Tag: Antarctica

Melt your heart

080710Wilkins.jpg Typical winter weather down here – we’ve gone from snow last weekend to sunny days and sharp frosts, and now howling Norwester and unseasonal, but not atypical warmth (having said that, the radio reports that Kaikoura recorded 21ºC at 1am last night, which is both). Further south, however, strange things are afoot at the Wilkins Ice Shelf. It began a spectacular break up earlier this year, and this is continuing in the middle of the Antarctic winter according to imagery from the European Space Agency’s Envisat. The ESA press release includes a fantastic animation showing how the ice has fractured over the last couple of months. Ted Scambos from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the US explains how this might be caused:

“The persistently low sea ice cover in the area and data from some interesting sources, electronic seal hats [caps worn by seals that provide temperature, depth and position data] seems to suggest that warm water beneath the halocline may be reaching the underside of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and thinning it rapidly – and perhaps reaching the surface, or at least mixing with surface waters.”

I’d love to see a picture of those seal hats! And a scientist fitting one… I’ve heard some references to anomalous warm water around the Antarctic as a mechanism for ice sheet melting – here it seems to be in action.

Up North, the summer melt continues, and the odds on my bet with William “Stoat” Connolley seem to be tilting in favour of my vicious, sharp-toothed friend. Both the Cryosphere Today and NSIDC measures are showing area/extent tracking above the same time last year, and this week a team at the Alfred Wegener Institute provided a new form guide.

The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of summer 2008 will lie, with almost 100 per cent probability, below that of the year 2005 — the year with the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured. Chances of an equally low value as in the extreme conditions of the year 2007 lie around eight per cent.

They derive this by taking ice conditions at the end of June, feeding them into their sea ice model, and then forcing the model with the weather experienced over previous melt seasons. Looks pretty convincing, but any forecast is limited by the accuracy of the initial conditions data fed into the model. Still plenty of melt season left. It ain’t over ’til Dame Nellie finishes her peach Melba.

[Update: Wayne Davidson, in a comment at RealClimate, clearly thinks I’ve still got a chance.. 😉 ]

Finally, this will be an interesting blog to follow over the next few weeks. A team of US and Russian scientists are rafting down a Siberian river, gathering data on forests and tundra. Some people have all the fun…

[Update 2: It looks like the increased popularity of the AMSR-E sea ice images from Bremen has prompted Cryosphere Today to update their graphics for the Arctic. Positively groovey, perhaps even psychedelic, man. Way to go, Bill! Much easier to see what’s going on.]

[Update 3: The BBC reports on a Russian scientific team having to be rescued from their drifting research station because it’s melting fast.]

Swell maps, and other stories

GoogleBAS.jpg Time for another round up of climate-related news. Hot on the web today (for cartophiles, at least) is that Google Earth has gained a swag of new climate change related information, the result of collaboration between Google, the UK Government, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the British Antarctic Survey. The Climate Change in Our World project, launched at the Google Zeitgeist conference by UK PM Gordon Brown offers two new layers based on Hadley Centre predictions, BAS research in Antarctica, and impacts worldwide. You can animate global temperature changes, visit crumbling ice shelves, and view climate change impacts around the world. Google Earth blog here, download .kmz files here. Hours of geographical fun are guaranteed.

