Survey: Arctic Ice Thinner Than Thought, Melting Fast

The results of a new Arctic survey shows that North Pole ice is melting faster than previously projected and scientists at Cambridge University predict the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free during the summer within the next ten years. The findings are expected to add to the debate at the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

Earlier this year, British explorer Pen Hadow and his team trekked for three months across the frozen Arctic Ocean, taking measurements and recording observations about the ice.

“We’d been led to believe that we would encounter a good proportion, of this older, thicker, technically multi-year ice that’s been around for a few years and just gets thicker and thicker,” he said. “We actually found there wasn’t any multi-year ice at all.”

Satellite observation and submarine surveys over the past few years had shown less ice in the polar region, but the recent measurements show the loss is more pronounced than previously thought.

“We’re looking at 80 percent roughly loss of ice cover on the Arctic Ocean in 10 years, and 100 percent loss in nearer 20 years,” said Hadow.

Cambridge scientist Peter Wadhams, who’s been measuring and monitoring the Arctic since 1971 says the decline is irreversible.

“The more you lose, the more open water is created, the more warming goes on in that open water during the summer, the less ice forms in the winter, the more melt there is the following summer,” he said. “It becomes a breakdown process where everything ends up accelerating until it’s all gone.”
 
Martin Sommerkorn runs the Arctic program for the environmental charity the World Wildlife Fund.

“The Arctic sea ice holds a central position in the Earth’s climate system and it’s deteriorating faster than expected,” he said. “Actually directly has to translate into more urgency to deal with the climate change problem and reduce emissions.”

Summerkorn says a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming needs to come out of the Copenhagen Climate change summit in December.

“We have to basically achieve there the commitment to deal with the problem now,” he said. “That’s the minimum. We have to do that equitably and we have to find a commitment that is quick.”  

Wadhams echoes the need for urgency.

“The carbon that we’ve put into the atmosphere keeps having a warming effect for 100 years, so we have to cut back rapidly now, because it will take a long time, there’s a flywheel effect, it will take a long time to work its way through into a response by the atmosphere. We can’t switch off global warming by being good in the future, we have to start being good now,” he said.

Wadhams says there is no easy techno-fix to climate change. He and other scientists say there are basically two options to replacing fossil fuels, generate energy with renewables, or embrace nuclear power.

Source: VOA

NASA Debuts Unique Movie on a Sphere About Frozen Earth

WASHINGTON — NASA has created a unique “spherical” movie about Earth’s changing ice and snow cover as captured by NASA spacecraft. “Frozen,” a 12-minute, narrated film, premieres at science centers and museums March 27.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., produced the film for the “Science on a Sphere” projection system, a fully spherical video technology developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The six-foot spheres are installed in more than 30 locations around the world.

Ice covers about 20 percent of the Earth’s surface and plays a major role in the world’s climate. NASA operates a sophisticated fleet of spacecraft that make global measurements of ice and snow in remote and treacherous locations not easily accessible to scientists on the ground. Data from these NASA satellites play a critical role in climate change research.

“Frozen” probes all parts of Earth where water exists in solid form as snow or ice, known as the cryosphere. The movie takes viewers from the everyday experience of sensing heat and cold to a discussion of how satellites “see” heat and cold with advanced sensors. It then projects dramatic displays of satellite data of Earth, including changing Arctic sea ice and global snow cover, onto the sphere. Images generated by NASA’s Aqua satellite and the Landsat series are featured in “Frozen.”

“With ‘Frozen,’ we’re not only breaking new ground in terms of spherical filmmaking but also transforming an otherwise technical subject into a powerful and poetic drama about the state of Earth,” said Goddard’s Michael Starobin, one of the film’s producers.

Science on a Sphere uses a six-foot diameter carbon fiber sphere that hangs in a dark theater surrounded by four projectors. A computer system drives video content for the projectors to create a seamless image around the sphere.

“Science on a Sphere is a powerful and exciting new medium for telling all sorts of stories,” said Starobin, who also produced and directed “Footprints,” NASA’s first movie for the system in 2006. “Footprints” explored the origin of hurricanes, the origin of gamma ray bursts and the human imperative to ask hard questions. NASA installed its first sphere at Goddard in 2006.

NOAA originally conceived Science on a Sphere to help illustrate Earth science principles by showing planet-wide data. Museums and universities have created hundreds of data visualizations for the platform since it first debuted in NOAA facilities, providing educational opportunities for millions of visitors. However, very few fully produced, narrated movies have been developed for the system.

“Frozen” marks the next step in the evolution of spherical filmmaking,” Starobin said. “It moves the technology of the craft to new levels and, more importantly, tackles a single subject and uses the unique shape of the screen to discuss that subject in new ways. For example, where a flat screen only provides a sense of the remote, obscure scale of polar regions, a spherical presentation shows just how vast these places are. It highlights global processes in an orientation that matches reality.”

For more information about “Frozen,” including a list of locations showing the film, visit:

 http://www.nasa.gov/frozen

For more information about the first NASA Science on a Sphere movie, “Footprints,” visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/exhibits/footprints.html

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/

Contacts:

Stephen Cole
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov
 
Sarah DeWitt
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0535
sarah.dewitt@nasa.gov