Climate Change: The Crack of Doom?

[marmar]

from CommonDreams:

Published on Saturday, December 30, 2006 by The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Climate Change: The Crack of Doom?
by Raymond Hainey

ITS collapse was so violent that it was picked up by earthquake monitors 150 miles away - a thundering warning to the world that the Arctic was heating up faster than scientists had imagined.

A giant ice shelf, covering 41 square miles, had broken off from the Canadian mainland and floated off into the sea.

Yet for 16 months, experts were unaware that the Ayles ice shelf - just one of six remaining in the Canadian Arctic - had drifted off until a scientist began examining old satellite images.

Yesterday, scientists said the dramatic discovery capped a year of new studies, which have revealed that the world is heating up faster than had been thought.

From the slowing Gulf Stream, to the warmest British summer on record, to unusually warm water in the Caribbean, researchers have mapped our rapidly changing climate.

Scientists were yesterday still coming to terms with the im-portance of the Ayles ice shelf collapse.

"This is a dramatic and disturbing event," said Dr Warwick Vincent, an Arctic ice expert at Laval University in Quebec.

"It shows we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead."

Dr Vincent added that he had never seen such a dramatic loss of sea ice, a chunk the size of the Hebridean island of Rum or 11,000 football pitches, in a decade's study of the Arctic.

He said: "It is consistent with climate change. We're not able to connect all the dots, but unusually warm temperatures definitely played a major role."

The Canadian view was backed by Dr Ian Moffatt, a Stirling University climate-change expert, who warned that the Earth appeared to be warming faster than had been thought. .....(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1230-06.htm

[Missy M]

1. I'm sitting here in Buffalo, NY and not a drop of snow on the ground...

we didn't have a White Christmas and the last two winters before were mild. I can't remember if we ever went this long without significant snow. We did have the freak October Surprise storm that devasted part of this area (including mine) with all the damage and even that was the first in our history. It seems something is going on. Today is a beautiful day with sunshine.

[marmar]

2. Same here in Detroit.

No forecast high below 40-something for at least the next week.

[Missy M]

3. I believe that is our forecast for the next week too.

[murray hill farm]

9. HI Detroit!

I was born and grew up in Detroit, but have not been back for years. Fond,fond memories of Detroit. I hear so much about the poverty in Detroit, but once in a while hear that Detroit is coming back, etc. How is it up there?

[marmar]

10. Definitely coming back...despite the auto industry's struggles.

:hi:

[murray hill farm]

13. Thanks for responding!

Especially so because it was what I really wanted to here. I still love Detroit....probably always will. This is like hearing that an old and dear friend is doing well and looking good..Ha! Happy New Year. Pat

[Pharaoh]

4. Madison, WI

Checking in here at 43 degrees and raining like hell.

We had more snow in october, very unusual , no snow at all in December.

We should average 16inches on the ground now with temps in the teens.

The planet is in serious trouble.

[Strangefire]

11. I'm scared in Wisconsin.

I'm near Milwaukee, WI. The grass everywhere I look is green. There were birds chirping outside my window the other day. There are small buds and lush moss on the trees lining my street. The insects that usually start making their presences in my home known during April (house centipedes and spiders, mostly) are out in full force. I'm going outdoors wearing sandals during what should be the Wisconsin winter season, for heaven's sake.

I'd swear we were in early spring, if I didn't know better.

[InvisibleTouch]

5. In the 50's and raining in Ohio.

Now granted, we don't usually have major snow and ice until January and February, but I don't recall it having been this warm through November and December in previous years. It's good for my heat bills but bad news for the planet overall.

[Systematic Chaos]

6. I can't quite understand why Vegas has been so... normal this year.

Our summer had only a handful of days over 110 degrees, whereas last year there was a solid week of 116+ days and 3 in a row that were 119 (and that's at the airport which is on some of our higher ground; some areas of town were well into the 120's every day of that week.)

This winter was a somewhat warm early on, but has settled in with temperatures very close to normal. Not a lot of rain but a little here and there.

I do feel sorry for those of you who should have had a white Christmas but didn't, and for those of you who can't skate, ski or ice fish this Winter. I especially feel sorry for the planet as a whole, but I at least know that it will be here even if we're not. :(

[fasttense]

7. I'm here in East TN and granted comparatively speaking

we usually have a fairly warm winter. But usually around Christmas it is too cold to stay out too long unprotected. When we first moved in about five years ago, I hung the outside decorations in 30 minute shifts. I would hang a few garlands then go in to warm up, hang a few more, go in and warm up. It was an all day project. But as each year past, I could stay out longer and longer. This year, no problem. I simply hung them up and basked in the warm 60 degree weather as I quickly hung the decorations.

All the insanely religious and good old boys keep telling me it is always like this in the winter. They claim that this is the south and it has always been warm on Christmas. It is as if to admit to Global Warming is to admit there is no god or something. But I have a very good memory for weather and I know what the last five winters were like. I live in reality, where they live, I don't want to go.

[pretzel4gore]

8. The whole thing's a Big Lie...

discussing the fact saddam hussein TRIED TO SURRENDER before the goofy 'war' which has thus far killed 650 thousand innocent iraqis etc...reading about the july telegram from emperor hirohito also offering to surrender japan -this a month before usa dropped atom bombs on hiroshima/nagasaki...reading about 1200 people murdered in tulsa riots, never mentioned in hushtory books, or wtc number 7 falling in its footprint at 5 in the afternoon on sept 11th, or firemen calling in that the fires in the second tower hit by wtc terrorista jet were going out (that necessitated the 2nd tower hit to collapse first, cuz clearly the FIRES WERE GOING OUT!)....and in the background, they say the globe's warming up from the 7 billion tonnes/year carbon injected into earth's 12 mile thick atmosphere....and foxnews has a professor saying that ebeneezer scrooge was 'more generous' to charity then bob cratchit!
fukkit.
lettem have it...

[BeFree]

12. It's like I tell the assholes...

....the difference betweeen you and me is that you trust them, I don't.

Shuts their pie hole real fast. :asswipes:

[NNadir]

14. Early spring weather here in New Jersey. I may have to mow the grass.

I noticed it was growing nicely.

Cold rains due in this evening.