Arctic Melt-Off Is Ahead Of Schedule
Hundreds of scientists and government officials from around the world are meeting in Bangkok, preparing to issue a May 4 report on what steps should be taken to combat global warming. But a new study released May 1 showed that one of the group’s predictions on climate change, made in an earlier February report, may already be too conservative.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) had said that Arctic sea ice was shrinking by as much as 5.4 percent per decade. At that rate, it could disappear entirely toward the end of this century.
But new analysis from scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), both in Boulder, Colo., shows that the rate from 1953 to 2006 was more like 7.8 percent per decade. The earlier IPCC models suggested that about half the polar melting was due to global warming. The NSIDC study says greenhouse gases may play an even more significant role.
“Because of this disparity, the shrinking of summertime ice is about 30 years ahead of the [IPCC] climate model projections,” said Ted Scambos, an NSIDC scientist, in an article by the Bloomberg news service.
Source: www.cbsnews.com
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment