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solonavi 21 August 2007 Global Warming, Habitat 313 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

MSNBC

The summer sea ice in the Arctic is melting at a rate never before seen by experts, setting a record low the last two days that’s likely to continue through September, top sea ice experts said in two new reports that suggest mankind’s emissions of greenhouse gases are at least partly responsible.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center on Friday said conditions on Thursday and Friday were already below the 2005 record and would likely stay that way through the end of summer.

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Chances of the summer ending at a record low are 92 percent, the Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group at the University of Colorado-Boulder said in a second report.

Just last April the group estimated only a 33 percent chance of a record. The forecast, researcher Sheldon Drobot said in a statement, was “dramatically revised … following a rapid disintegration of sea ice during July.”

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Sea-ice extent is defined as the area of an ocean covered by at least 15 percent of ice, and in the Arctic it has been declining at least since the late 1970s, when satellite data became available, said Drobot.

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The center noted that in late June and early July “sea ice declined at a pace of up to 210,000 square kilometers (81,081 square miles) per day, or the equivalent of an area the size of Kansas each day. This rate was unprecedented in the satellite record.”

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Calling Arctic sea ice “one of the better predictors of climate change on Earth,” Drobot noted that “there will probably be about two-thirds as much sea this September as there was 25 years ago — a good indication that something significant is happening with the climate.”

Drobot said he was convinced that high levels of greenhouse emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes have combined with natural fluctuations, such as an increase in cloud-free days over the Arctic this summer, to spur the melt.“

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The puzzling thing, he added, is that the melting is actually occurring faster than computer climate models have predicted.

Several years ago he would have predicted a complete melt of Arctic sea ice in summer would occur by the year 2070 to 2100, Serreze said. But at the rates now occurring, a complete melt could happen by 2030, he said Friday.

There will still be ice in winter, he said, but it could be gone in summer.

Such high levels of ice melting could have wide implications in coming years such as changes in temperature and rain patterns across much of the United States.

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It could also open the Northwest Passage along the northern coast of North America and connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to shipping by as early as 2020 or 2025, he said. That could be a cheaper option for many shippers than the Panama Canal, and it could open the region to energy exploration.

Melting Arctic ice could also fuel a new “Cold War” — one in which nations claim energy-rich waters for themselves. A Russian team on Aug. 2 planted a flag at the bottom of the North Pole. The United States, Canada and Denmark have also made moves to bolster their positions in the Arctic.

White areas show Arctic sea-ice extent on Aug. 13. The magenta line, which is the median location of the ice edge from 1979-2000, shows how much smaller this year’s extent is.