Hi All,
I think that we all should call the Arctic Ocean melting by its rightful name: "melt-away of the North Pole Floating Sea Ice Cap" to make people understand the gravity of situation. Two events that stuck me: 1) Yesterday 22.07.2009 National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), University of Colorado, Boulder, removed the two standard deviation markers as meaningless and of no useful further reference leaving the mean annual 1979-2000 average against 2007 melting as references. One standard deviation indicates variability of a stable system to 68% of occurrences, two standard deviations incorporates occurrences to 95% of events. Usually, two standard deviations that cover 19/20 cases are the cut-off point considered a stable system. As there are, furthermore now three consequtive occurrences of the sea ice melting falling outside this limit (2007, 2008 and now 2009) there are even less reasons to believe that 1979-2000 average can be used as a reference. In other words, NSIDC admits a passage of tipping point, a move away from system prevailing 1979-2000. 2) The sea ice has had all this season very strong peripherial melting as well as some of the strongest ice has been drained out through the Fram Straight, losses have been high as sunlight and insolation on the long exposed periphery is much more efficient to mop up suns heat than holes appearing in the centre. A split has occurred from the vicinity of Peary Land to Komsomoletski Island today, it needs to be seen wheter the currents keep pulling these apart further and further. This channel was readily weakened by melting north-west of Laptev Sea, today's images suggest the front part is 'falling' to Atlantic. However, last year the re-freezing on the North Pole began on 25.07.2009 - that may re-seal, unless the melting has advanced far enough and ice thinned by previous stretchings too much. The tiny split on the last remaining section, off Peary Land, occurring today. Thank God, we have such a good satellites and data to see these things in real-time!! Kind regards, Albert _________________________________________________________________ Celebrate a decade of Messenger with free winks, emoticons, display pics, and more. http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/157562755/direct/01/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
