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19sq mile ice shelf adrift in Arctic

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Published Date: 04 September 2008
AN ICE shelf measuring 19 square miles in Canada's northern Arctic has broken away from Ellesmere Island, surprising scientists who say the floating ice shelf is another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier.
Dr Derek Mueller, of Trent University in Ontario, said the Markham Ice Shelf separated last month and is now drifting into the Arctic Ocean.

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  • Last Updated: 03 September 2008 10:24 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Climate change
 
1

truthsleuth,

04/09/2008 00:09:08
No doubt this is just another piece of 'evidence' the deniers will claim as circumstantial
2

Guga II,

Rockall 04/09/2008 01:22:16
No doubt this is just another piece of evidence the doom and gloom merchants will claim as proof positive.
3

Prester John,

Pots_n_Pans 04/09/2008 06:50:59
As I've posted before, this is largely cyclical with concerns raised about the ice disappearing having been raised in the past - only for the ice to reappear and thicken.

Suggested reading :
Monthly Weather Review : November 27, 1933
New York Times : February 20, 1969
Washington Post : November 2, 1922

Most people are unaware that systematic recording of Arctic ice only began in 1979.
4

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/09/2008 09:38:14
"These substantial calving events underscore the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario.

"These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present,"

see:
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/38081

"Ellesmere Island was once home to a single enormous ice shelf of around 9000 square km. All that is left of that shelf today are the four much smaller shelves that together cover only about 800 square km.

Scientists say the ice shelves, which contain unique ecosystems that had yet to be studied, will not be replaced because they took so long to form."

see:
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14656-massive-canadian-arctic-ice-shelf-breaks-away.html

The ice shelves were made of old ice. This is not a cyclical event.
5

Resolutions,

04/09/2008 11:08:54
Well done Slioch lots of great links. Recording may have started in 1979, but the ice itself has done a pretty good job of recording its history over time.

And of course, its effects are writ large upon landscapes world-wide.

Wonder where how armchair wonders suggest the water from the melting ice goes and what effect it is likely to have fairly quickly?
6

Prester John,

Pots_n_Pans 04/09/2008 11:45:06
Floating sea ice has absolutely no impact upon sea levels were it to melt. Ice displaces the sea water anyway and, as it melts, reduces by volume (water increases in volume as it freezes). Result = no change in sea level in either short or long term.

As for the comment about the ice being old, that is sophistry (the implication being that all of the ice is more or less of the same age). Throughout the history of the Arctic the ice has grown and shrunk back as the articles I quoted show only too well. However, there are areas of older ice which have been more enduring. As I mentioned once before the tour guides in Churchill have been quoted as saying that local experience is of cyclical growth and melting of sea ice and that goes back to the original European settlers.

7

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/09/2008 12:09:50
#6 Prester John

No one has made any mention of sea levels, prior to yourself.

"the implication being that all of the ice is more or less of the same age". There is no such implication. I would have thought that anyone could work out the real implication from the statement "old ice is melting" is that it hasn't melted before for a long time, and that therefore what is happening at present is unprecedented in that length of time. Which is contrary to the impression you were trying to give from the press articles you referred to. Incidentally, those article, considering when they were published, are quite sensible. They comment with concern upon changes in ice coverage during the twentieth century: changes that are dwarfed by what is occurring now.
8

SouthernSkye,

04/09/2008 13:39:59
The end of previous Ice Ages has lead to re-forrestation of the previously ice covered areas. This, along with the other plant life that would grow on the "uncovered" areas would lead to a reduction of CO2 over time...wouldn't it?
9

Prester John,

Pots_n_Pans 04/09/2008 14:00:14
Slioch

How else due we construe :
#5 "Wonder where how armchair wonders suggest the water from the melting ice goes and what effect it is likely to have fairly quickly?"

As for the changes then compared to now, it is not possible to say definitively that changes now are of a greater magnitude than then. There are no comparative areal measurements but the anecdotal evidence from peoples of the area suggest that previous meltbacks have been of the same order of magnitude.

What is certain that 'facts are chiels that winna ding.' With more accurate satellite data it will no longer be possible to make inaccurate claims either for ice cap measurements or for global temperatures which, as you know all too well, show no increase since 1998 and an overall decrease since then.

10

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/09/2008 14:13:28
#8 SouthernSkye, asked

"re-forrestation of the previously ice covered areas ... , along with the other plant life that would grow on the "uncovered" areas would lead to a reduction of CO2 over time...wouldn't it?

You might reasonably think so, but in fact CO2 levels ROSE at the end of the last glaciation, as shown by ice cores, eg Vostok, here:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/xVostokCO2.htm

(Look at the extreme left end of the upper graph)

It is rising temperatures that provide the strongest correlation, probably mainly due to warming oceans, but also drying wetlands. Regrowth of high latitude forests would certainly absorb some CO2, but nowhere near enough to overwhelm the other factors.http://www.aip.org/history/climate/xVostokCO2.htm
11

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/09/2008 14:31:47
#10 Prester John: "How else due we construe :
#5 "Wonder where how armchair wonders suggest the water from the melting ice goes and what effect it is likely to have fairly quickly?""

Ice shelves derived originally from land will be mainly fresh water rather than sea ice (I don't know what the proportion is in these ice shelves). Release of large quantities of fresh water into the Arctic regions, by making the surface waters less dense, is likely to slow the thermo-haline conveyor system which in turn drives the Gulf-stream. Thus, any impact is likely to be along those lines.

