From CJAD.com, "A U.S. study on northern sea ice found that not only did 2006 have the second-lowest amount of ice on record, but also that the ice is retreating faster than the panel's climate models have predicted. 'The model forecast may be underestimating what we could expect in the future years,' Walt Meier, a climatologist with the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colo., said Wednesday. Meier's group tracks the annual maximum extent of the Arctic sea ice by the end of the northern winter, which is defined as March 31. This year, 14.7 million square kilometres of Arctic ocean around the globe was covered by at least 15 per cent ice. That's only a little more than last year's 14.5 million square kilometres, which was the lowest figure ever recorded. The average from 1979 to 2000 was 15.7 million square kilometres...
"Observations by Meier's group show the sea ice decline is universal across the circumpolar world. While small, short-lived increases have been seen in areas such as the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Canadian Arctic from Baffin Bay to the Beaufort Sea has seen 'significant' ice loss. In fact, satellites spotted a vast area of open water in the Beaufort for six weeks early this past winter. About 50,000 square kilometres - an area roughly the size of Nova Scotia - suddenly emerged ice-free, 200 kilometres inside the ice pack."
Meanwhile, some scientists are hoping to establish large geo-engineering projects to effect global cooling, according to UCSF. From the article, "We all know global warming is a reality with far-reaching consequences we cannot predict. Even scientists think so. We know that we need to drastically reduce our carbon release into the atmosphere, to stop clear-cutting our carbon-sink rainforests for raising hamburger meat and find a more sustainable balance with the rest of nature.
"Yet a small group of scientists, encouraged by government funding, are inhaling the techno-science of 'geo-engineering' -- the science of planetary-scale engineering to counteract climate change. The latest iteration of this idea appeared recently in a cluster of papers in Climate Change, the scientific journal dedicated to the topic. Bringing legitimacy to a previously skeptically regarded niche of climatology, Nobel prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen has taken up the sword for geo-engineering along with a small but enthusiastic cadre of scientists.
"Crutzen's plan to combat global warming performs a simulacrum of a volcanic eruption to spray an aerosol of sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere reflecting the sun's rays. Periods of global cooling occur after volcanic eruptions, and following this logic, simulating the release of sulfate into the upper atmosphere would stimulate this reaction.
"Scientists have many other schemes too, such as placing a giant sunshade in space at the Lagrange point, the location between the sun and the earth where the forces between the two celestial bodies allow an object in that space to remain in a constant relative position. While even Roger Angel, the idea's originator, thinks of the sunshield as a last resort and far-fetched, the idea has been nursed by a small NASA grant.
"The most feasible presentation, and the idea whose execution would have the least unintended consequences, is John Latham (from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado) and Stephen Salter's proposal to blast sea-water into the air to create a highly reflective low marine cloud to cool the planet. 50 wind-powered remote vessels would cruise around the ocean spraying roughly 20 pounds of water per second into the air, hypothesized to cancel out an entire year of carbon-dioxide emissions. These 'ships' also benefit from the precision of output and localized effect, allowing cooling of Greenland ice sheets in the summer and migration to protect the Antarctic in winter."
"2008 pres"
3:40:48 PM 
|
|
