitable?
@Anna Lee
It would seem, that this outcome is inevitable due to nature of life, which is to grow exponentially.
And we are as successful at this as yeast is during brewing. And after we have achieved our current scientific prowess we are exactly like brewing yeast. We have nothing, that can eats us, we can exterminate every major predator with ease. Right now the world is very small, and environment is unable to absorb all of our waste, just like yeast’s environments is incapable to absorb all the alcohol it makes.
Individually every human being is incomparable to yeast, yet collectively we seem to be not much smarter or different.
Why is that so? I don’t know, but it would seem to be part of our nature.
Yulek
is it possible those yeasties are getting drunk on their own alcohol and don’t know when to stop re-producing?
@ yulek
Human nature, or human institutions?
We can create the means of of producing and disseminating knowledge at increasingly rapid rates. At the same time our institutions seem incapable of assessing and acting on that knowledge in an appropriate and timely fashion.
There’s nothing new about the problem. It’s just that given the impact of current human activities on the environment the stakes are vastly higher now than in the past.
Overgrazing, overcropping, hunting animal species to extinction, deforestation, etc. have been going on for the past 10,000 years. The consequences, though, have been more or less isolated in time and space, up to now.
@Anonymous
I don’t know if they get drunk, but the fact is, that alcohol is toxic to them, and they reproduce to the point where they:
a) consume all available food and die off
b) reproduce to the point, where (depending on the species) alcohol concentration reaches circa 8 – 14% and toxicity in environment kills them off
Although when it comes to us humans, alcohol may kill, but without it there would definitely be less of us today.
@Jon Rudd
Humans create laws that create institutions, those laws are a reflection of our current nature and ability to control it. At least that it is what I believe.
Perhaps when we as a species will be able to control psychopathic individuals instead of letting them control us, then maybe some hope will be there. Psychopaths as we can all see from GFC have no restraints when it comes to exploitation. Normal people have.
Overexploitation of resources is a common problem in our history, and soon we will learn, again, that resources are constrained and rather precious.
Yulek
i was trying to be a little funny about the yeasties. not so funny about the people. it it is not alcohol we get drunk on, it is “wealth” and “power. and if we don’t reproduce ourselves to death, we will produce ourselves to death.
as for psychopaths… that seems to be who it is that eventually comes to power in any society… nature of being a psychopath. We tried “checks and balances” to control them (us) in this country. Doesn’t seem to be working anymore, as the psychopaths have figured out how to work around them. and the people are feckless.
Man is not a viable species.
anna
ah, but woman…
(sadly, i’m only being funny. if women’s lib has taught us anything, it is that women can be as vile as men… given equal opportunities.)
Anonc,
Note that pink is no longer a soft color. (e.g. Victoria Secret)
On the other hand blue has gone softer.
Just an observation. Also note that sugar and spice are not always nice and, while hiding in plain sight, they can be more clever and sneaky than slugs, snails and puppy dog tails (as well as snakes).
What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Slugs and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails,
That’s what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.