NASA and NSIDC Hold Media Conference on Winter’s Sea Analysis
At 10:00 a.m. MDT, on Tuesday, March 18, 2008, a panel of NASA and NSIDC scientists met to hold a media conference, with NSIDC releasing the most recent full analysis of the winter’s sea ice extent and conditions during the first week of April.
It has been documented that Antarctica has a 75 percent ice loss, occurring in the past ten years or so. Mainly because of a speed-up in the flow of its glaciers, the ice loss is almost as dramatic as that which is occurring in Greenland. A recent comprehensive study that had been led by Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the University of California, Irvine, had estimated changes in Antarctica’s ice mass between the years 1996 and 2006, mapping out patterns of its ice loss—glacier-by-glacier. What was found was that a .01-inch raise in global sea level for 1996 was in comparison to .02-inches in 2006.
The scientists will present the latest satellite observations of changing sea ice conditions in the areas of northern and southern Polar Regions. The areas involved are:
** Walt Meier, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado
**Josefino Comiso, Cryospheric Sciences Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland
**Seelye Martin, Cryospheric Sciences Program, Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters Washington, D.C.
The major areas of the ice loss seem to be concentrated in West Antarctica’s Pine Island bay sector, in addition to the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. This is because of ongoing and past acceleration of glaciers into the seas, resulting in warmer ocean waters. The floating sections of glaciers have become bathed by these warm waters, which cause them to become thin enough to thin down or collapse entirely. “Changes in Antarctic glacier flow are having a significant, if not dominant, impact on the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet,” Eric Rignot said.
The melting of the glaceries is not the only problem global warming is bringing to Earth—lots more snow, harder rain and floods, heat waves, extreme and unexpected tornadoes, hurricans—in other words, no matter where a person lives the weather patterns are on the rise, according to most meteorologists. Most middle-aged and elderly people are aware the weather is not as cold as when they were children, and receiving a lot less “user friendly” snow. What comes down now is violent and unexpected, on a continuous basis, regardless whether it is snow, rain, or just plain heat.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 7:43 am and is filed under Mars News, Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
