World Affairs Board - View Single Post - Arctic ice cap 'could go within 60 years'

dalem · 12-10-2006, 16:24 PM

So Julie - how about that ice advance rate prior to 1979?

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279j.html

Quote:

"In the Arctic, the 18 glaciers with the longest observation histories were examined in 1997.72 More than 80 percent of them had lost mass since the end of the Little Ice Age. Surprisingly, however, there’s no evidence the Arctic glaciers have shrunk faster during the CO2-enriched 20th century. In fact, the researchers say the glaciers have been losing less mass per year as time goes by.73 The Arctic glaciers thus tell us their region is not currently warming. The glaciers retreated during the Medieval Warming for “at least a few centuries before 1200,” and then advanced three times during the Little Ice Age: the early 15th century, the middle 17th century and the last half of the 19th century."

-dale