More than 2 trillion tons of ice melted in artic since '03

[OneBlueSky]

http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=500874&categoryId=22

More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.

NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren't complete yet, but this year's ice loss, while still significant, won't be as severe as 2007.

The news was better for Alaska. After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.

- more . . .

http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=500874&categoryId=22

[formercia]

1. That's a lot of energy

Anyone who has taken science courses knows that it takes a considerable amount of energy to convert ice to water. Global Warming has been limited, in part by the heat absorption of the melting ice and the reflection of solar energy back into Space by the reflective surface of the Ice.

As the Ice disappears, the heating accelerates. When the Ice is gone, we are in big trouble.

[SpiralHawk]

2. "Oh, more science-based lib-rul facts. Screw that." - Republicon FundaBeeleevers

"We don't need no steenkin facts. We gots our beeleefs. So all you science-based fact freaks can just stuff it, and tune into Rush Limbaugh and our other overpaid Republicon Chickenhawk propagandists to get, um, the, um, concepts we want you to swallow, or whatever. Sneer."

- Republicon FundaBeeleevers