Global Warming is Affecting Antarctica (2009.01.21)

The research, published in the British journal Nature, takes a fresh look at one of the great unknowns -- and dreads -- in climate science.

Any significant thaw of Antarctica could drown many coastal cities and delta regions. Bigger than Australia, Antarctica holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 57 metres (185 feet).

Previous monitoring has already pinpointed the Antarctic Peninsula -- the tongue that juts 800 kilometres (500 miles) towards South America -- as a "hotspot" where hundreds of glaciers have been in retreat since the start of the decade.

But until now the news has been reassuring regarding Antarctica's two massive icesheets.

Indeed, a common belief is that the icy slabs have even cooled slightly and possibly thickened, partly in response to the chilling seasonal effects of the ozone hole over the South Pole.

Not so, the new study says.

It calculates that West Antarctica has been warming by 0.17 degrees Celsius (0.3 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade over the past 50 years.

This is even more than the Peninsula, where the average rise is estimated as 0.11 C (0.2 F) per decade.

There has indeed been some cooling in East Antarctica, but this was mainly in the autumn, and occurred as a result of the ozone hole. There was also a period of strong cooling between 1970 and 2000.

But, overall and when calculated over 50 years, East Antarctica has warmed too -- by an average of 0.1 C (0.18 F) per decade, a figure that the authors describe as "significant".

"The sense of 'Oh, it's cooling in East Antarctica,' is based essentially on the 1970-2000 period, and it's warmed since then -- although we don't have a lot of data for the most recent period -- and it definitely warmed prior to the 1970s," Eric Steig, a professor of Earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, told AFP.

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090121/sc_afp/climatewarmingantarctica

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• antarctica
• south pole
• climate change
• global warming

[globalwarminghotspot]

well done for your channel and excellent films

[starrdreams]

thanks

[markbotv3]

ROFL...oh god *wipes a tear* i miss Bush already

[bflatkitty]

This pertains to North sea ice. Overall ice Volume because of continual replacement of thicker, multi year ice with thinner new ice was lower in 2008 than 2007". US Geological Survey director, Mark Myers. Both caps seem to be sucking a little more than we had heard.

[ech1dna]

Its going to take the seas lapping against people's front doors before anyone will take this seriously (which, as any climatologist will tell you, is too late). In Australia the new government set targets for CO2 reduction- 5%. Utterly pathetic and- scientifically speaking- irrelevant. At least the likes of Bush and Howard didn't pretend to care while doing next to nothing, they just did nothing and were honest that they didn't care. Shame on them all.

[arryhuk]

Excellent video,highlights the danger we face,needs to be shown,well done.