Weathers cloudy this afternoon, but earlier today during lunch break, sat outside in the sunshine - reading. Was so nice.
Visiting with coworkers was fun also. Missed seeing all thier faces.
Late clicks for the rest of the workweek...
Perennial Arctic Ice Cover Diminishing, Officials Say
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 19, 2008; A03
The amount of long-lasting sea ice in the Arctic -- thick enough to survive for as much as a decade -- declined sharply in the past year, even though the region had a cold winter and the thinner one-year ice cover grew substantially, federal officials said yesterday.
Using new data from NASA's ICESat satellite, researchers over the past year detected the steepest yearly decline in "perennial" ice on record. As a result of melting and the southward movement of the thicker ice, the percentage of the Arctic Ocean with this stable ice cover has decreased from more than 50 percent in the mid-1980s to less than 30 percent as of last month.
"Because we had a cold winter, the public might think things have gotten better," said Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "In fact, the loss of the perennial ice makes clear that they're not getting better at all."
The surprising drop in perennial ice makes the fast-changing region more unstable, because the thinner seasonal ice melts readily in summer.
The Arctic lost an unprecedented amount of ice during last summer's unusual warmth, and Meier said conditions are right for a similarly large melt if the temperatures are at all above normal this year. The area of thick Arctic ice lost over the past two decades equals 1 1/2 times the size of Alaska.
While normal weather variation plays a role in yearly ice fluctuations, officials said the dramatic decline in perennial ice -- which can range from 6 feet thick to more than 15 feet thick -- appears to be consistent with the effects of global warming.
Officials said the loss of long-lasting ice was less the result of warming of the atmosphere than of a long-term rise in ocean temperatures and the effects of the "Arctic oscillation," a variable wind pattern that can either keep icebergs in the Arctic (when the wind pattern is "negative") or push them south (when it is "positive"). Climate experts believe that both the rising water temperature and increasingly frequent "positive" oscillations are a function of global warming.
Josefino Comiso of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the lead author of a related 2007 study, said Arctic Ocean temperatures appear to be rising quickly because less of the water is covered by ice, which reflects sunlight and keeps water temperatures lower. After last summer's very warm weather, the amount of ice cover shrank dramatically, and the water became warmer.
He said climate experts have concluded that the Arctic oscillation, which is a natural climate phenomenon, is also being modified by global warming. The dynamics are not yet understood, but it appears that higher temperatures in the tropics and elsewhere make it more likely that the oscillation will push icebergs down past Greenland and into the Atlantic.
Arctic sea ice always grows and shrinks, ranging from an average minimum in September of 2.5 million square miles to an average winter maximum in March of 5.9 million square miles. Instruments on NASA's Aqua satellite, as well as Defense Department satellites, showed that the maximum sea ice extent in March increased by 3.9 percent over that of the previous three years because of the winter.
Nonetheless, the total ice coverage was still 2.2 percent below the long-term average. And the very old ice, which remains in the Arctic for at least six years, made up more than 20 percent of the Arctic in the mid- to late 1980s, but by this winter it had decreased to 6 percent.
Flying over the Arctic, one might perceive the sea ice cover as broad, Meier said, but that apparent breadth hides the fact that the ice is so thin. "It's a facade, like a Hollywood set," he said. "There's no building behind it."
While the Arctic sea ice is changing fast, the same is not true in Antarctica. Comiso said the amount of ice surrounding the continent is little changed over recent decades, although some ice loss has been occurring around the continent's peninsula and on some glaciers. Antarctica is significantly less tied to the world's weather patterns and is considered to be less subject to the effects of global warming so far.
The report drew concern from Rafe Pomerance, president of the environmental group Clean Air-Cool Planet.
"This is another startling and serious indicator of massive changes in the Arctic due to climate change," he said in a statement. "It is one more reminder that we must address the global warming with a level of commitment and resources equal to the problem."
With the behavior of Arctic sea ice becoming an increasingly important issue, NASA is planning to launch a follow-on satellite mission, ICESat II, in 2015.
