Arctic Warming Moving (All Together Now!) Faster Than Expected - Reuters

[hatrack]

As politicians squabble over how to act on climate change, Greenland's ice cap is melting faster than scientists had thought possible. A new island in East Greenland is a sign: it was dubbed Warming Island by an American explorer, Dennis Schmitt, when he discovered in 2005 that it had emerged from under the retreating ice.

Global warming is heating the Arctic faster than anywhere else on Earth. Greenland is mostly covered by an ice cap of about 2.6 million cubic kilometres that accounts for 10 per cent of the fresh water in the world. Over the past 30 years, its melt zone has expanded by 30 per cent, and now the cap loses 100 to 150 cubic kilometres of ice every year.

"Some people are scared to discover the process is running faster than the models," says Konrad Steffen, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado, who advises the US government on abrupt climate change. In 15 years, winter temperatures have risen about five degrees on the cap, while spring and autumn temperatures increased three degrees. Summer temperatures are unchanged.

The Swiss-born Steffen is one of dozens of scientists who have peppered the Greenland ice cap with instruments to measure the changes. Since 1990, he has spent two months a year braving temperatures of minus 30 to scrutinise Greenland's climate-change clues.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/arctic-chill-warms-up-faster-than-predicted/2007/06/11/1181414217320.html

[kestrel91316]

1. They still don't seem to get that this thing is on an exponential curve......

[Javaman]

2. Humanity is in a grand race to the finish.

each and every year we devise new and novel ways to get speed up our demise.

Humans are so yesterday, I'm already bowing down before my cockroach masters.

[GliderGuider]

3. Whimper

:nuke:

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Ever hear of Hofstadter's Law?

Hofstadter's Law (posited by Douglas R. Hofstadter) states that "It will always take longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account". This law seems to hold very well when you are standing in line for tickets, driving in a no-passing zone, or screaming for Congress to get off its collective butt and save the country. In the case of global warming, quite the inverse seems to apply.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=62643&mesg_id=62704

[philb]

5. Sea level rise faster than predicted

The IPCC (2007) midrange projection for sea level rise this century is 20–43 cm (8–17 inches)
www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/2/2/024002/erl7_2_024002.html
Sea level rise outpacing key predictions
19:00 01 February 2007 NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic

Predictions of how much sea-levels would rise due to climate change, made by a key UN report in 2001, were conservative, say researchers on the eve of the release of the new update of the report.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11049-major-climate-change-report-looks-set-to-alarm.html

Sea-level rise is quickening pace
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060116/full/060116-11.html