ice is a species?

I found an article today that I just find so, SO fascinating that I felt it was important to share with my readers.  How’s this for an introductory paragraph:

A different kind of ice is replacing ancient Arctic ice. The new stuff is qualitatively different. It’s thinner, darker, wetter. Worse, it may already be changing the local weather and the ability to grow new ice. It could even alter the oceanic circulation that mediates global climate, reports Nature. Oh, it’s bad for polar bears too.

I think it is important to note that while many argue there was more ice created in 2008, therefore the belief in global warming should not be believed and is just rhetoric, it is extremely important to note what kind of ice was formed.  In other words, multiyear ice is the good stuff.  It’s NOT being made.

The original article can be found HERE, via MotherJones

another year end top ten

In the continuing series of Top Ten lists, here’s another from the New Scientist.

Climate change has continued to dominate environmental science in the past year. There are plenty of other issues out there, though, whether it’s a surprise cause of diabetes, or the precious metals we leave behind in waste dumps.

NewScientist.com is now making free all in-depth articles from the past 12 months. In case you missed them, here are the top 10 best features on environmental science.

1.) Climate change: The next ten years
2.) Is the diabetes epidemic down to pollution?
3.) What is your dinner doing to the climate?
4.) Save the climate by saving the forests
5.) The greening of Silicon Valley
6.) Is climate change causing an upsurge in US tornadoes?
7.) There’s gold in them there landfills
8.) The ice age that never was
9.) When crocodiles roamed the Arctic
10.) Bog barons: Indonesia’s carbon catastrophe

You can find links to all the articles, HERE.

I believe in data

I didn’t know this, but, it has been hard to prove the effects of global warming in the arctic regions, since, although we have seen melting, the overall temperature has remained unchanged or gotten cooler.

Now, a group of scientists have been able to show that there is an overall temperature increase in those zones due to mankind’s influence over global temperatures.

The scientists created four computer models, including one that included the impact of greenhouse gases and one that did not. The model with the greenhouse gases produced predictions that matched actual temperature observations up to this point in time, according to their report, “Attribution of polar warming to human influence”, in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

But the team found temperature increases on the Antarctic Peninsula of up to 3 degrees Celsius since the 1950s, among the largest increases on Earth, Monaghan said. Still, the average monthly temperature is 1 degree to minus -15 degrees C.

The whole article can be found HERE, via Inter Press Service news agency.

Much of what we read about climate change does feel like a broken record… global warming, blah, blah, human caused, blah, blah. However, until recently science proving what we are seeing has been limited. Science takes time. Studies that were started at the onset of the change are just now seeing hard data that proves the original hypothesis. I think what people have always known to be true in their gut, are finally able to have the scientific backing.

This study was a major step in understanding a dichotomy that allowed naysayers to stay as naysayers. They will be hard pressed to stand by their argument, now.

this is not good

Click HERE for an article about Polar Bears and what they have turned to with climate change.

well, on the bright side…

source: NASA

Good news for shipping companies… they now can map shorter distances, by thousands of miles, for their sea bound journeys.

Bad news for us…. it’s because the the Arctic just became an island.

click here for the article.