[$tinkle]

Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.

“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’

The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.

got that? 2 yrs ago it had retreated to its lowest level since record-keeping was tracked. the next year, it grew and still is said to be in retreat

combine this with the strongly defended position that anthropogenic climate change moves glacially, and what are we to make of the seemingly sudden uptick in cap ice?

cooler heads should prevail

more: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

 

[syadasti]

New ice is being formed but if it does not replace the loss so its in retreat - mass is less.

Regardless feedback systems like climate should have conservative risk adverse approaches. You pass the tipping point and its a runaway train - there might be no feasible way of turning the tide on smaller human time scales if you do nothing.

The worst case scenario is its not as bad as was thought and we end up with a cleaner environment, lower healthcare cost, and a new green industry to employ more people. Sounds like a pretty horrible mistake to make :huh:

Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s. Carbon emissions are growing by 3.5 percent a year, and no part of the world has had a decline in emissions

 

[jimmydean]

Damn, where is n8 when you need him? I KNEW it was a hoax, stupid hippies.

 

[Westy]

I smell a conspiracy:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090224/ap_on_sc/sci_carbon_satellite_14

 

[$tinkle]

New ice is being formed but if it does not replace the loss so its in retreat - mass is less.

so let's see if i understand this stmt: unless ice lost in yrX isn't fully replaced in yrX+1, we're still in retreat? iow: my investments are off 20% for last yr, and unless my portfolio gains 20.01% this year, i'm still losing money?

You pass the tipping point and its a runaway train - there might be no feasible way of turning the tide on smaller human time scales if you do nothing.

i don't believe there any data to suggest the feedback loop is this tight, and that we're indeed in it

The worst case scenario is its not as bad as was thought and we end up with a cleaner environment, lower healthcare cost, and a new green industry to employ more people. Sounds like a pretty horrible mistake to make :huh:

almost as bad as making decisions based on bad data. as far as healthcare costs, we can do more about our collective fat asses, and quicker too.

like line up the fatties & get to work on 'em

 

[syadasti]

so let's see if i understand this stmt: unless ice lost in yrX isn't fully replaced in yrX+1, we're still in retreat? iow: my investments are off 20% for last yr, and unless my portfolio gains 20.01% this year, i'm still losing money?

Opinion or finance has nothing to do with geology. The definition of retreat is net negative glacial mass. When loss from melting and ablation is greater than accumulation its retreat, end of story.

i don't believe there any data to suggest the feedback loop is this tight, and that we're indeed in it

I did not say we were but we likely won't know until its too late to do anything in a feasible way.

Improving industry to account for the true cost of doing business only makes sense and creates new businesses and jobs.

Going green is about efficiency. Someone has to pay for inefficient polluting ways - businesses must pay the true costs not their employees, local community, taxpayers, and whatever other areas they affect in conducting their business. They are criminals otherwise.

If you don't think so when can we start building factories and dumping waste in your backyard?

 

[ohio]

2 yrs ago it had retreated to its lowest level since record-keeping was tracked. the next year, it grew and still is said to be in retreat

combine this with the strongly defended position that anthropogenic climate change moves glacially, and what are we to make of the seemingly sudden uptick in cap ice?

Glacially = the trend over an extended time. Are you deliberately not understanding this? You're answering your own question.

I'll spell it out for you. This is not a giant steam ship that doesn't quickly change direction, it is movement that is chaotic when examined over a short period but shows a trend in the correct timeframe. Was the market in recovery on Feb 11 when we had an uptick in the DJI?

 

[Silver]

: my investments are off 20% for last yr, and unless my portfolio gains 20.01% this year, i'm still losing money?

Take $10,000 as your initial investment.

You lost 20% on it last year. That leaves you with $8,000. If you make a return of 20.01% this year, at the end of the year, you will have $9600.80. So yes, you're still losing money.

You're too stupid to understand that your own example is bad, and we should trust you on everything else?

 

[1453]

so by this logic we have been on a looooooooong negative growth ever since the peak of the ice age?

 

[jimmydean]

Take $10,000 as your initial investment.

You lost 20% on it last year. That leaves you with $8,000. If you make a return of 20.01% this year, at the end of the year, you will have $9600.80. So yes, you're still losing money.

You're too stupid to understand that your own example is bad, and we should trust you on everything else?

Hey Stinkle, can you invest for me too? That would be awesome.

 

[$tinkle]

Are you deliberately not understanding this?

sometimes i think you don't even know me

 

[Defenestrated]

Oh so global warming was a hoax after all, thanks stink.

 

[$tinkle]

inhofe gave me a blumpkin to throw up this thread.

pretty sure i could have got one regardless

 

[Defenestrated]

We could make a California sized slushy and drop it on Afghanistan, that ought to kill two birds with one stone.

 

[ohio]

so by this logic we have been on a looooooooong negative growth ever since the peak of the ice age?

Really? That's like saying that the current recession doesn't exist because we are in a period of growth starting with the end of the great depression.

it's about picking the appropriate period. Statisticians are trained to do this. Don't try it at home.

 

[1453]

Statistics is a big part of my graduate degree, so I have to do it at home.

but by all means trust your favorite group of statisticians.

Really? That's like saying that the current recession doesn't exist because we are in a period of growth starting with the end of the great depression.

it's about picking the appropriate period. Statisticians are trained to do this. Don't try it at home.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Statistics is a big part of my graduate degree, so I have to do it at home.

but by all means trust your favorite group of statisticians.

