Sunday, October 18, 2009

No More Ice Cap

Global warming now has another victim. A polar research team believe that the Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in 20 to 30 years.

The polar research team said that the ice cap will be largely ice-free during the summer months within 10 years, and in 20 to 30 years it will be completely ice-free.

Without the Arctic ice cap, temperatures will rise in the world and will mean even more powerful climate changes. This will mean higher sea levels and more powerful storms and heavier flooding.

Considering all the typhoons that hit the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan recently, I'm loath to think what damage even more powerful storms would do. However, would this report lead world leaders to curb greenhouse gas emission?

One can only hope.

4 comments:

Zenebi said...

Honestly, I don't think so. World leaders won't do anything until it's too late but then it would be too late to do anything!

Ghost said...

Sad but so true. Who cares about the future when there's money to be made. Just look at China; children suffering from lead poisoning, don't close down the offending smelters, just move the population

David said...

Ice melts. Glaciers are always calving. This is what ice does. If ice did not melt, we'd have an ice-covered planet. The fact is that the ice cover is growing in the southern hemisphere even as the ice cover is more or less shrinking in the northern hemisphere. As you and I are talking today, global sea ice coverage is about 400,000 square kilometers above the long-term average - which means that the surplus in the Antarctic is greater than the deficit in the Arctic.

Note that (north polar) pack ice froze over earlier in 2008 than in 2007, almost being completely frozen over by the end of October
2008 except near the entrance to the Bering Straits. This year, it will be interesting to see
how much melting occurs by mid September in the Arctic Sea and how fast is freezes over
again.

Do not jump to conclusions.

David

Ghost said...

Actually that's a huge problem. The fact that ice cover is growing in the south but shrinking in the north is a direct result of climate change. Not only will it change shipping patterns, territorial dispute will occur (as it already had) in the future.