The earth is getting crowded. I think all the trees we are saving will eventually wind up being in the backyard of people.
Happy First Official Day of Spring !!
Snow just in time for the first day of spring!
Easter Bunny will need boots and a sleigh. :wink:
Pretty. Takes a lot of patience and a steady hand.
Found these on the Easter Market near Freyung.
You and your 300 friends have supported 2,874,489.6 square feet!
~~~
What lovely eggs! I've never seen anything like that.
The Ukrainian painted eggs are quite common here. There's even a giant statue of one out on the Prairies.
~~~
Oddly enough, care2 tells me that today is also Alien Abduction Day.
Hmmmmmmmm
sue, quite amazing really the micro world - and i'll probably never look at a pineapple in quite the same way again.
Research has shown and proven that wolves left to thier own devices flourish. Cattleman have a real problem with wolves, bison, and any animal that shares grazing land with domestic cattle and sheep - on Federal lands no less, where the 'rent' is minimul and the cost to wildlife, devastating. Wild horses went the same way as the American Indian - pushed to barren and forbidding lands where water and food was scarce.
The administration has no business manageing anything.
Tis the first day of Spring, yep - it is!
I luv those eggs, ul!
Care2 has a real pulse on the workings of the rainforest thread - it seems.
What a georgous day! Blooms, sunshine ~
SPRING
Beautiful photo, Stradee. Spring chores coming along and enjoyable to do them even.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/19/AR2008031903859.html?wpisrc=newsletter
"World consumption of coal has grown 30 percent in the past six years, twice as much as any other energy source. About two-thirds of the fuel supplies electricity plants, and just under a third heads to industrial users, mostly steel and concrete makers."
The US has become a major exporter of coal, helping in driving up the price, and in lowering trade deficit.
Yes, and because of our diversity and our expansion of technology during the last century - according to the national news this morning - I have realized that the USA has almost a monoply of coal. This disturbes me, because with all the advertisements about hybred cars - there is one thing we must consider - the electricity to refuel the batterys. That is made from carbon dispensing things like - COAL for instance. People are so gullable.
The gas industry is still manipulating us.
And, our pollution is still increasing. Maybe at a decreasing rate, but, still increasing.
How dumb can we be.??
Totally, totally ignorant; as long as it doesn't become a national dialog, as Obama has made race. But standard politicans and large corporations don't want to discuss the facts out in the public domain, they want to make real-world decisions in privacy.
PLANT SCIENCE: At Root of the Matter
Laura M. Zahn
Many plant roots establish a symbiotic relationship with either bacteria or fungi in order to gain access to nutrients, such as fixed nitrogen or phosphate, respectively. Markmann et al. and Gherbi et al. have investigated the evolution of symbiotic relationships between plants and their symbionts and suggest that, on the basis of its nearly universal presence, a single signal transduction component, the leucine-rich-repeat, receptor-like kinase SYMRK, is essential for a host of angiosperms. Genetic knockdown in a member of the cucumber family (Datisca glomerata, a close legume relative) and in the tree Casuarina glauca showed that this protein was essential for bacterial nodulation; furthermore, it also affected fungal symbiosis. Additional investigation revealed that the protein is highly conserved in its ability to mediate these interactions and that this protein does not mediate the exclusive host/symbiont interactions found among species. In addition, three structural SYMRK versions exist among plants with different functional capabilities in the development of root/symbiont interactions, providing an evolutionary hypothesis for the origin of the highly derived nodules in legumes and their close relatives. -- LMZ
PLoS Biol. 6, e68; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 10.1073/pnas.0710618105 (2008).
You and your 300 friends have supported 2,874,653.4 square feet!
~~~
Dibs on a new thread - anyone?
3/21
Purim
Newroz (Iran)
Holi (India)
Tsechus ( Bhutan)
Birthday of a nice person
and the beginning of Easter.
Lots to celebrate.
Viva Spring!
