Changing Arctic ice cover now affecting the earth environment

  • warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /home/climate/public_html/sites/default/themes/blogbuzz/node-blog.tpl.php on line 20.
  • warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /home/climate/public_html/sites/default/themes/blogbuzz/node-blog.tpl.php on line 20.
24 Oct Posted by eco in Seaice

Scientists are seeing drastic changes in Arctic ice cover now from just five years ago and at rates faster than anticipated. The findings were presented in the annual update of the Arctic Report Card managed by 71 national and international scientists that include the United States of America, Canada, Belgium, China, Denmark, Japan, The Netherlands, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Reported changes highlighted in the 2009 update are:
* A change in large scale wind patterns affected by the loss of summer sea ice,
* The replacement of multi-year sea ice by first-year sea ice,
* Warmer and fresher water in the upper ocean linked to new ice-free areas,
*A continued loss of the Greenland ice sheet,
* Less snow in North America and increased runoff in Siberia, and
* The effect of the loss of sea ice on Arctic plant, animal, and fish species.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard