Antarctica is melting

[Louisiana1976]

snip

Both poles are warming much faster than the average global warming so that while we sit here complaining about the cold where we live now what we ought to be doing is enjoying it while it lasts. Once water no longer exists in its solid crysililine state there is going to be a lot of other stuff that no longer exists, probably including us.

snip

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/2/821303/-Antarctica-is-melting

[GreenStormCloud]

1. And what is the temperature on land in Antarctica?

Has ice started melting at 0 degrees now, instead of 32?

Global Warming is real, and the consquenses are real, but hype doesn't help the cause. If it ever gets warm enough to melt the South Polar Ice cap, then we will already be dead. The Antartic land ice temperatures are still waaaay below freezing.

Floating ice is a different story.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Average temperature there is -50°C (-58°F)

No idea of at what temperature ice forms there. Most of it is well above sea level and no idea of average humidity both of which affect that.

[guardian]

4. Oh no. Go ahead and "hype" away

Why are you challenging settled science? You must be a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, flat-earther if you challenge the concept that ice will melt at 0 degrees F.


DOOM DOOM DOOM.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. 0 degrees Celsius, yes. Always has. ;^) nt

[bhikkhu]

3. Antarctic is "warming" or "drying" would be more accurate

As the article lists a 6.5C average temperature increase, that would be warming.

...but the average is still below freezing, so surface melting isn't so much the issue. The continent is more or less covered with glacial ice, however, which relentlessly flows to the sea. One things that causes an overall decrease in ice mass is a drop in the precipitation that replenishes the ice mass - less snowfall, meaning "dryer" weather. Another is the deterioration of the ice shelves that more or less dam up the flows at the ocean. Ice shelf loss leads to faster glacial flows and a decrease in ice mass.

[BeFree]

5. Right

It isn't that the land is above freezing, it is that where the ice edges meet the warming oceans that the ice is melting. Because of less precipitation the ice amounts are decreasing. When ice is decreasing it means the oceans are increasing, leading to sea level rises.

A tech fix (not possible?) is to pump water into the middle of the polar regions thereby rebuilding the ice pack faster than it can melt at the edges?