Polar Ice Cap Melt

[jessealess]

The Arctic is global warming's canary in the coal mine. It's a highly sensitive region, and it's being profoundly affected by the changing climate. Most scientists view what's happening now in the Arctic as a harbinger of things to come.

Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. Arctic ice is getting thinner, melting and rupturing. For example, the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000. Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces.

The polar ice cap as a whole is shrinking. Images from NASA satellites show that the area of permanent ice cover is contracting at a rate of 9 percent each decade. If this trend continues, summers in the Arctic could become ice-free by the end of the century.

The melting of once-permanent ice is already affecting native people, wildlife and plants. When the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf splintered, the rare freshwater lake it enclosed, along with its unique ecosystem, drained into the ocean. Polar bears, whales, walrus and seals are changing their feeding and migration patterns, making it harder for native people to hunt them. And along Arctic coastlines, entire villages will be uprooted because they're in danger of being swamped. The native people of the Arctic view global warming as a threat to their cultural identity and their very survival.

The contraction of the Arctic ice cap is accelerating global warming. Snow and ice usually form a protective, cooling layer over the Arctic. When that covering melts, the earth absorbs more sunlight and gets hotter. And the latest scientific data confirm the far-reaching effects of climbing global temperatures.

Rising temperatures are already affecting Alaska, where the spruce bark beetle is breeding faster in the warmer weather. These pests now sneak in an extra generation each year. From 1993 to 2003, they chewed up 3.4 million acres of Alaskan forest.

Melting glaciers and land-based ice sheets also contribute to rising sea levels, threatening low-lying areas around the globe with beach erosion, coastal flooding, and contamination of freshwater supplies. (Sea level is not affected when floating sea ice melts.) At particular risk are island nations like the Maldives; over half of that nation's populated islands lie less than 6 feet above sea level. Even major cities like Shanghai and Lagos would face similar problems, as they also lie just six feet above present water levels

Rising seas would severely impact the United States as well. Scientists project as much as a 3-foot sea-level rise by 2100. According to a 2001 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, this increase would inundate some 22,400 square miles of land along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, primarily in Louisiana, Texas, Florida and North Carolina.

A warmer Arctic will also affect weather patterns and thus food production around the world. Wheat farming in Kansas, for example, would be profoundly affected by the loss of ice cover in the Arctic. According to a NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies computer model, Kansas would be 4 degrees warmer in the winter without Arctic ice, which normally creates cold air masses that frequently slide southward into the United States. Warmer winters are bad news for wheat farmers, who need freezing temperatures to grow winter wheat. And in summer, warmer days would rob Kansas soil of 10 percent of its moisture, drying out valuable cropland.

When we burn fossil fuels -- oil, coal and gas -- to generate electricity and power our vehicles, we produce the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. The more we burn, the faster churns the engine of global climate change. Thus the most important thing we can do is save energy.

And we can do it. Technologies exist today to make cars that run cleaner and burn less gas, generate electricity from wind and sun, modernize power plants, and build refrigerators, air conditioners and whole buildings that use less power. As individuals, each of us can take steps to save energy and fight global warming.

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/qthinice.asp#1

For a few suggestions, visit this link.

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/gsteps.asp

[CerebralVomit]

thanks for posting this jesse

i didn't know it was deteriorating (sp?) so quickly.

[Azerate218]

If we would re-work the molecular structure of certain gases or utilize them by redirecting them like they have started doing with the methane that cows expel, we could put a damper on this whole thing.

On a side note, thanks Jess for being one of the few people on here that brings volatile information such as this to our attention. I appreciate it greatly. Applaud. 

[CerebralVomit]

If we would re-work the molecular structure of certain gases or utilize them by redirecting them like they have started doing with the methane that cows expel, we could put a damper on this whole thing.

On a side note, thanks Jess for being one of the few people on here that brings volatile information such as this to our attention. I appreciate it greatly. Applaud. 

or we could just force feed the cows to the hippies that would take care of a few problems

[Azerate218]

If we would re-work the molecular structure of certain gases or utilize them by redirecting them like they have started doing with the methane that cows expel, we could put a damper on this whole thing.

On a side note, thanks Jess for being one of the few people on here that brings volatile information such as this to our attention. I appreciate it greatly. Applaud. 

or we could just force feed the cows to the hippies that would take care of a few problems

Hippies 

[CerebralVomit]

[Azerate218]

 

[Kimmy]

I think we all need to be more aware of what's happening to the environment around us on a more worldwide scale, rather than just our own back door. We also need to learn what we can do to help change the situation too. Everything that happens, from the ozone layer right down to the bottom of the sea, affects and impacts the planet in some way. We are raping this planet, and the very people who profit are the ones we expect to change it. It's not gonnae happen. We need to be looking into how we can change things, make them better.

Did you know that it was World Environment Day today?

http://www.standuptoclimatechange.org/ask.aspx

[Phate]

Hey, lay off hippies dudes.

[Bleed Eternal]

Another over-hyped agenda by people who have a god-complex. The earth will always change and always be here. Whether we live or die doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot considering over a long enough timeline, the former isn't even an option.

Launch the water into space. Or flash vaporize it with robots and lasers.

[Qucifer]

Our solar system will end and earths proximity to the sun will be it's demise.  Whether we are around to die with it is the only factor of any relevance.  But since I won't be here either way I could give a shit.

[Socio]

If we would re-work the molecular structure of certain gases or utilize them by redirecting them like they have started doing with the methane that cows expel, we could put a damper on this whole thing.

On a side note, thanks Jess for being one of the few people on here that brings volatile information such as this to our attention. I appreciate it greatly. Applaud. 

or we could just force feed the cows to the hippies that would take care of a few problems

OR we could force the government to make some changes in the way they spend OUR money .... you know move the fundings from war to that of automobile technology that is a real pain in the ozone's ass .... go electric or go hydrogen powered just do SOMETHING  ... that would have a little larger of impact than killing some cows .... pfft cows    .. oh wait OR we could just shut down the coal burning facilities and oil refineries and also slit the bastard's throats that dump nuclear waste into mother nature's waters .....      just a thought

[Bleed Eternal]

OR we could force the government to make some changes in the way they spend OUR money ....

*starts writing letter to congress*

[AtomicHeavy]

earth will turn out like mars in the end

[jessealess]

earth will turn out like mars in the end

I was thinking the same exact thing a few days ago. Earth has already lost a good portion of its ozone, which protects the rest of its atmosphere from solar radiation. Next thing to go will be the layers of atmosphere. Then precipitation cycles will stop and most of the water will evaporate off along with the atmosphere.