Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Interesting Links: Tuesday Edition

Feel free to link to - and discuss - other interesting news related to the themes of the blog.

4 comments:

Alexander Ac said...

Hello Stuart, blog about record low ice on nothern hemisphere is also interesting:

The untold drama of Northern snow cover

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

I notice Antarctic temps for the most part below normal.

Did this effect precipitation there? The continent holds most of the worlds ice... provided precipitation does not decline with temperatures this might negate the effects of ice melt in the Arctic.

Stephen B. said...

I can't think that extra snow fall and ice build up in the Antarctic would negate Arctic ice formation. While extra southern ice could certainly forestall sea level rise some, especially since Arctic ice is largely floating ice, (melting or not, it won't affect sea level much, Greenland excepted) it seems to me the biggest danger with melting Arctic ice is the reduced temperature gradient between equatorial regions and the Arctic, causing all the slowing Rossby Waves, and so on, Stuart has covered previously. In short, I would expect North American and Eurasian climate to be much more heavily influenced by a melting Arctic, almost regardless of what the landlocked Antarctic does.

Stuart Staniford said...

Greg: generally speaking, Antarctica has been losing mass at an accelerating pace not gaining it:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5950/217.1.full?sid=e0f6fff5-54bf-4f0f-ba1f-766ab5decdb3

Also, melting of the polar sea ice has no implications for sea level rise as the ice is floating - it only displaces it's own weight in seawater. However, presumably missing summer sea-ice is going to accelerate warming of Greenland (which can affect sea level). There's also potential for fairly large impacts on northern hemisphere (which we may already be seeing).