Thinning Arctic sea ice lets in light, prompts algae bloom - study

[webfact]

Thinning Arctic sea ice lets in light, prompts algae bloom - study

By Alister Doyle

REUTERS

 

A polar bear sow and two cubs are seen on the Beaufort Sea coast within the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Image Library on December 21, 2005. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Handout via REUTERS/Files

 

OSLO (Reuters) - Climate change is stirring life in the Arctic Ocean as thinning sea ice lets in more sunlight, allowing microscopic algae to bloom in the inhospitable region around the North Pole, scientists said on Wednesday.

 

The micro-algae may now be able to grow under the ice across almost 30 percent of the Arctic Ocean at the peak of the brief summer in July, up from about five percent 30 years ago, they wrote. Blooms may become even more widespread.

 

"Recent climate change may have markedly altered the ecology of the Arctic Ocean," wrote scientists in the United States and Britain led by Christopher Horvat of Harvard University.

 

The first massive under-ice bloom of algae was seen in 2011 in the Chukchi Sea north of the Bering Strait separating Alaska and Russia, a region until then thought too dark for photosynthesis.

 

The scientists, writing in the open-access journal Science Advances, based their estimates on mathematical models of the thinning ice and ponds of melt water on the ice surface that help ever more sunlight penetrate into the frigid waters below.

 

The average thickness of Arctic sea ice fell to 1.89 metres (6.2 ft) in 2008 from 3.64 meters in 1980, according to another study. Sub-ice algae seem to become dormant in winter, when the sun disappears for months, and are revived in spring.

 

Horvat told Reuters it was unclear how the growth might have knock-on effects on the Arctic food chain, perhaps drawing more fish northwards. "Very few of these blooms have been observed," he wrote in an e-mail.

 

The new light adds to uncertainties about the economic future of the region that is warming at about double the average rate for the Earth as a whole. Almost all governments blame this trend mainly on a build-up of man-made greenhouse gases.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump, however, has sometimes called man-made warming a hoax and signed an order on Tuesday to undo climate change regulations issued by former President Barack Obama.

 

Governments of nations around the Arctic Ocean, including the United States, have been working on rules for managing potential future fish stocks in the central Arctic Ocean as the ice shrinks and thins. They last met in mid-March in Iceland.

 

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-03-30

[pkspeaker]

Oh no! The sea ice is melting, get ready for some serious flooding due to rising sea levels.. And Bangkok is sinking, get ready to get around the city in boats, the venice of the east is back!

 

http://notrickszone.com/2017/02/06/35-scientific-papers-global-sea-levels-were-1-2-meters-higher-than-now-for-most-of-the-last-7000-years/#sthash.tDNOku2e.dpbs
 
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

 

http://notrickszone.com/2016/12/15/scientists-greenland-is-now-much-colder-with-more-advanced-ice-sheet-margins-than-90-of-the-last-7500-years/#sthash.Prr6kAwJ.oZ3nhxvN.dpbs

 

[craigt3365]

35 minutes ago, pkspeaker said:

Oh no! The sea ice is melting, get ready for some serious flooding due to rising sea levels.. And Bangkok is sinking, get ready to get around the city in boats, the venice of the east is back!

 

http://notrickszone.com/2017/02/06/35-scientific-papers-global-sea-levels-were-1-2-meters-higher-than-now-for-most-of-the-last-7000-years/#sthash.tDNOku2e.dpbs
 
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

 

http://notrickszone.com/2016/12/15/scientists-greenland-is-now-much-colder-with-more-advanced-ice-sheet-margins-than-90-of-the-last-7500-years/#sthash.Prr6kAwJ.oZ3nhxvN.dpbs

 

From your NASA article:

Quote

But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years -- I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”

 

[pkspeaker]

but then it says..."“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”

 

But that other contribution to sea level rise is not Greenland either, according to the DMI:

http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/ 

 

so.. where could it possibly be coming from?  Could it be that it doesn't really exist?

 

 

yep, another week, another article in the mainstream media about 'Ice Melting'

[charmonman]

4 hours ago, pkspeaker said:

but then it says..."“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”

 

But that other contribution to sea level rise is not Greenland either, according to the DMI:

http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/ 

 

so.. where could it possibly be coming from?  Could it be that it doesn't really exist?

 

 

yep, another week, another article in the mainstream media about 'Ice Melting'

As opposed to what? Whatever random website you choose to believe because it confirms your own ideas on the subject? Or were you being sarcastic?

[pkspeaker]

Random websites: 

the DMI:

http://beta.dmi.dk/en/about/profile/introduction-to-dmi/

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) was established in 1872. More than 140 years later in 2016, the institute employs 300 people. DMI is an institution under the Danish Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate and has an annual turnover of approx. 300 million Danish Kroners.

 

NASA:

nasa.gov

I think you may have heard of them.

 

[ddavidovsky]

Climate change is real. Whether it's man-made is moot and academic. Listening to you all bickering and cherry-picking your data over and over is a pain.

 

Focus instead on the things that are clearly man-made: damage to the ecosystem, pollution, species extinctions...

Address those real and urgent issues and you are also addressing climate change as well (should that prove to be man-made).

 

How? Here's how: start putting a cap on economic growth. Without that, the whole endeavour is pointless.

It will take less people, more austerity, and a good deal of human suffering until the optimum population level is reached at which both humans and Nature can co-exist sustainably on the planet. That's all I know and all I need to know.

Edited March 30, 2017 by ddavidovsky

[elgordo38]

3 minutes ago, ddavidovsky said:

How? Here's how: start putting a cap on economic growth.

I think your right but governments, big business and politicians are against your thinking. In their feeble mind the last tree must be cut down to make room for the last  house to be built. The disappearance of the forest will be the brick wall that stops "progress"

[Trouble]

6 hours ago, ddavidovsky said:

Climate change is real. Whether it's man-made is moot and academic. Listening to you all bickering and cherry-picking your data over and over is a pain.

 

Focus instead on the things that are clearly man-made: damage to the ecosystem, pollution, species extinctions...

Address those real and urgent issues and you are also addressing climate change as well (should that prove to be man-made).

 

How? Here's how: start putting a cap on economic growth. Without that, the whole endeavour is pointless.

It will take less people, more austerity, and a good deal of human suffering until the optimum population level is reached at which both humans and Nature can co-exist sustainably on the planet. That's all I know and all I need to know.

Maybe the optimum population level was reached 100 years ago.  Seems like there isn't much to be done about any of this.  The only thing that's going to rescue the earth is the "Black Plague" and even that probably would not kill off enough population to help. Although the population growth rate has dropped steadily over the last 50 years, population growth is still with us and the world economy seems to depend on it.  More people, fewer resources, it's all a recipe for bigger problems.  I am not too worried about the climate change as I see it as a way that things correct themselves. I feel more sorry for the other animal life on the planet than the human population which seems to me to be the problem. Mankind has raped the planet and will continue to do so. The steps taken to control emissions won't be enough as it is just human nature to screw things up.