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[articles] Ozone Hole and Antarctic Ice sheets

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  • 04-12-2009 12:53pm
    #1
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭


    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090421101629.htm
    ScienceDaily (Apr. 22, 2009) — Increased growth in Antarctic sea ice during the past 30 years is a result of changing weather patterns caused by the ozone hole, according to new research.

    Reporting in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and NASA say that while there has been a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice, Antarctic sea ice has increased by a small amount as a result of the ozone hole delaying the impact of greenhouse gas increases on the climate of the continent.

    Sea ice plays a key role in the global environment – reflecting heat from the sun and providing a habitat for marine life. At both poles sea ice cover is at its minimum during summer. However, during the winter freeze in Antarctica this ice cover expands to an area roughly twice the size of Europe. Ranging in thickness from less than a metre to several metres, the ice insulates the warm ocean from the frigid atmosphere above. Satellite images show that since the 1970s the extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased at a rate of 100,000 square kilometres a decade.

    and this week.
    http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=612
    'The most astonishing evidence is the way that one man-made environmental impact - the ozone hole - has shielded most of Antarctica from another - global warming,' says the lead editor of the review, Professor John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey.

    Strong winds surrounding the continent have intensified as a result of the ozone hole and have effectively isolated the continent from the warming that's happening elsewhere on the planet.

    This means that over the last 30 years, there's been little change in surface temperatures over most of Antarctica, with the exception of West Antarctica. The east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula in West Antarctica has warmed rapidly during the summer months.

    Stronger winds have led to other changes. Around 90 per cent of the glaciers in the West Antarctic Peninsula have retreated in recent decades and sea-ice extent west of the peninsula has decreased.


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