Antarctic Glaciers Melting Faster - Study

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0922-02.htm

Published on Wednesday, September 22, 2004 by Reuters

Antarctic Glaciers Melting Faster - Study


WASHINGTON - Glaciers once held up by a floating ice shelf off Antarctica are now sliding off into the sea -- and they are going fast, scientists said on Tuesday.

Two separate studies from climate researchers and the space agency NASA show the glaciers are flowing into Antarctica's Weddell Sea, freed by the 2002 breakup of the Larsen B ice shelf.

Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the researchers said their satellite measurements suggest climate warming can lead to rapid sea level rise.

The teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said the findings also prove that ice shelves hold back glaciers.


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[bloom]

1. Alaska and Oregon/Washington also warmer

while Indiana. Texas, and a few other states had among the coolest summers ever.

It's interesting to wonder about the temperature shifts - some warmer/some cooler - moderating and going to a middle range?

And then the hurricanes....

[Bandit]

2. Southeast Alaska had the warmest, dryest summer in history

Personally I enjoyed it. I have never seen the mountains with so little snow on them. A friend of mine caught a Thresher Shark a few days ago. That is completely unheard of. Also a fin whale was sighted in Sitka Sound last week. Another unheard of event. "The Times they are a Changing."