Originally published November 28 2005
New research shows a slight thickening in the polar ice caps
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The journal Science has published a report that claims the polar ice cap, despite generalizations about the effects of global warming, has thickened over the last few years.
Greenland's ice-cap has thickened slightly in recent years despite wide predictions of a thaw triggered by global warming, a team of scientists said on Thursday.
The 3 000m thick ice-cap is a key concern in debates about climate change because a total melt would raise world sea levels by about 7m.
And a runaway thaw might slow the Gulf Stream that keeps the North Atlantic region warm.
But satellite measurements showed that more snowfall was falling and thickening the ice-cap, especially at high altitudes, according to the report in the journal Science.
Glaciers at sea level have been retreating fast because of a warming climate, making many other scientists believe the entire ice-cap was thinning.
approximately plus 5cm a year or 54cm over 11 years," according to the experts at Norwegian, Russian and US institutes led by Ola Johannessen at the Mohn Sverdrup centre for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography in Norway.
Warmer air, even if it is still below freezing, can carry more moisture.
That extra moisture falls as snow below zero degrees Celsius.
And the scientists said that the thickening of the ice-cap might be offset by a melting of glaciers around the fringes of Greenland.
Most models of global warming indicate that the Greenland ice might melt within thousands of years if warming continues.
The panel that advises the United Nations has predicted that global sea levels might rise by almost a metre by 2100 because of a warming climate.
"Ice sheets now appear to be contributing modestly to sea level rise because warming has increased mass loss from coastal areas more than warming has increased mass gain from enhanced snowfall in cold central regions," it said.
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