Arctic Warming Rapidly - Full Report Due In November

OSLO - "Global warming is hitting the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet in what may be a portent of wider, catastrophic changes, the chairman of an eight-nation study has said.

Inuit hunters are falling more frequently through the thinning ice with habitats for plants and animals also disrupted. The icy Hudson Bay in Canada could be uninhabitable for polar bears within just 20 years. The melting is also destabilising buildings on permafrost and threatening an oil pipeline laid across Alaska.

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There is dramatic climate change happening in the Arctic right now...about 2-3 times the pace of the whole globe," said Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), in an 1,800 page report to be handed to ministers in Iceland in November. "If you want to know what the rest of the planet is going to see in next generation, watch out for the Arctic in the next 5-10 years," he told Reuters yesterday. The report combines input from scientists, indigenous peoples and eight Arctic rim nations.

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Some parts of Alaska have heated up 10 times more than the global average, said Corell, a senior fellow at the American Meteorological Society. Future temperature rises in the Arctic were likely to be twice the 1.4-5.8 Celsius (3-11 F) gain by 2100 forecast by a U.N.-led panel of scientists, he said."

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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25244/story.htm

top photo is 1979 the second is 2003

http://eces.org/gallery/000750.php link if photos don't show

any links to comparable images of just Greenland? I'd be interested to see changes there, because lets face it that is what will produce the 7m sea level rise, unlike the icepack.

do a google search on "Photo:Greenland icepack" and see if that gets one for you

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/products/arctic/index.htm

Just click on the colored map to get the region you're interested in checking out. This system has 5 or 6 files on Greenland and surrounding sea ice, as well as the rest of the Arctic.

to both of you for the links. I shall go and explore them in my lunch hour.