[Vision2020] Warming ocean could melt ice faster than thought

[Paul Rumelhart]

Here are a couple of graphs of ocean heat content, taken from the NODC's 
0-700m upper ocean heat content data set.  The arctic graph shows the 
heat content of the oceans above the 65N latitude, the antarctic graph 
shows the heat content of the oceans below 65S latitude.

I'm posting them here so you can get a visual idea of what the heat 
content of the oceans has been doing since 1950 or so.

I created them using the website http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi

Paul

On 07/03/2011 05:05 PM, nickgier at roadrunner.com wrote:
> Warming ocean could melt ice faster than thought
>
> Published - Jul 03 2011 10:04AM PST
>
> By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID - AP Science Writer
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) — Warming air from climate change isn't the only thing that will speed ice melting near the poles _ so will the warming water beneath the ice, a new study points out.
>
> Increased melting of ice in Greenland and parts of Antarctica has been reported as a consequence of global warming, potentially raising sea levels. But little attention has been paid to the impact of warmer water beneath the ice.
> Now, Jianjun Yin of the University of Arizona and colleagues report the warming water could mean polar ice melting faster than had been expected. Their report was published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
> While melting floating ice won't raise sea level, ice flowing into the sea from glaciers often reaches the bottom, and grounded ice melted by warm water around it can produce added water to the sea.
>
> "Ocean warming is very important compared to atmospheric warming because water has a much larger heat capacity than air," Yin explained. "If you put an ice cube in a warm room, it will melt in several hours. But if you put an ice cube in a cup of warm water, it will disappear in just minutes."
>
> In addition, Yin explained, if floating ice along the coastal areas melts it will allow the flow of glaciers to accelerate, bringing more ice into the seas.
>
> "This mean that both Greenland and Antarctica are probably going to melt faster than the scientific community previously thought," co-author Jonathan T. Overpeck said in a statement.
>
> Overpeck, co-director of the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment, said: "This paper adds to the evidence that we could have sea level rise by the end of this century of around 1 meter and a good deal more in succeeding centuries."
>
> The subsurface ocean along the Greenland coast could warm as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 Celsius) by 2100, the researchers reported. The warming along the coast of Antarctica would be somewhat less, they calculated, at 0.9 degree F (0.5 C).
>
> =======================================================
>   List services made available by First Step Internet,
>   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                 http://www.fsr.net
>            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ohc_antarctic.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 75980 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20110704/5ffbdca0/attachment-0002.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ohc_arctic.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 22750 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20110704/5ffbdca0/attachment-0003.jpg