Thursday, September 14, 2006

Arctic ice shrinking fast...


...according to NASA satellite pictures. "The extent of "perennial" ice - thick ice which remains all year round - declined by 14%, losing an area the size of Pakistan or Turkey. The last few decades have seen summer ice shrink by about 0.7% per year."
The research is reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. As ice reflects heat back into space a planet with less ice gets warmer. Once more evidence of global warming from a reliable source should be making this issue a top priority. Yet the debate goes on as Global Warming Watch points out. Why do humans have such a hard time recognising the obvious when it is in conflict with their own selfish interests?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Of course, there was a consensus 30 years ago that we would be in an ice age today. Why didn't we do something to stop it? Oh, it didn't happen did it.

Is there a change in the planet's climate if we act or not? Well history has shown us that the climate varies dramatically over time, in some cases more dramatically than we have seen over the past decade!

I'm sure in the future, if we act or not, there will be a time when ice over 1km thick covers central England and pushes over the Thames in London. I'm sure there will be times when we walk and live on Antartica.


We could all revert to being nomadic in nature and billions would die, but the world would still change around us, probably very much like it is doing today.

The next 100 years will tell an interesting story. Will our worst nightmares come true, or will the world just keep going round, and life adapting to it's new and constantly changing climate?

Dave