Climate Change Accelerating - Frightening Photo

New report confirms Arctic melt
accelerating

The Greenland ice
sheet on July 8, left, and four days later on the right. An estimated
97% of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. Photograph: Nasa

This is the most frightening picture you will ever see. The
information expressed visually here can be summed up in three words:
change or die.

These two juxtaposed images of Greenland are based on observations by satellites monitored by Nasa.
The view on the left synthesises their collective view of this
inhospitable landmass in the Arctic Circle on 8 July 2012. That on the
right shows what Greenland looked like to the same satellites on 12
July, just four days later. A huge amount of ice has melted in an
extremely unusual Arctic heatwave.




STOCKHOLM – Arctic ice is melting faster than
expected and could raise the average global sea level by as much as five
feet this century, an authoritative new report suggests.
The study by the international Arctic Monitoring and
Assessment Program, or AMAP, is one of the most comprehensive updates on
climate change in the Arctic, and builds on a similar assessment in
2005.
The full report will be delivered to foreign
ministers of the eight Arctic nations next week, but an executive
summary including the key findings was obtained by The Associated Press
on Tuesday.
It says that Arctic temperatures in the past six
years were the highest since measurements began in 1880, and that
feedback mechanisms believed to accelerate warming in the climate system
have now started kicking in.
One mechanism involves the ocean absorbing more heat
when it's not covered by ice, which reflects the sun's energy. That
effect has been anticipated by scientists "but clear evidence for it has
only been observed in the Arctic in the past five years," AMAP said.
The report also shatters some of the forecasts made
in 2007 by the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change.
The cover of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, for
example, is shrinking faster than projected by the U.N. panel. The level
of summer ice coverage has been at or near record lows every year since
2001, AMAP said, predicting that the Arctic Ocean will be nearly ice
free in summer within 30-40 years.
Its assessment also said the U.N. panel was too
conservative in estimating how much sea levels will rise — one of the
most closely watched aspects of global warming because of the
potentially catastrophic impact on coastal cities and island nations.
The melting of Arctic glaciers and ice caps,
including Greenland's massive ice sheet, are projected to help raise
global sea levels by 35 to 63 inches (90-160 centimeters) by 2100, AMAP
said, though it noted that the estimate was highly uncertain.
That's up from a 2007 projection of 7 to 23 inches
(19-59 centimeters) by the U.N. panel, which didn't consider the
dynamics of ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctica.
"The observed changes in sea ice on the Arctic Ocean,
in the mass of the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic ice caps and glaciers
over the past 10 years are dramatic and represent an obvious departure
from the long-term patterns," AMAP said in the executive summary.
The organization's main function is to advise the
nations surrounding the Arctic — the U.S., Canada, Russia, Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland — on threats to the Arctic
environment.
The findings of its report — Snow, Water, Ice and
Permafrost in the Arctic — will be discussed by some of the scientists
who helped compile it at a conference starting Wednesday in the Danish
capital, Copenhagen.
In the past few years, scientists have steadily
improved ways of measuring the loss of ice into the oceans.
In research reported in March in the journal
Geophysical Research Letters, U.S. and European scientists used two
independent methods to corroborate their findings: the on-the-ground
measurement of ice thickness and movements using GPS stations and other
tools, and the measurement of ice mass through gravity readings from
satellites.
That team, led by Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, projected that the accelerating melt of the vast
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would itself raise sea levels by
about 6 inches (15 centimeters) by 2050. Adding in other factors —
expansion of the oceans from warming and runoff from other glaciers
worldwide — would raise sea levels a total of some 13 inches (32
centimeters) by 2050, they said.
They did not project sea levels to 2100 because of
long-range uncertainties.
Currents, winds and other forces would make sea-level
rise vary globally, but Bangladesh, Florida and other such low-lying
areas and coastal cities worldwide would be hard hit.
The AMAP report said melting glaciers and ice sheets worldwide have
become the biggest contributor to sea level rise. Greenland's ice sheet
alone accounted for more than 40 percent of the 0.12 inches (3.1
millimeters) of sea-level rise observed annually between 2003 and 2008,
AMAP said.
It said the yearly mass loss from Greenland's ice sheet, which covers an
area the size of Mexico, increased from 50 gigatons in 1995-2000 to
more than 200 gigatons in 2004-2008.

Scientists are still debating how much of the changes observed in the
Arctic are due to natural variances and how much to warming caused by
the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. AMAP projected
that average fall and winter temperatures in the Arctic will climb by
5.4-10.8 F (3-6 C) by 2080, even if greenhouse gas emissions are lower
than in the past decade

Kyoto protocol simplified is an agreement to reduce greenhouse gasses. Guess who is NOT participating? WHY does that not surprise me! So I guess our government is saying the WHOLE rest of the world and all of the scientists are wrong and the corporate controlled USA is right, huh? BUT WAIT! The official webpage of the USDA agrees there is a problem. Mr. Obama, is there a problem or not?

Green and Dark Green: Participating
Grey: Undicided
Brown: NOT participating