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Because of a few heavy snowstorms, debate has been raging in the US over whether the climate is really changing. In many places on the globe, however, the reality is indisputable. Take, for example, the outer ice shelves of Antartica:
Research by the U.S. Geological Survey is the first to document that every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula has been retreating overall from 1947 to 2009, with the most dramatic changes occurring since 1990. The USGS previously documented that the majority of ice fronts on the entire Peninsula have also retreated during the late 20th century and into the early 21st century.
The ice shelves are attached to the continent and already floating, holding in place the Antarctic ice sheet that covers about 98 percent of the Antarctic continent. As the ice shelves break off, it is easier for outlet glaciers and ice streams from the ice sheet to flow into the sea. The transition of that ice from land to the ocean is what raises sea level.
“This research is part of a larger ongoing USGS project that is for the first time studying the entire Antarctic coastline in detail, and this is important because the Antarctic ice sheet contains 91 percent of Earth’s glacier ice,” said USGS scientist Jane Ferrigno. “The loss of ice shelves is evidence of the effects of global warming. We need to be alert and continually understand and observe how our climate system is changing.”
This ongoing phenomenon is one of many that make us painfully more aware of the reality that we are facing. The question is no longer, "How do we stop the climate from changing." The question is now, "How will we cope with the consequences?"
What’s on your mind tonight?
15 Comments
Accelerating methane release in the Arctic is also on my mind tonight, Jim. We’ll be cooked alive.
On my mind is that, due to human ‘intervention’ the White Shark is now in fewer numbers worldwide than wild tigers.
Also on my mind is the fact that the breeding population of the Atlantic bluefin tuna is scheduled to disappear in just a few years. Finally, on my mind are coral reefs, six hundred square miles of which have disappeared since the 1960s, a rate of habitat destruction twice that of tropical rain forest over the same period and corresponding to the loss of the greatest zones of biodiversity in the world’s oceans.
Having no connection whatsoever with sea level rise, the Obama administration considers caving on an economy-wide carbon emissions bill in exchange for a clean energy bill, while the EPA blinks in the face of coal state conservadem senators and agrees to wait a year before regulating the greenhouse gases having nothing whatsoever to do with sea level rise.
Driving along the northwest coast in FL, the kill-off of trees and diminishing beach area because of rising water levels is very obvious; http://picasaweb.google.com/RCalvo8/2009FlCruise#5430383761594977042
four responses to your posts.
This is a health care/wiretapping/torture website for the most part. If they are interested in this, our foremost problem, it’s hard to tell.
My research on Florida, and Miami, consists of watching the show CSI Miami,
The helicopter camera shots they use make me think of the ocean which will be engulfing the very large waterfront homes seen in the shots.
It will make a great site for scuba diving, inside what’s left of those places after they are beneath the waves. great habitat for whatever remains in the ocean.
Having been a regular contributor to The Seminal for almost two years, I can assure you that it’s about a lot more than health care/wiretapping/torture. Have you not seen any of the excellent work on Afghanistan, just as one example? What’s your motive for making such a blatantly false comment?
Mr. Moss:
Apology:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be derogatory, or make a blatantly false comment; A little flippant maybe, but;
This is one of the few sites I read regularly. Because I respect the work done here.
However, I also think that climate change is by far the most serious problem at this time.
And it is not, a primary concern of most of the bloggers and posters at this site.
Which is fine, everyone has their own concerns. That’s all I meant.
anyway, sorry to offend you, I appreciate it when someone attempts to raise this issue at this site.
ok?
FDL covers quite a gamut of major, threatening issues that deeply concern us all. Many of those issues arise from the impact that international corporations have on our way of life, our health, our prosperity, our Constitution and Rule of Law. If you choose, you could help by bringing information to share here and to motivate others to do all we can to stop the destruction of the very planet on which we exist. And corporations have been in the forefront of that destruction, too.
