{"id":184490,"date":"2010-01-15T04:40:14","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T09:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nw0.eu\/2010\/01\/15\/antarctic-sea-water-shows-%e2%80%98no-sign%e2%80%99-of-warming.html"},"modified":"2010-01-15T04:40:14","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T09:40:14","slug":"antarctic-sea-water-shows-%e2%80%98no-sign%e2%80%99-of-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/184490","title":{"rendered":"Antarctic sea water shows \u2018no sign\u2019 of warming"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Watts Up With That?<\/a>
\nTuesday , January 12th, 2010<\/p>\n

From the Australian<\/a>:
\nSEA water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher
\ntemperatures despite fears of a thaw linked to global warming that
\ncould bring higher world ocean levels, first tests showed yesterday.<\/p>\n

\"Antarctic<\/a>
\nThe drilling rig that was used \u2013 ironically it uses hot water to
\ndrill! Keith Makinson and Keith Nicholls from British Antarctic Survey
\nhot water drilling the Filchner Ronne Ice-Shelf in a previous
\nexpedition. <\/div>\n

Sensors lowered through three holes drilled in the Fimbul Ice Shelf
\nshowed the sea water is still around freezing and not at higher
\ntemperatures widely blamed for the break-up of 10 shelves on the
\nAntarctic Peninsula, the most northerly part of the frozen continent in
\nWest Antarctica.<\/p>\n

\"Antarctic<\/a> Click for larger map <\/div>\n

\u201cThe water under the ice shelf is very close to the freezing
\npoint,\u201d Ole Anders Noest of the Norwegian Polar Institute wrote
\nafter drilling through the Fimbul, which is between 250m and 400m thick.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation seems to be stable, suggesting that the
\nmelting under the ice shelf does not increase,\u201d he wrote of the
\nfirst drilling cores. <\/span><\/p>\n

The findings, a rare bit of good news after worrying signs in recent
\nyears of polar warming, adds a small bit to a puzzle about how
\nAntarctica is responding to climate change, blamed largely on human use
\nof fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

Antarctica holds enough water to raise world sea levels by 57m if it
\never all melted, so even tiny changes are a risk for low-lying coasts
\nor cities from Beijing to New York.<\/p>\n

\"Instruments<\/a>
\nOle Anders N\u00f8st attaches temperature sensors to the cable as it
\nis lowered into the borehole. Image: Lars Henrik Smedsrud <\/div>\n

The Institute said the water under the Fimbul was about -2.05C.
\nSalty water freezes at a slightly lower temperature than fresh water.<\/p>\n

And it was slightly icier than estimates in a regional model for
\nAntarctica, head of the Norwegian Polar Institute\u2019s Center for
\nIce, Climate and Ecosystems, Nalan Koc, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing is that we are now in a position to monitor the water beneath the ice shelf.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is a warming in future we can tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said data collected could go into a new report by the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due in 2013-14.<\/p>\n

The last IPCC report, in 2007, did not include computer models for sea temperature around the Fimbul Ice Shelf.<\/p>\n

========<\/p>\n

From the expedition web site: http:\/\/fimbul.npolar.no\/en\/news\/current\/Nye_data.html<\/a><\/p>\n

We observed a roughly 50 meter deep layer of water with temperatures
\nvery close to the freezing point, about -2.05 degrees, just beneath the
\nice shelf. The highest observed temperature was about -1.83 degrees
\nclose to the bottom. The temperatures are very similar to temperature
\ndata collected by elephant seals in 2008 and by British Antarctic
\nSurvey using an autosub below the ice shelf in 2005.<\/p>\n

We collected three profiles from the underside of the ice to the
\nseabed at 653 meters below sealevel. No trace of the relatively warm
\ndeep water that upwells over the continental slope was found. It will
\nbe exciting to see if this is the situation all year round, says Ole
\nAnders N\u00f8st.<\/p>\n

For more on how the drilling was done, see this PDF of the method and equipment here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

More on the project here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Book Mark it-><\/b> del.icio.us<\/a> | Reddit<\/a> | Slashdot<\/a> | Digg<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Technorati<\/a> | Google<\/a> | StumbleUpon<\/a> | Window Live<\/a> | Tailrank<\/a> | Furl<\/a> | Netscape<\/a> | Yahoo<\/a> | BlinkList<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watts Up With That? Tuesday , January 12th, 2010 From the Australian: 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 drilling rig that was used \u2013 ironically it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}