Arctic Ice Shrinks To Record Low (Video)

• 

Sea ice in the Chukchi Sea.
 Sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded, report scientists.

NASA/Kathryn Hansen

BARROW, AlaSKA

Here at the top of the world  world, the news that Arctic sea ice has reached a new low — the smallest footprint since satellites began measuring it three decades ago — is not much of a surprise.

The Arctic seas off the Alaska coast have been increasingly ice-free in recent years. On Monday, the gray, wind-driven surf churned vigorously along the northern coast, with no sign of ice anywhere under the low, fog-shrouded skies.

More: Fasten Your Seat Belts,Global Warming Is Here

The arctic ice cap is melting at a rapid rate and may shrink to its lowest-ever level within weeks as temperatures continue to rise. Al Jazeera's Nick Clark joined an expedition travelling deep into the Arctic Circle to Qaanaaq, in Greenland.

But it has been a strange summer here. Until a few weeks ago, there was more ice spread across the near-shore waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas than anyone can remember for the last several years — a curse for the engineers waiting to begin plumbing oil wells into the sea floor, but a blessing for Inupiat hunters, who have had an unusually easy time catching seals from ice floes close to home.

“It really seemed kind of like it was back in the days when the ice was like it used to be,” said Nayuk Leavitt, a Barrow resident who works on one of Shell Alaska’s oil spill response crews.

But the late-lingering near-shore ice in Alaska, now in full retreat, was not representative of what is going on most everywhere else in a gradually melting Arctic scientists say. The National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado announced that Arctic sea ice had shrunk to 1.58 million square miles, the lowest expanse recorded since satellites began taking measurements in 1979.

That breaks a record of 1.61 million square miles set in 2007, and the shrinkage appears to be continuing: Ice is expected to keep melting through September.

Scientists said previous warm years had started a pattern of a melting of the multiyear ice that historically has clung to the poles. The newly thinner ice that remained from last year melted even easier this year — although temperatures weren’t necessarily warmer. The phenomenon is probably feeding on itself, scientists say.

“In the context of what’s happened in the last several years and throughout the satellite record, it’s an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing,” Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center told reporters in a conference call.

Although the late-lingering ice was a factor in delaying the start of the first offshore drilling here in more than two decades, Shell officials say the ice now has retreated to more than 20 miles north of the company’s primary drilling target, on the Berger prospect in the Chukchi Sea — which itself is about 70 miles offshore.

The first of Shell’s drilling rigs, the Discoverer, is scheduled to arrive in the Chukchi Sea later this week. The other, the Kulluk, is halfway on its journey to the Beaufort Sea.

Permanent anchors have already been installed at both drilling locations to allow for the reduced target of drilling two complete wells this season, Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said in an interview here.

Shell has asked the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to consider extending by 18 days the Sept. 24 deadline under which the company was supposed to have completed drilling in the Chukchi Sea, where the relatively remote location requires an early wind-up to ensure there is time to address any problems that occur before the onset of winter ice.

But Shell’s own ocean ice experts say their latest modeling makes them fairly confident that ice is not likely to close in around the Chukchi drilling site until mid-November.

The company has been spending $4.5 million a year on ice studies, assembling a team of scientists whose expertise rivals or exceeds that of the National Weather Service.

They have documented a pattern of ice movements over the last 10 years that show predictable open ocean conditions in the Chukchi Sea until November every year, Shell’s chief scientist, Michael Macrander, told the Los Angeles Times.

He said 2006 is the year that most resembles the patterns seen this year: a winter of cold temperatures and heavy ice, in which the sea ice extended far south into the Bering Strait, followed by a very late melt-off in the summer. That year, like this one, saw factors such as warm surface temperatures and favorable winds that drove the ice, once it was beginning to clear, relatively far out to sea, he said.

“Once it cleared, it cleared significantly, and stayed clear until early November,” he said. “And the pattern we’re seeing now is very, very similar.

