Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Why is the World Flooding?

An undated photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf disintegrating. The incredibly rapid rate at which Canada's Arctic ice shelves are disappearing is an early indicator of the "very substantial changes" that global warming will impose on all mankind, a top scientist said on Wednesday (Denis Sarrazin/Center for Northern Studies/Handout/Reuters).
.
India is under water. Burma is still on the mend. Bangladesh is bracing for Monsoon season. And New Orleans is being evacuated as it's lashed by a series of hurricanes led by Gustav, the heaviest since Katrina. The levees aren't holding in Nepal. And everywhere, weathered and aging infrastructure faces challenges it will not likely survive. Why is this occurring? It's no mystery; it's human activity (particularly everything involved in meat production) that even Al Gore knows about. There is a Buddhist niyama involved as a...

19-square-mile ice sheet breaks loose in Canada
Charmaine Noronha (AP)

TORONTO -- A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.

Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.

"The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Mueller. More >>

No comments: