Early snowmelts heating Alaska Arctic-study

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24328071.htm

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Spring snowmelt in Alaska's Arctic is occurring progressively earlier, accelerating the region's climate change and helping produce its warmest summers in at least 400 years, according to a new study.

The earlier snowmelt, itself a product of a warming climate, is one of the "positive feedback" factors that accelerates warming in the far north, said Terry Chapin, a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Institute of Arctic Biology and the study's lead author.

"Each of these changes seems to trigger other changes that mean more changes will occur," Chapin said.

The National Science Foundation-funded study published this week in the online journal Science Express found spring snowmelt had been occurring about 2.5 days earlier per decade, exposing dark ground to solar heat earlier in the season.

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1. This paragraph was particularly appropriate.

"Summer warming will be amplified by two to seven times if trees and bushes continue their northern migration into Alaska's Arctic, the study also said."

The "Bush's" will definitely be trying to continue THEIR northern migration into Alaska's Arctic...all for 10 years worth of oil, if that.

So sad and so scary.