  • A major new study finds strong links between recent climate change and large scale changes in the planet’s natural systems. It’s our fault, in other words [Nature (behind a paywall), BBC, Science Daily News, Guardian]. Lead author Cynthia Rosenzweig from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York told the BBC “…look at all the effects this relatively low amount of warming has had. It reveals the sensitivity to relatively low amounts of warming in many physical and biological systems.” A key point for anyone who thinks that “only a few degrees” won’t make much difference.
  • The growing number of humans on the planet is having a dramatic impact on wildlife populations, according to the Living Planet Index compiled by WWF and the Zoological Society of London. Populations of land-based species have fallen by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29% since 1970. We’re losing about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way, the index finds. [BBC, Independent, Guardian, Telegraph].
  • More bad wildlife news: the 2008 Bird Red List “warns that long-term droughts and extreme weather puts additional stress on key habitats,” according to the BBC. “The assessment lists 1,226 species as threatened with extinction – one-in-eight of all bird species.“
  • RNZ National’s science programme Our Changing World is always worth a listen, but last week’s (15/5/08) was a cracker. Ice core expert Richard Alley on Antarctica’s future, an update on the University of Waikato’s UltraCommuter EV, and one of the most cogent overviews of biofuel options I’ve ever heard from Doug Cameron, Chief Scientific Officer of Khosla Ventures, the Californian clean tech company. If those streaming links expire, podcast versions are available here, and the programme’s archive is here.
  • Wired reports on Renault’s plans to make EVs for Israel, and then the world, and EcoGeek discovers that Audi intends to have EVs in production in ten years. They might have to hurry… (my son announced yesterday that “one day’ he intends to own a Porsche. I’m willing to bet that by the time he can afford one (if ever) it’ll be a hybrid or EV).
  • #35 with a bullet! Tim Selwyn’s latest NZ blogosphere survey (at Tumeke!) finds that Hot Topic has moved up from #68 in February to #35 in March/April. I’d like to thank The Listener for making it all possible… 😉

Breaking up is (not so) hard to do

wilkins_ice_shelf_from_bas_.jpg “Hot” news from the Antarctic: another ice sheet is breaking up. The Wilkins Ice Shelf, a 13,680 square kilometre ice shelf on the SW coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, began to break up at the end of February. From the NSIDC release:

Satellite images indicate that the Wilkins began its collapse on February 28; data revealed that a large iceberg, 41 by 2.5 kilometers (25.5 by 1.5 miles), fell away from the ice shelf’s southwestern front, triggering a runaway disintegration of 405 square kilometers (160 square miles) of the shelf interior (Figure 1)

Here’s Figure 1:

wilkins.jpg

The British Antarctic Survey flew their Twin Otter aircraft over the collapsing ice shelf. The video it took (available here) is truly amazing.

[Update: Jeff Masters posts a nice map of Antarctic warming, the BBC story includes the BAS video.]

[Update 2: NASA Earth Observatory coverage (with new pix), dompost story here.]

The midweek omnibus: #37 (Putney to Peckham)

There’s been some good news, and not too much bad news. Let’s start with some good NZ news.

