seminar: The Antarctic Conundrum: Sea Ice Expansion in a Warming World

[phantom power]

Dr. Xin Qu

Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences

University of California – Los Angeles

They seem to be doing a series on climate change at UM.

Monday, February 9, 2009
3:30 – 4:30 pm
2246 Space Research Building

The Antarctic Conundrum: Sea Ice Expansion in a Warming World

The Antarctic climate is experiencing a puzzling change: Rapid warming in the Antarctic Peninsular coincides with sea ice expansion in the Southern Ocean. In this talk, I reconcile this apparent paradox. I exploit paleoclimate information preserved in antarctic ice cores and data from climate simulations without anthropogenic forcing to demonstrate that sea ice expansion in the Southern Ocean stems primarily from a strong mode of natural variability in the western Ross Sea. Elsewhere, significant Southern Hemisphere sea ice retreat is clearly seen, especially near the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula and in the southern Bellingshausen Sea. I show that this retreat is closely linked to the recent warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, and that it is at least partly anthropogenic.

Sandee Hicks, Communications
University of Michigan
Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Space Research Building, Room 2517
2455 Hayward Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143
Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone]

[xchrom]

1. isn't there a theory that following a warming

there can be risk of an ice age?

i'm not suggesting that the warming period is over --

[pocoloco]

2. Or an ice age caused by warming?

Heat needed to move large amounts of moisture to the polar regions??

[xchrom]

3. it's something like that.

i follow this stuff -- but i don't understand all of it.

now i forget where i read this --national geographic or a science article here -- but the argument was compelling.

[phantom power]

4. Yes, there have been several ice-age/warming cycles over the last 100 kiloyears or so.

The worrying thing that is different this time around is that there is currently a huge CO2 forcing underway from human activity. It appears to be pushing earths climate into a regime that hasn't been seen for at least 60 million years. Earth's current ecosystems are not adapted to this new regime, and a mass extinction event has begun.

It's going to suck.

[xchrom]

5. yeah -- it's gonna suck.

and it may all be too late.

[happyslug]

6. That is what is believed to have happen just before the start of the last Ice Age

For more see:

http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html
https://lists.mayfirst.org/pipermail/rtsnyc/2004-June/001922.html
http://www.fathom.com/feature/122557/
http://home.earthlink.net/~icedneuron/CCLinks.htm
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/096ice_sheet/
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/articles/bind.html
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/~jhansen/keeling/keeling_talk_and_slides.pdf
http://discovermagazine.com/2002/sep/cover

Previous DU threads on this subject
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x41468#41745
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2072018
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x182408

Some information on "Younger Dryas", the last time we went Cold (Mini-Ice age, worse then the mini-ice age if 1300-1850):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

Mini-Ice Age:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

Map of Antarctica without Ice:


Map of the currents in the Arctic:

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=9206