Arctic ice breaks up due to global warming

[Stonehenge]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0924-06.htm

 Climate Change Blamed as Largest Arctic Ice Shelf Breaks in Two After 3,000 Years
by Michael McCarthy
 

The largest ice shelf in the Arctic, a solid feature for at least 3,000 years, has broken in two and climate change is to blame, say American and Canadian scientists.

The Ward Hunt ice shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada, has split down the middle, and a freshwater lake held behind it has drained away, the researchers say.

Reporting in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists say the fracture, which had been developing since 2000, was further evidence of continuing and accelerating climate change in the north polar region.

Much evidence suggests that the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean is rapidly thinning and retreating

[Syd]

I've read in the Arctic as within Antarctica, the ice breaking off or melting won't raise sea levels as it is already in the oceans. It is the glaciers we will have to worry about. The ice block the glaciers, rather, makes them move slower. Without these 'ice blocks' the glaciers will bring rise to our great oceans.

[Stonehenge]

The glaciers too are rapidly retreating. By one estimate, in 20 years they may all be gone. Sea levels will rise, water shortages will get worse and famine will be upon the land.

[Syd]

Kind of like Africa now.

[Stonehenge]

Yeah, much of the world may end up looking like Africa, particularly like the saharan region. There is still debate about man's role in this and what should be done but there is little doubt that it is happening. Speaking of glaciers, here is an interesting article

http://planet.wwu.edu/articles/dry-ice.html

Glacier National Park is on the verge of losing its heritage. By the year 2030 scientists predict all glaciers that remain in the park will be gone; victims of a changing global climate.

The implications of this retreat are far reaching both ecologically and for recreation.

The glaciers expand and recede, carving the landscape around them. As if painted by hand,the jagged peaks and bands of rock fold and curve creating a landscape unlike any other.

Nearly 3 million people visit this park every summer, which is located about eight hours from Seattle in Northwestern Montana.

In 1850 an estimated 150 glaciers existed inside the park, according the United States Geologic Survey (USGS). Today, that number has dwindled to less than 27. Between 1850 and 1979, nearly 73 percent of the ice melted. The glaciers that remain are steadily declining in size, and are but small puddles of their former glory.

[Stonehenge]

Now it seems our crop yields are being harmed by GW

link

Scientists Find Global Warming Hurts Crops
By Frank Ling
Washington
30 June 2006
   

Scientists have found that global warming could decrease crop yields, not increase them as once thought. VOA's Frank Ling reports that this finding suggests future crop estimates may have to be lowered.

Cornfield
If there is any good to come from global warming, it is the notion that plants would thrive on the rising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the leading greenhouse gas that helps trap heat. Carbon dioxide is as vital to plant breathing as oxygen is to us. Biologists say that for most vegetation, the more carbon dioxide there is in the air, the more they grow.

At the same time, they point out that extra CO-2 also hurts plants. They say plant growth is slowed by higher temperatures and lower soil moisture caused by faster evaporation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on global warming, has concluded that these two trends balance each other, so global warming was not expected to hurt agriculture overall.

U.S. government and university experiments carried out in greenhouses have supported this view.

"What they do is put one kind of plant in two different greenhouses that are right next to each other and then they put higher CO-2 levels in one of the greenhouses and have regular atmospheric level of CO-2 in the other greenhouse," said Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, a pro-business group that opposes government efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

He says more carbon dioxide is good for farming.

"The results of these studies going back half a century or more are stunning because almost every single study show not only do all kinds of plants grow more quickly with higher levels of CO-2, but they are also much hardier," he said. "They are more resistant to things like drought."

But a new study shows differently when crops are grown outdoors. University of Illinois agriculture expert Stephen Long and colleagues report in the journal "Science" that the benefits of raised CO-2 levels in global warming do not balance the harmful effects.

"The two things were very roughly thought to counteract each other," he said. :However, the CO-2 fertilization until recently has been studied only in greenhouses and other enclosed environments. If you raise the CO-2 level under fully open conditions, do you see this large fertilization of crop yield? Roughly what we found was that under open air conditions, that increase appears only to be half of what was expected."