Tag: Arctic

Friday omnibus #37b

To keep things ticking over while I’m in Auckland for the Royal Society’s inaugural Science Book Prize presentation here are a few items that have caught my eye over the last few days:

  • The BBC reports on the end of the Catlin Arctic Ice Survey expedition, and prompts UK ice specialist Peter Wadhams to comment on the current state of the ice: “By 2013, we will see a much smaller area in summertime than now; and certainly by about 2020, I can imagine that only one area will remain in summer.” For this year, the Canadian Ice Service expects a summer minimum similar to the last two years.
  • However much I moan about NZ’s big emitters arguing for delay and inaction (there was a particularly specious piece by Catherine Beard of the Greenhouse Policy Coalition in the Herald yesterday), our politicians have it easy compared to lawmakers in Washington. The Guardian reports that coal and oil interests lobbying against emissions reductions have spent US$45 million in the first three months of this year.
  • Aficionados of conspiracy theories (Wishart, are you reading this?) will enjoy this review by Johann Hari of Voodoo Histories, a new book by David Aaronovitch: “[Aaronovitch] argues that we keep returning so obsessively to conspiracy theories because they are, paradoxically, reassuring. “Paranoia”, he writes, “is actually the sticking plaster we fix to an altogether more painful wound”: the knowledge that life is chaotic and random and nobody is in charge.”
  • New Scientist explores the deep roots of our understanding of the greenhouse effect by looking at the life of John Tyndall. Well worth a read.

Quirk, strangeness, not much charm

Airconcover.jpgAnother day, another angry diatribe from Air Con author Ian Wishart — longer and more intemperate that his last, but I’m getting used to the style. It seems he believes that attack is the best form of defence, which is great if you’ve got the ammunition (like the Crusaders backs of recent seasons, if not this one 🙁 ), but rather unwise if you lack basic understanding of the issue in contention. I’ll deal with the points he raises, but can’t resist first giving you a flavour of his writing:

I could go on, and on, but I don’t see why I should bear the burden of disproving your half-baked schoolboy science masquerading as genuine informed comment on climate change. I’ve illustrated here that Gareth Renowden’s credibility on climate change, based on his Air Con review, is non existent. Go for it Truffle, crawl back to your den and think carefully before launching ad-hom attacks on me again.

“Half-baked schoolboy science”? Oh the irony, the chutzpah…

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Cracking up

Wilkins2009422.gif

With the “pin” to Charcot Island gone, big cracks that first formed in 2008 are are opening up in the Wilkins ice shelf, and a new break up is taking place close to Latady Island. The animation above uses ESA “webcam from space” images captured on April 18 and 21 (the latter has black corners). Latady Island is bottom left. Judging by the scale on the NASA image below, the big crack above bottom right has opened up by a couple of kilometres, and the whole assemblage of chunks of shelf are moving northwards. It’ll be interesting to see if new cracks form deeper into the shelf (bottom right) as the new bergs move away. Meanwhile, NASA’s Earth Observatory helpfully provides a new photo-like image of what was the base of the ice bridge, captured by the Terra satellite on April 12:

NASAWIlkins200904.jpg

And while we’re on the subject of ice, the Earth Observatory has just posted an excellent new feature article on sea ice, covering both ends of the planet and illustrated with some spectacular imagery. Well worth a read for anyone wanting an in-depth introduction to the state of play before the Arctic melt season really gets underway.

[Nick Lowe]

Extreme Ice

James Balog descends into in a moulin“It’s a strange, evil, gorgeous, horrible, fantastic place,” calls out photojournalist James Balog as he abseils a short way down into a deep hole in the Greenland ice opened up by surface meltwater rushing down perhaps to bedrock hundreds of metres somewhere below. It’s understandable Balog should have mixed feelings.  The view is stunning. But that rushing meltwater may be lubricating the great ice sheet at its base and hastening the movement of its glaciers to the sea. 

The film which records this moment, Extreme Ice,  is showing on the National Geographic channel on Sky on Wednesday 22 April at 9.30 pm and a couple of times more in succeeding hours. It will also be showing in Australia. I’ve had the opportunity to preview it. I recommend it highly.

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Melt away

NSIDC20090406thumb.jpg As winter turns to spring and the melt season begins, the Arctic sea ice looks to be primed for another bad summer. Multi-year ice is down to only 10% of the total extent — down from 40% during 1979-2000, and new work on ice thickness suggests that the ice cover is thinner than at any point in the recent past. At a NASA/NSIDC press conference discussing the new data, UC Boulder scientist Walt Meier commented:

“We’re not set up well for summertime,” ice data center scientist Walt Meier said Monday. “We’re in a very precarious situation.” [Associated Press]

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