Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Antarctic sea water shows 'no sign' of warming

January 12 2010

SEA water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher temperatures despite fears of a thaw linked to global warming that could bring higher world ocean levels, first tests showed yesterday.  

"The water under the ice shelf is very close to the freezing point," Ole Anders Noest of the Norwegian Polar Institute wrote after drilling through the Fimbul, which is between 250m and 400m thick.


"This situation seems to be stable, suggesting that the melting under the ice shelf does not increase," he wrote of the first drilling cores.

"The important thing is that we are now in a position to monitor the water beneath the ice shelf.

"If there is a warming in future we can tell."


The last IPCC report, in 2007, did not include computer models for sea temperature around the Fimbul Ice Shelf.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/antartic-sea-water-shows-no-sign-of-warming

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The cnter of the antarctic averages around -25C, the outer finges average around -15C. The finges get above zero for about 10 days per year. All of this talk about why antarcitca is shrinking never mentions sublimation (ice evaporation). Sublimation is the bane of all glaciers. The trouble with sublimation is that it is humidity and precipitaion dependent, not temperature dependant. I think these people should take a minute or two and ask a glacialogist, not a climatologist. Sublimation takes a major roll in the life of all glaciers. Temperature, not so much.