  • The Hillary Institute of International Leadership, launched in Antarctica a year ago with Sir Ed in attendance, has announced that “Leadership in….Climate Change Solutions will be the topic for the Institute’s first four year work-cycle, 2008-2012.” The Institute will appoint annual Hillary Laureates who will give public lectures in the US and NZ (the first in Christchurch in June), and a major award, to be called the Hillary Step, in 2012. There will be substantial cash awards – they’re aiming for $1 million by 2012. Good interview on Radio Nz National earlier this week (scroll to 18:46) with an Institute spokesman. Meanwhile Helen Clark won an United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Champions of the Earth award, which recognises individuals from each region of the world who have shown “extraordinary” leadership on environmental issues. The cynic in me comments that if wishes (and good words) were horses, she’d be riding a virtual Melbourne Cup winner. Unfortunately, in the real world she’s stuck on My Little Pony.
  • Christchurch Airport has achieved carbon neutrality through Landcare Research’s CarbonZero programme, making it the second in the world to do so (behind one in Sweden). Good marketing, at the very least, though it would be better if the international tourists arriving were as well offset.
  • Mass market electric vehicles take a step closer with announcement of a deal between Project Better Place, Renault-Nissan and the Israeli government. “The Israeli government would provide tax incentives to customers, Renault would supply the electric vehicles, and Project Better Place would construct and operate an Electric Recharge Grid across the entire country. Electric vehicles will be available for customers in 2011.” According to the launch press release, the scheme will use an “innovative business model” where drivers will not have own a battery, but will subscribe to the service on the basis of kilometers driven. This (and the tax incentives) will presumably keep the cost of the cars down. Over to Meridian… (Hat-tip: Joe Romm at Climate Progress). Meanwhile, Tesla are promising to (finally) deliver the first of their electric sportscars in March.
  • The EU has announced its climate plan, designed to reduce European emissions by 20% by 2020 [Economist, New Scientist, Guardian], and there will undoubtedly be a lot of fighting over how individual countries targets have been allocated. Meanwhile, the US has warned the EU not to use climate policy as a trade barrier, and the EU has warned the US that if it has no climate policy its products will face tariffs.
  • Technology Review has more on the Australian hybrid battery being successfully tested, and the BBC had a reporter on the Beluga as it began its transatlantic voyage to test the SkySail kite system.
  • Gar Lipow has made the full text of his book No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming available as a free download [PDF]. I’m looking forward to reading it.
  • The BBC has done a couple of good pieces on king tides in Tuvalu and sea level rise, and The Economist finds encouraging signs of the success of eco-labelling (especially of sustainably harvested fish).
  • More wind farms on the way: Meridian has announced it intends to proceed with a 31 turbine installation in Wellington’s Ohariu valley – the $420 million Makara development. Meanwhile the Herald prints poet Brian Turner’s thoughts on the impact of wind farms on the NZ landscape. I don’t necessarily agree with his take on wind energy, but it’s hard to disagree with his conclusion: “Our oft-warbled claims to be ahead of the game and clean and green are no more than self-congratulatory chitter. Sort out what you think our legacy ought to be, people, and stand up for it before it’s too late.”
  • Finally, Weather Channel senior meteorologist Stu Ostro continues his analysis of weather developments in the northern hemisphere, and how they could be (or already are) are sign of the impact of rapid climate change. Well worth a read if you are in the slightest weather literate, and worrying for those who are. And lest we relax, scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder report that the ice cap on Baffin Island in the far north of Canada has reduced in size by at least half over the last 50 years.

Ice in the sun

Time for an ice update. There’s more bad news about the Arctic sea ice, some interesting video from Greenland, and confirmation that the Antarctic is losing significant amounts of ice. A team lead by James Maslanik of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center for Astrodynamics Research has tracked the age of perennial Arctic sea ice (the stuff that survives through summer), and found that since the 1980s the ice has become thinner and younger. Of the ice that survived last year’s melt back, 58% is thin and only 2 to 3 years old:

The portion of ice more than five years old within the multi-year Arctic icepack decreased from 31 percent in 1988 to 10 percent in 2007, according to the study. Ice 7 years or older, which made up 21 percent of the multi-year Arctic ice cover in 1988, made up only 5 percent in 2007, the research team reported. [Science Daily, UC release]

This sets the Arctic up for more rapid ice loss, and makes it much harder for the sea ice to recover to its historic size. Meanwhile, Andy Revkin at the New York Times describes what’s been happening in Greenland [you might have to register, but it’s worth it]. The video from a camera being lowered down a moulin is amazing. That’s our world going down the gurgler (as I said at the HT launch). More from Revkin (and more video) at his Dot Earth blog supporting the article.

In our neck of the woods the news isn’t flash, either. A new study confirms that Antarctica has been losing ice over the last 10 years, and finds that the rate of loss has increased by 75% over that time [Herald]. The East Antarctic ice sheet remains more or less stable, but the West Antarctic and Antarctic Peninsula are losing significant amounts of ice mass – a total of 192 billion tonnes of ice in 2006. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that the mass loss is down to increased glacier flow:

Changes in glacier dynamics are significant and may in fact dominate the ice sheet mass budget. This conclusion is contrary to model simulations of the response of the ice sheet to future climate change, which conclude that it will grow due to increased snowfall.

The Christian Science Monitor provides a good overview of what’s going on south of us here.

Meanwhile, to quote a Prebble, I’ve been thinking, and before too long I shall blog about the implications of what’s happening in the Arctic. More questions than answers – but perhaps we can start thinking about how to get the answers we need. More soon…