I can’t speak for Jim Moss, but I think I know where you’re coming from. These struggles we wage are never-ending, and some times you can’t help but feel drained of energy and spirit. And alone. But you’re not. As I tried to state immediately above, please help by contributing and encouraging others to make their voices heard in the global crisis of existence that is upon us. Go for it!
I trained as a meteorologist in my youth, at the UK Met office which has recently been surrounded by controversy. In those days, the 1960s, the great fear was of a new Ice Age and we had some fearfully cold winters in the UK. Many of my colleagues spent time in Antarctica and I couldn’t help but notice your spelling error just above picture. Most people don’t realize that the continent of Antarctica is covered by a dome of ice, which is growing thicker/bigger each year.
The pressure of so much ice has been calculated by those who still work in the field but they forced glaciers to move more rapidly and this impacts on the ice shelf around Antarctica itself. Therefore, we can expect large ice shelves to calve off and move north. While I don’t dispute the qualifications of Jane Ferrigno, there has been a distinct buildup in ice on the polar dome and what is displaced in the form of sea ice is hardly likely to affect sea levels very drastically. I go back to my very first introductory lecture to the science of meteorology, when I was told with others that climate is never stable: by its very nature it is dynamic being subject to many variables including axial tilt, the earth wobbling on its axis, slight perturbations in the Earth’s orbit around the sun and sunspots. We were told not to fear the oncoming Ice Age because conditions had changed to the same extent as the Little Ice Age of the 1600s.
The overall lesson is this: climate is a dynamic system; weather is what we experience every day. Even if the oldest climatic records made are run through a computer, bear in mind that they date from roughly the time of the American Revolution and were held where I used to work in an observatory built by King Charles II. The Central Forecaster who lectured on these matters also commented on an American proposition to attempt to de-fuse hurricanes by detonating a thermonuclear device in the eye, while they were still small. When the calculations were complete, if memory serves me correct, the power of the hydrogen bomb was estimated at being 1/6000th of a small hurricane. This put the dampener on the whole idea because the power of nature outweighs the power of man. We would do rather well to remember that rational skepticism is the basis of good science. I take particular objection to science being perverted and used politically, usually by economists, who have quite correctly surmised that governments can raise revenue through green taxes and the like.
I know too many scientists who lost their positions because they did not agree with the dominant paradigm of AGW and in many respects, science will continue to lose its reputation when witch-hunts are conducted. The latest claims made against the so-called global warming skeptics is that they are being funded by big oil and vested interests. Just who is funding the case for global warming? More vested interests. None of the foregoing changes my view that conservation is an individual matter and that we should do our best to ensure that we do not ruin the earth for future generations. We need a sober debate on these matters and a clear reevaluation of existing data and this time, perhaps they would care to include the inconvenient data dropped from previous computer modeling. As always with computers, it’s strictly GiGo – garbage in, garbage out and if you add that to windy rhetoric by politicians still trying to hog the limelight, then the outcome can only be disastrous for scientific inquiry in its best sense.
Somebody, something,
Please save us
from [Edited by Moderator] such as the above waldo person.
Yes, I have posted a couple of things here from climateprogress.org,
at this site.
Joe Rohm the proprietor, is smart, funny and works constantly. Also a lot of other very good contributors, and commentors.
Thanks for calling attention to climateprogress.org. By all means, keep bringing information here to FDL to share with others. We have to work together, coming from all areas of interest, aimed as we are toward a common goal. Glad to know you are one more person who is engaged in the struggle.
No worries. You are correct in that we don’t cover climate change issues as much as we could. Perhaps this is because we don’t have any experts in the field as regular contributors. It’s an area where there are already too many people writing who don’t have the qualifications, which means there is a whole lot of bad information going around. All people like me can do with any integrity is to quote the experts, and then try to understand the political and social implications.
Thanks for your comments.
“All people like me can do with any integrity is to quote the experts, and then try to understand the political and social implications.”
And you do an admirable job of it, too. Many thanks.