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Antarctic glaciers slipping faster into the sea
(NewScientist.com, 23 September 04)
Antarctic glaciers are thinning and slipping ever faster into the sea, according to several new studies. Warmer air and sea temperatures are blamed, and the changes are expected to cause an appreciable rise in sea levels. . . . He found the glaciers were thinning at twice the rate they had in the 1990s, when a NASA satellite measured them. . . . The glaciers are losing about 250 cubic kilometres of ice to the ocean each year - about 60% more ice than they accumulate from snowfall. That translates to a global sea level rise of 0.2 millimetres a year - equivalent to 10% of the current rising levels. . . . So when warmer seawater erodes the bottom of these shelves, glaciers ramming into them can break them off more easily. . . . "It's like pulling a cork out of a tilted bottle - the contents start to spill out," Thomas told New Scientist. The research suggests this can set off a chain reaction of thinning that can spread like a crack for more than 1000 kilometres inland. . . . "If that deep channel goes far into the interior of the ice sheet, it's a weak link where instabilities can creep back to the heart of the ice sheet and help the ice sheet collapse," Thomas says. . . . a 3250-square-kilometre ice shelf called Larsen B collapsed in March 2002 after being weakened by temperatures that rose about five times as fast as the global average over the previous five decades. . . . A second paper by Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado, Boulder, used another satellite to find that four glaciers were flowing into the collapsed Larsen B ice shelf at rates two to six times faster in 2003 than in 2000. One glacier, called Hektoria, also thinned significantly a year after the collapse - its surface lowered by about 40 metres over six months.

posted by LoZo 12:38 PM

 

Union of Concerned Scientists Action Center
UCS is an independent nonprofit alliance of more than 100,000 concerned citizens and scientists. We augment rigorous scientific analysis with innovative thinking and committed citizen advocacy to build a cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world. . . . UCS's programs are the means by which we accomplish this. They are the pressure points translating vision into action. Through them, we connect the best scientific insights with the knowledge and support of an astute citizenry and apply them to the machinery of government at all levels—with results that have set a standard for effective advocacy for decades. . . . UCS was founded in 1969 by faculty members and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who were concerned about the misuse of science and technology in society. Their statement called for the redirection of scientific research to pressing environmental and social problems. . . . From that beginning, UCS has become a powerful voice for change.

[Click the link above to quickly and easily let your elected representatives know what your position is on environmental issues.]

posted by LoZo 1:48 PM

 

You might want to pay attention to this
To meet projected demand in 2015, the industry will have to add about 100 million oil-equivalent barrels a day of new production. That's equal to about 80 percent of today's production level. In other words, by 2015, we will need to find, develop and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to 8 out of every 10 barrels being produced today. In addition, the cost associated with providing this additional oil and gas is expected to be considerably more than what industry is now spending.
-- Jon Thompson, The Lamp Vol. 85, No. 1 (this is a quarterly journal published by ExxonMobil for its shareholders)

posted by LoZo 11:20 AM

 