EXPLORE: World News         U.S          Global Warming         Wildfires     
   Hot Climate        Waldo Canyon        Idaho         Storm Isaac         California

Read More

Edited By Cen Fox Post Team

Follow @centuryfoxpost

Quake Of 7.4 Magnitude Hits Off El Salvador Coast-USGS

Aug 27 (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude hit in the Pacific Ocean about 78 miles (125 km) off the coast of El Salvador late Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

No destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is expected, and there is no tsunami threat to Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

The center said, however, that although it did not know if a tsunani had been generated, a warning was in effect for Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico.

The earthquake struck 74 miles (120 km) south of Usulutan, El Salvador, at a depth of 33 miles, the Geological Survey said.

There were no immediate reports of damage to coastal areas or to shipping.

More About: World News     U.S     Global Warming     Wildfires     Hot Climate     Waldo Canyon    Idaho     Storm Isaac

               California

Read More

Edited By Cen Fox Post Team

Follow @centuryfoxpost

California Declares Emergency As Wildfire Advances

(Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties on Wednesday after a wildfire that has already destroyed 64 homes advanced with 75-foot flames on a tiny community at the doorstep of a national park.

Firefighters scrambled to head off the so-called Ponderosa Fire, which had scorched 24,000 acres, before it reached the outskirts of Mineral, a community of less than 200 people just south of Lassen National Volcanic Park.

Authorities issued an evacuation warning for Mineral as flames roared 75 feet high on the side of Highway 36, the main route into town, and burned through a rocky canyon where firefighters struggled to make a stand.

Crews also bulldozed a trench to serve as a last line of defense between the fire and the town as thick smoke and ash choked the air for miles.

"All the vegetation is ready to burn and so once the afternoon winds begin to blow up the canyon, those fuels burn aggressively and you have what we call blow-up conditions," Chico Fire Division Chief Shane Lauderdale told Reuters.

"It pushes the firefighters out of the area they are working and goes over the (containment) line and creates situations where we have to back out," Lauderdale said.

Beth Glenn, who said her family owns most of the businesses in tiny Mineral, said the town survived a fire that roared up the same canyon in the 1990s, but she worried the Ponderosa blaze could be worse.

"I don't know what's going to happen tonight," said Glenn, 58, whose motel and general store in the heart of Mineral were being used by fire officials to disseminate information to residents.

Glenn said the fire had prompted cancellations for the motel during its typically busiest month of August, and she was forced to tell guests not to come after losing power for five days.

TWO SMALL COMMUNITIES SAVED

The lightning-sparked fire was threatening Mineral after crews had turned it away from two small communities to the west, Shingletown and Manton.

All told, more than 3,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the rural California counties of Tehama and Shasta, about 125 miles north of the state capital, Sacramento, although evacuation orders had been lifted by Wednesday afternoon from Shingletown and several other areas.

Highway 44, the main artery into Lassen Volcanic National Park, was also reopened, although portions of the Lassen National Park Highway were closed along with some trails and campgrounds, according to an alert on the park's website.

The blaze was 50 percent contained as of Wednesday afternoon, fire officials said, but they listed 500 homes, 10 commercial properties and 30 outbuildings as still at risk of being consumed by the explosive fire.

Officials say 64 homes had already been lost, along with 20 other structures.

The Ponderosa fire is one of dozens burning across drought-parched states in the U.S. West, including a blaze that destroyed dozens of homes this week in Washington state and another that threatened a town in Southern California.

"Firefighters are working aggressively to build approximately 11 miles of line and strengthen existing containment lines," the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on its website.

"As additional resources arrive, firefighters will continue to diligently defend structures, construct containment lines and build bulldozer perimeter lines," it said.

Two firefighters have suffered minor injuries fighting the blaze.

Brown's state-of-emergency declaration, which frees up funds to help combat the fires, cited the Ponderosa blaze, along with the Chips Fire in nearby Plumas County, which is roughly twice as big.

More About: World News     U.S     Global Warming     Wildfires     Hot Climate    

 Waldo Canyon    Idaho      California

Read More

Edited By Cen Fox Post Team

Follow @centuryfoxpost