"Rapid Changes" In Arctic, Experts Warn

Increasing Temperatures Threaten Caribou, Sea Ice, Permafrost

(AP)  The Arctic is under increasing stress from warming temperatures as shrubs colonize the tundra, changing wildlife habitat and local climate conditions, researchers said Wednesday.

Sea ice fell well below the previous record, caribou are declining in many areas and permafrost is melting, according to the annual update of the State of the Arctic report.

"The bottom line is we are seeing some rapid changes in the Arctic," said Richard Spinrad, assistant administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And unlike Las Vegas, "what happens in the Arctic actually does not stay in the Arctic," he added, playing on a well-traveled slogan of the gambling Mecca.

Scientists have expected polar regions to feel the first impacts of global warming and the 2006 State of the Arctic report provided a benchmark for tracking changes. Wednesday's follow-up was the first update.

Winter and spring temperatures were all above average throughout the whole Arctic, said James Overland of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

"This is unusual and looks like the beginning of a signal from global warming," Overland said in a telephone briefing.

If you go back 100 years, it would be warm in one part of the Arctic and cold in another, Overland said. "We're not getting that now."

Sea ice cover this year is 23 percent smaller than the past record low set in 2005 and 39 percent less than average, said Jacqueline A. Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H.

She noted that the amount of older ice in the Arctic is significantly reduced, which makes it much more sensitive to change.

Vladimir E. Romanovsky of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said the warming is affecting the permafrost in Siberia, Alaska and other regions.

"This similarity of very different regions shows the changes are not local, they are on at least a hemispherical scale," Romanovsky said.

Mike Gill, of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, said the largest declines in caribou are centered over Canada and parts of Alaska.

The herds are sensitive to changes in their range and sometimes have problems migrating in changing conditions, meaning that calving occurs before they get to new feeding grounds, resulting in higher mortality.

The tundra itself is "shrubifying," he said and the increased shrub cover over many regions affects habitat and local climate, since it tends to absorb more solar radiation.

The global goose population has been on the increase, he added, resulting in overgrazing in some areas.

[badmofojim]

But serioulsy to go into an Ice age well before humans played a significant part, doesnt the world need to heat up?
Ice age - normal weather - "Global warming" _ repeat

[davebco]

I am a solar-terrestrial physicist. The overwhelming consensus in the community is that solar variability has less than a 15% effect on global warming. We have been in solar minimum for several years now, and the 11-year solar cycle has been steadily decreasing in overall amplitude for the past 50 years. The media seized on a few papers published that suggested, not established, that solar variability had an effect. The overwhelming consensus in the scientific community is that global climate change is a clear and present danger.

[goldesprit]

Sorry-- that was supposed to be an "L" in my last post-- thats: "cooL" not cook.
"When the cap breaks up (north pole--larson B-- and greenland. etc. from the increased heat, the water may begin to be desalinized in the Atlantic.

The "Heat Conveyor" that flows through the Atlantic may stall, because of less salt in the water.

When this happens, the heat will not be spread around, and the Atlantic may cooL, and along with it many parts of the world.

Ice Age.

[goldesprit]

When the cap breaks up (north pole--larson B-- and greenland. etc. from the increased heat, the water may begin to be desalinized in the Atlantic.

The "Heat Conveyor" that flows through the Atlantic may stall, because of less salt in the water.

When this happens, the heat will not be spread around, and the Atlantic may cook, and along with it many parts of the world.

Ice Age.

[vet_sk]

So people in this forum don''t think that human activity by 7 billion people on this planet can change the climate?
Have they seen pictures of Beijing where you can see about three blocks before it is blocked by the smog.

This is scary. I am doing all I can do to save from burning fossil fuels. We all need to do that.

And it seems that all the people who don''t believe in global warming are the same people who believed it was the right thing to invade Iraq. Interesting huh. I marched against the war before the war and then had to march into Iraq for a a year. A long year it was.

I just don''t get these guys who believe whatever Rush and party spew out there. What they don''t understand, is that they are just being used. Do you think Rush is so stupid as to not believe that humans are affecting the climate?

[jcr103]

Ooooh, it''s the cycles of the sun. Climatologists have already discounted solar activity as a cause of the warming over the past century and it certainly doesn''t explain the rising concentrations of carbon in the Earth''s atmosphere now does it? Check the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports (they''re available on the Internet) and you''ll see the idea that solar activity is the cause of global climate change over the past century is an argument that''s akin to believing the Earth''s is flat.

[mocalleo]

I''''m looking forward to global warming.

Being elderly and living on a fixed income, I could use the help on my heating bills this winter.

.

[mcvett]

Dude, who gives a d*** what causes warming on Mars. You don''''t live there, right?

posted by jcr103 at 10:23 PM : Oct 17, 2007


BECAUSE WHAT''S CAUSING MARS TO WARM UP IS THE SAME THING
THAT IS CAUSING THE EARTH TO WARM UP.

THE CYCLES OF THE SUN

.

DUMB-A-S-S

.

[jcr103]

Dude, who gives a d*** what causes warming on Mars. You don''t live there, right?

[seafang]

Supposedly the "mean global temperature" is about +58F. What value would you like it to be and why ?? Considering, that on any northern midsummer day, the temperature across the globe can range from a low of about -129F in Antarctica, to about 136F in tropical African deserts; and that could be on the same day (it wasn''t); why does one deg F matter ??

I did say supposedly at the start; because actually there is no such thing as a mean global temperature; it has precisely zero physical or mathematical scientific validity. The thermal processes over the ocean (73% of the area) bear no relationship to those over a tropical rain forest or a high alpine snowfield, or tropical desert. So averaging the temperatures at all those places, which is impossible to do in the first place; gives no useful information about anything; it certainly tells us nothing about heat fluxes into or out of this planet.

You might as well ask:- "What is the mean global average number of animals per acre on planet earth; knowing that California has maybe one mountain lion per 100 square miles, while the Serengetti may have a dozen elephants per square mile, and in Ethiopia their might be 10 billion locusts per acre during a swarm. They''re all animals, so just average them, and report the result to the world wildlife federation so they can propose some new international controls. That has every bit as much validity as a "mean global tempoerature".