Soaring Ice-Sheet Melt Rates "Incontrovertible" (In The Wash. Times?!?)

[hatrack]

EDIT

Global warming, despite mounting evidence, remains a contentious political issue, but this is one warming-related phenomenon that has become incontrovertible. (ED - projectile vomiting noise here) In some instances, the rate of glacial creep has increased up to eightfold. More worrisome, the change has occurred in a breathtakingly short time -- since 2000. "This is phenomenal," said Waleed Abdalati, a senior research at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Abdalati and colleagues briefed reporters about their new findings at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting.

Jakobshavn already was the world's fastest-moving glacier when its pace, during the last half of the 20th century, was about 4 miles (7 kilometers) per year. Now, latest satellite and airborne laser data show its flow has increased -- over the last four years -- to 10 miles (13 kilometers) per year. Though less dramatic, similar significant changes have occurred in glaciers all over the world.

EDIT

The ice-cap situation parallels the changes in the glaciers. During the late 1990s, for three years in a row the perennial Arctic ice cover dropped to its lowest volumes in recorded history, according to Josefino Comiso, also a senior researcher at Goddard. The phenomenon is worrisome because it is the type that can fall into a feedback mechanism. As more and more open water appears in the Arctic Ocean, it absorbs more solar heat, which carries over into the winter, leading to an earlier melt the following year and thinner ice during the winter. In addition, "most of the warming is taking place in the western Arctic," Comiso said."

EDIT

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041215-044907-8464r.htm

[htuttle]

1. As a lifelong observer of Wisconsin ice in it's natural setting

It seems to me that as the atmosphere heats up (say in Spring), the more ice melts, the faster it melts as it loses structural integrity (and more surface area is exposed to the warmer air).

In other words, it doesn't need to melt all the way before it decides to slide into the ocean (raising the water level whether melted or not).

[midnight armadillo]

2. Move along, nothing to see here...

What are you, some sort of America hating liberal? There is no evidence of global warming, and even if it happens it just means we'll all get San Diego weather!

<sarcasm warning>