Incidentally, although ice shelves that are themselves floating obviously have no impact on sea levels when they melt, it is the case that following such melting it has been observed in West Antarctica that the land
based ice in the hinterland flows more rapidly to the sea, which obviously would impact on sea levels. I don't think this is happening at Ellsemere Island however. Yet.

Para: 2. When ice that is several thousand years old melts you know that you are seeing melting that has not been exceeded for several thousand years. As Resolutions said earlier, "the ice itself has done a pretty good job of recording its history over time."

Para. 3 That old canard has been answered more times than I care to remember.
12

Prester John,

Pots_n_Pans 04/09/2008 15:36:27
Canard = lie

What is the lie ?

Do satellite data show the trend I described ?

Will better data allow us to determine accurately and more fully what is happening ?

The answer to both is an unequivocal affirmative. No canard there I'm afraid.
13

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/09/2008 16:33:13
#13 Prester John

A canard is a false rumour or argument (not necessarily a lie - there is a difference). I've just answered a similar one here (for the umpteenth time):

http://news.scotsman.com/climatechange/Geography-exams-turn--green.4456561.jp#3198572
14

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 04/09/2008 17:42:58
Jeez!

All this fuss over a bit of ice.

#14:

"A canard is a false rumour or argument"

No it's not. A canard is French for a duck... And very tasty it is too.

You seem to be very immersed in your macro-science. Ever heard of not being able to see the wood for the trees?
15

Resolutions,

04/09/2008 18:20:57
Thanks Slioch was not able to get back before now.
Of course Prester John is determined that satellites hold the answer - well they do make a contribution I suppose.

Perhaps the ocean currents conveyor could explain why the deep lows coming in are tracking farther south just now? And of course, the change in salinity also affects the plankton which in turn affects the animals and plants further up the food chain and that is further disrupted by the fertiisers washing into the seas etc.

What most seem unable to accept that this is a trend over a longer period of time, not from day to day, or even year to year, but that all readings indications are that it is speeding up at the moment

16

Lord of All Mordor,

By The Beautiful Nokia River 04/09/2008 19:44:26
I suspect Slioch is one of several pseudonyms used by the one author. There are several people who post on these threads. All use the same syntax.
17

Resolutions,

04/09/2008 22:55:06
LOrd - probably is one of several names, but on this thread is actually taking a fairly wide view.

Prester John - by taking ice cores (a bit like a core into a tree trunk) it is pssible to determine ice history over a very long time, particularly if cores from wide ranging areas show similar patterns. In this way ice 'records' its history for us. From this 'Little Ice Ages' and the opposite can be determined.

Oh and why is Greenland called Greenland when it is covered by ice? And why did the Vikings dub America Vignland?
18

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 05/09/2008 08:22:03
#17 Lord of All Mordor commented,

"I suspect Slioch is one of several pseudonyms used by the one author"

No, I only post under the name Slioch, except a)initially a few times in a new (for me) forum when I'd forgotten to register under Slioch and used my own real name - that doesn't happen any more, and b) in the Guardian, where I use Aslioch, because I forgot my password (or something went wrong) and it wouldn't allow me to register again under Slioch because the name already existed!!

Any way, thanks for the compliment.
19

Spanners,

07/09/2008 08:34:39
The shrill desperate climate scientists looking for continued funding need as many "dramatic events" as possible to show the exception (the odd warm event) proves the rule. It's a shame they weren't so shrill about China being half covered in snow and Bagdad and Boneus Aries seeing their first snows and Earth having the coldest winter for nearly 100 years.

So now the shrill Socialists are into the Arctic. That'll be because they were all down in the Antarctic before which hasn't warmed at all, but has been static for 50 years of unchanged temperature. They, and their media crews, were planted on the Western edge, 2% of the Antartic surface that protrudes into warm ocean currents and melts.

The other 98% of Antarctica which hasn't warmed in 50 years had no shrill scientists and strangely no TV crews? It doesn't make a great scare story or great TV watching 98% of the ice doing sod all does it?

In fact the entire Southern Hemisphere of Earth hasn't warmed at all in the past 100 years. The Northern hemisphere has warmed, by about 0.2 to 0.5 Degrees (get your micrscopes out) in 100 years. It must be why if you're a shrill scientist, desperate for research funding, you've moved North now!!

If you want to stop global warming the answers simple. Cut off the funding to these big mouths with nothing to say.
20

Resolutions,

09/09/2008 12:34:53
#20 The largest 'calving' of the Ross Ice Shelf EVER took place this year so how do you explain your assertions?

Re Arctic Have you visited the Arctic? Have you spoken to any of the meteorologists based there to provide forecasts for all of us? Have you spoken to scientists there doing work far beyond your comprehension apparently? You seem to tink tv crews are the only thing. Sorry you are very, very wrong.
21

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 11/09/2008 08:45:24
#19 Spanners claims "yhe entire Southern Hemisphere of Earth hasn't warmed at all in the past 100 years."

Utter nonsense. The mean southern hemisphere temperatures over that period are:

1907 = -0.31C below the average for 1951-1980.

2007 = +0.44C above the average for 1951-1980.

Ie. taking those two years the SH has warmed 0.75C.

See:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/SH.Ts.txt

 

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