Remind me to not ever let you come within sniffing range of my portfolio.

 

[syadasti]

Latest report...

Antarctic glaciers melting faster than thought

By ELIANE ENGELER, Associated Press Writer Eliane Engeler, Associated Press Writer – Wed Feb 25, 4:41 pm ET

GENEVA – Glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster and across a much wider area than previously thought, a development that threatens to raise sea levels worldwide and force millions of people to flee low-lying areas, scientists said Wednesday.

Researchers once believed that the melting was limited to the Antarctic Peninsula, a narrow tongue of land pointing toward South America. But satellite data and automated weather stations now indicate it is more widespread.

The melting "also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

"That's unusual and unexpected," he told The Associated Press in an interview.

By the end of the century, the accelerated melting could cause sea levels to climb by 3 to 5 feet — levels substantially higher than predicted by a major scientific group just two years ago.

Making matters worse, scientists said, the ice shelves that hold the glaciers back from the sea are also weakening.

The report Wednesday from Geneva was a broad summary of two years of research by scientists from 60 countries. Some of the findings were released in earlier reports.

In Washington, as part of an overall update on global warming, top researchers on Wednesday sounded a similar warning to the U.S. Senate about rising temperatures in the Antarctic.

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group set up by the United Nations, told lawmakers on the Environment and Public Works Committee that Earth has about six more years at current rates of carbon dioxide pollution before it is locked into a future of severe global warming.

For years, the continent at the bottom of the world seemed to be the only place on the planet not experiencing climate change. Previous research indicated that temperatures across much of Antarctica were staying the same or slightly cooling.

The report Wednesday was compiled as part of the 2007-2008 International Polar Year, an effort by scientists to conduct intense Arctic and Antarctic research over the past two Antarctic summers.

The big surprise was exactly how much glaciers are melting in western Antarctica, a vast land mass on the Pacific Ocean side of the continent that is next to the South Pole and includes the Antarctic Peninsula.

The biggest of the western glaciers, the Pine Island Glacier, is moving 40 percent faster than it was in the 1970s, discharging water and ice more rapidly into the ocean, said Summerhayes, a member of International Polar Year's steering committee.

The Smith Glacier, also in west Antarctica, is moving 83 percent faster than in 1992, he said.

The glaciers are slipping into the sea faster because the floating ice shelf that would normally stop them — usually 650 to 980 feet thick — is melting. And the glaciers' discharge is making a significant contribution to increasing sea levels.

Some people "fear that this is the first signs of an incipient collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet," Summerhayes said. "If the west Antarctica sheet collapses, then we're looking at a sea level rise of between 3 feet, 4 inches, to nearly 5 feet."

Together, all the glaciers in west Antarctica are losing a total of around 114 billion tons per year because the melting is much greater than the new snowfall, he said.

"That's equivalent to the current mass loss from the whole of the Greenland ice sheet," Summerhayes said.

Looked at another way, it's more weight than 312,000 Empire State Buildings.

"We didn't realize it was moving that fast," he said.

Summerhayes said sea levels will climb higher than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,

A 2007 report by the IPCC predicted a sea level rise of 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century, which could flood low-lying areas and force millions of people to relocate.

The group said an additional 3.9- to 7.8-inch increase in sea levels was possible if the recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.

New research published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that melting glaciers will add at least 7 inches to the world's sea level — and that's if carbon dioxide pollution is quickly capped and then reduced.

Far more likely is an increase of at least 15 inches and probably more just from melting glaciers, the journal said.

Until recently, scientists debated whether Antarctica was warming.

But a January study in the journal Nature found that Antarctica's average annual temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957, but is still 50 degrees below zero.

The report also determined that autumn temperatures in east Antarctica were cooling over the long term.

International Polar Year researchers found that the southern ocean around Antarctica has warmed about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit in the past decade, double the average warming of the rest of the Earth's oceans over the past 30 years.

___

Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

 

[$tinkle]

well good. this'll lower ocean temps, & make for weaker major storms.

either that or the density bands will be more similar, resulting in slower currents, which has its own set of issues.

 

[1453]

Remind me to not ever let you come within sniffing range of my portfolio.

the long term statistical performance of most fund managers(especially government/public fund managers) will make you beg for my advice.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

the long term statistical performance of most fund managers(especially government/public fund managers) will make you beg for my advice.

As long as the people you advise believe in you, have fun.

But don't come crying here when you Bernie-Madoff-it.....

 

[$tinkle]

for the avianphile here: Is global warming confusing pelicans?

Climate change might have fooled thousands of California brown pelicans, who stayed north later than usual last year and encountered harsh winter storms on their trip south, researchers now believe.

That theory has emerged following tests and observation of dozens of sick, disoriented and frost-bitten adult pelicans that turned up in December and January, researchers said.

The birds were rescued by International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro after they were seen wandering in unusual places, such as parking lots and coastal streets.

In total, IBRRC facilities in San Pedro and Fairfield received about 200 pelicans and released 75 of those. About 60 pelicans remain in rehabilitation.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Natural selection, b*tchez.

 

[syadasti]

There was a similar article recently about songbird migration changes too.

 

[1453]

As long as the people you advise believe in you, have fun.

But don't come crying here when you Bernie-Madoff-it.....

anti-Semite.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

anti-Semite.

oh, snap.

*zing*