Unknown Arctic Islands appear as ice shrinks to record low
Pastor Dale Morgan
Unknown Arctic Islands appear as ice shrinks to record low*
20 Aug 2007 22:07:34 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
NY ALESUND, Norway, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Previously unknown islands are
appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising
questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections,
experts said.
Polar bears and seals have also suffered this year on the Norwegian
archipelago of Svalbard because the sea ice they rely on for hunts
melted far earlier than normal.
"Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate,"
Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy said at a seminar of 40
scientists and politicians that began late on Monday in Ny Alesund,
1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole.
"This acceleration may be faster than predicted" by the U.N. climate
panel this year, she told reporters at the Aug. 20-22 seminar. Ny
Alesund calls itself the world's most northerly permanent settlement,
and is a base for Arctic research.
The U.N. panel of 2,500 scientists said in February that summer sea ice
could almost vanish in the Arctic towards the end of this century. It
said warming in the past 50 years was "very likely" the result of
greenhouse gases caused by fossil fuel use.
"There may well be an ice-free Arctic by the middle of the century,"
Christopher Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, told the
seminar, accusing the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) of underestimating the melt.
The thaw of glaciers that stretch out to sea around Svalbard has
revealed several islands that are not on any maps.
"Islands are appearing just over the fjord here" as glaciers recede,
said Kim Holmen, research Director at the Norwegian Polar Institute,
gesturing out across the bay. "We're already seeing adverse effects on
polar bears and other species."
UNCLAIMED
"I know of two islands that appeared in the north of Svalbard this
summer. They haven't been claimed yet," said Rune Bergstrom,
environmental expert with the Norwegian governor's office on Svalbard.
He said he had seen one of the islands, roughly the size of a basketball
court. Islands have also appeared in recent years off Greenland and Canada.
Rapley also said the IPCC was "restrained to the point of being
seriously misleading" in toning down what he said were risks of a melt
of parts of Antarctica, by far the biggest store of ice on the planet
that could raise world sea levels.
Still, in a contrast to the warnings about retreating ice and climate
change, snow was falling in Ny Alesund on Monday, several weeks earlier
than normal in a region still bathed by the midnight sun. About 30 to
130 people live in the fjord-side settlement, backed by snow-covered
mountains.
Bjoernoy said it was a freak storm that did not detract from an overall
warming trend.
The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Friday that Arctic
sea ice had "fallen below the 2005 record low absolute minimum and is
still melting". Arctic sea ice reaches an annual minimum in September
before freezing again.
The U.S. records are based on satellite data back to the 1970s.
Rapley said that shrinking ice was bad for indigenous peoples and for
much wildlife but could help anyone wanting to hunt for oil and gas or
open short-cut shipping lanes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Norway hopes the seminar, with delegates from countries including top
greenhouse gas emitters the United States and China, may put pressure on
governments to agree to make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions,
Bjoernoy said.