ANSWERS: 3
  • Are they more dense?
  • 1) "According to Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), NASA satellite data shows that there has been a 50% decrease of perennial Arctic ice between February 2007 and February 2008. While the cold winter did allow ice to re-cover much of the Arctic Sea surface area during the Winter of 2007/2008, conditions were far from normal as the pair of NASA images to the right reveals. The February 2008 ice pack contained much more young ice than the long-term average, and the total volume was arguably the lowest on record. In the past, more ice survived the summer melt season and had the chance to thicken over the following winter. In the mid- to late 1980s, over 20 percent of Arctic sea ice was at least six years old; in February 2008, just 6 percent of the ice was six years old or older. NSIDC says Arctic sea ice extent during the 2008 melt season dropped to the second-lowest level since satellite measurements began in 1979, reaching the lowest point in its annual cycle of melt and growth on September 14, 2008. Average sea ice extent over the month of September... was 4.67 million square kilometers... The record monthly low, set in 2007, was 4.28 million square kilometers... the now-third-lowest monthly value, set in 2005, was 5.57 million square kilometers... The 2008 season strongly reinforces the thirty-year downward trend in Arctic ice extent. The 2008 September low was 34% below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000 and only 9% greater than the 2007 record... Because the 2008 low was so far below the September average, the negative trend in September extent has been pulled downward, from –10.7 % per decade to –11.7 % per decade." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shrinkage#Loss_of_Greenland_Ice_Sheet 2) "Ice enters the sheet through precipitation as snow. This snow is then compacted to form glacier ice which moves under gravity towards the coast. Most of it is carried to the coast by fast moving ice streams. The ice then passes into the ocean, often forming vast floating ice shelves. These shelves then melt or calve off to give icebergs that eventually melt. A 2002 analysis of NASA satellite data from 1979-1999 showed that areas of Antarctica where ice was increasing outnumbered areas of decreasing ice roughly 2:1. The general trend shows that a warming climate in the southern hemisphere would transport more moisture to Antarctica, causing the interior ice sheets to grow, while calving events along the coast will increase, causing these areas to shrink. More recent satellite data suggests that the total amount of ice in Antarctica has begun decreasing in the past few years although total Antarctic sea ice anomalies have been steadily increasing since 1978 (NSIDC (2006)). 2007 showed the largest positive anomaly of sea ice in the southern hemisphere since records have been kept starting in 1979 and 2008 is currently on pace to surpass last years record." "The continent-wide average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is positive and significant at >0.05°C/decade since 1957. The West Antarctic ice sheet has warmed by more than 0.1°C/decade in the last 50 years, and this warming is strongest in winter and spring. Although this is partly offset by fall cooling in East Antarctica, this effect is restricted to the 1980s and 1990s." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet
  • There is only one thing that is more dense, and that's people who actually believe that there is no such thing as global warming.

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