via Jon Sumby
Wordie Ice Shelf has disappeared: scientists
Fri Apr 3, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday.
They said the Wordie Ice Shelf, which had been disintegrating since the 1960s, is gone and the northern part of the Larsen Ice Shelf no longer exists. More than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square km) have broken off from the Larsen shelf since 1986.
In another report published in the journal Geophysical Letters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that ice is melting much more rapidly than expected in the Arctic as well, based on new computer analyses and recent ice measurements.
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5326HO20090403?sp=true
Climate clock is ticking
For most people, news of the ice melt was little more than a distant curiosity. But for climate scientists it was the scariest thing they had seen yet, and what’s more it had caught them completely by surprise.
WILLIAM MARSDEN, The Gazette
Published: 8 hours ago
In the summer of 2007, a large portion of Arctic Sea ice – about 40 per cent – simply vanished. That wasn’t supposed to happen. At least not yet. As recent as 2004, scientists had predicted it would take another 50 to 100 years for that much ice to melt. Yet here it was happening today.
It raised the question: Had global warming suddenly pressed the gas pedal to the floor? If so, the world was in for quite a climate ride – dramatic, jarring changes in climate much sooner than expected. Climate scientists were deeply worried.
“It really caught the scientific community by surprise,” Professor James Ford, a McGill University geographer and Arctic expert recalled. “The Arctic system is close to crossing the threshold beyond which we will get dramatic changes in climate.
http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/saturdayextra/story.html?id=cdba2d64-0803-478a-8e26-7ba82f5596fe