Dry/Ice: Global Warming Revealed
by Drunvalo Melchizedek
Global warming has been in the news for over 40 years, and by this time we have become complacent. Our scientists have come to the agreement that global warming will eventually cause major changes and problems in the world, but in their way of thinking it will be 50 to 100 years before we will actually have to deal with the effects. . . . The general idea is that global warming will be slow and the world will find time to discover the solutions to the problems. . . . New powerful evidence strongly suggests that this scenario is simply wrong, and we had better prepare for another more abrupt possibility. . . . One of the first hints that something may be different than what we are being told (especially here in the US) was published in Discover magazine in September 2002 with the cover announcing "Global Warming Surprise, A New Ice Age", Oceanographers have discovered a huge river of fresh water in the Atlantic formed by melting polar ice. They warn it could soon bury the Gulf Stream, plunging North America and Europe into frigid winters. . . . That was almost two years ago, and no one listened. Life goes on oblivious to the incredible danger approaching. . . . Then in January 2004 enter Sir David King. Sir King is the Prime Minister of England’s chief scientist. Sir King went to Mr. Blair and told him of the impending worldwide disaster and that they needed to tell the world of what was about to happen. . . . Tony Blair told Sir David King to be quiet and not speak. But Sir King felt that this was simply too important for him to say nothing, so in January of this year he deliberately went around Mr. Blair and went straight to the American journal Science where he published his information and concern. . . . Sir King said in this article, "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism." . . . England placed a gag order on Sir David King, and now he is not even allowed to discuss this subject publicly without threat of detention. . . . A month later in February 2004, the Pentagon became involved, which has stirred the world to action. . . . A special study was conducted through one of the Pentagon’s departments, the Office of Net Assessment, which is directed by Andrew W. Marshall, 83, who has the responsibility of identifying long-term threats to the United States. . . . Mr. Marshall went to a US based think-tank called Global Business Network to compile the possibilities of Global Warming on US national security. A study was completed in October of 2003 and released to the Pentagon, which was looking at this problem from the point of view of what is the worst that could happen. It was named "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security." The summary went far beyond what most Pentagon experts had expected. . . . Realizing the incredible possibilities of this study, Mr. Marshall made a decision to publicly report this and other information to the American people. And probably because of President Bush's stance on Global Warming, which is beyond negative, he also decided to go around the president, and he published his information and concern in Fortune magazine on February 9th 2004. [Also see: What if the Pentagon is Right?] . . . In his article in Fortune, Mr. Marshall explains how the melting North and South poles and glaciers from around the world are composed of fresh water and within this fact is the basis of the impending global weather disaster. . . . Now that the poles are melting and fresh water is flowing into the Atlantic Ocean and the salt density is decreasing, the Gulf Stream does not drop quiet as far, which results in a slowing down of this Stream. The Gulf Stream has been dramatically slowing down now for at least ten years. . . . As the Gulf Stream slows down, the warmth is not brought to the North Atlantic region, and the weather patterns begin to change for they are dependent on this warmth to keep a balance. . . . Let's look at the facts. Two summers ago the North Pole completely melted for the first time in history that we know of. Both private and military ships floated directly over the actual North Pole as it was completely water. This area has never been seen to be less then ten feet of solid ice. . . . Greenpeace a few years ago announced that the North Pole’s winter to summer snow pack had receded by around three hundred miles, but no one listened. . . . In the South Pole a couple of years ago Larsen A ledge broke off, which surprised many scientists. At that time we were told by the scientific personnel that were studying this event that it was no big deal since this ice ledge had only been connected to the South Pole for about the last ten thousand years. . . . And these same scientists also added that Larsen B ledge that was behind Larsen A ledge would never melt as it has been there for many ice ages. Yet last year, Larsen’s B ledge broke off and went to sea. These same scientists said that it would take six months to melt because of its immense size, but again they were wrong. It melted in a mere 35 days, and more significant, it rose the entire world's oceans by almost an inch. . . . If Ross's Shelf were to slide into the ocean, it has been estimated that it would raise the entire world's oceans by sixteen to twenty feet. And that, my friends, would change the world, as almost every coastal city in the world and many islands along with the county of Holland would be underwater. Perhaps it will take an event like this to wake up the world to become serious about Global Warming. . . . What the Pentagon has realized is that at that time of the "Little Ice Age", the East Coast of America became extremely cold, while the middle and Western areas of the United States became so dry that the Midwest became a dust bowl and the mountain forests burned to the ground, just as they are doing right now today, for you see, this slowing down of the Gulf Stream has been going on today for about ten years. It also affected Europe dramatically as their weather changed completely during the "Little Ice Age". . . . We may think that this current drought in the US West is going to stop soon, but the earth's history with the Gulf Stream suggests strongly that it will continue for about another 40 years before it begin to regain balance. . . . However, the Pentagon report believes that the Gulf Stream, from everything they know, is not just going to slow down, but rather it is going to stop. And the last time this happened was 8200 years ago. . . . And according to the Pentagon, from their research, this is a much more dramatic scenario. When the Gulf Stream stopped 8200 years ago, it soon left Northern Europe under a half mile of ice, and New York and England quickly endured weather similar to Siberia. . . . According to Andrew Marshall, like Sir David King, he says that this Gulf Stream problem is a greater threat to US national security (and other countries') than all of the world's combined terrorism. Really, when you think about it, terrorism is nothing compared to the stopping of the Gulf Stream. It's not even close. . . . Realize that without stable weather conditions, the growing of food becomes almost impossible, and according to the Pentagon, this could become such a huge problem for the world in the near future, that wars will begin to form all over the world, not for oil or energy, but for food and water. . . . And with whole countries having to evacuate, if this were to happen, such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark, which will be under ice, and many other countries for other reasons, this enormous immigration is what will cause the most threat to national security, again according to the Pentagon report. . . . This is why Andrew Marshall and Sir David King wanted the world to know about what was coming so that the world could begin to prepare for the inevitable. . . . In the Pentagon report it suggests that the United States build a 40-foot wall around the entire country to keep out people who are immigrating and trying to escape world weather problems. The Pentagon believes that food and water will be the biggest problem, and since the US has the money to buy food, they believe we will be best able to resist this particular problem longer than most countries. People will want to come here just to get food. . . . This sounds like something out of a weird movie, but in fact the US government has already begun the construction of this wall between the US and Mexico.

posted by LoZo 1:21 PM