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Satellite to monitor ice in Arctic Ocean shipping lanes

For guiding ships through the area in summer The forecasting company Weathernews Inc. unveiled a micro satellite Tuesday that it developed to monitor Arctic Ocean ice for purposes of guiding ships through the area in summer.The 10-kg cube-shaped satellite, jointly developed by Tokyo-based AXELSPACE Corp., is scheduled to be launched from the Yasny Cosmodrome in Russia on Sept. 28. It will be the first attempt by a private company to use a satellite to monitor ice in the Arctic Ocean, Weathernews said.Weathernews plans to use the data to provide navigational information to commercial vessels plying the Arctic Ocean during the summer. The service will be available starting in summer 2013, it said.Due to global warming, the Arctic Ocean has been navigable since around summer 2007, according to Weathernews.Eleven vessels used the route in 2010 and 34 ships used it in 2011, spokesman Hitoki Ito told The Japan Times, adding the route does not remain navigable on a regular basis.An Arctic passage can shorten the distance ships have to travel between Europe and Asia to one-third of the route via the Cape of Good Hope and half the distance of the route through the Suez Canal, it said.Weathernews invested some ?200 ...

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Increasing speed of Greenland glaciers gives new insight for rising sea level

30 percent speedup in 10 years Changes in the speed that ice travels in more than 200 outlet glaciers indicates that Greenland's contribution to rising sea level in the 21st century might be significantly less than the upper limits some scientists thought possible, a new study shows."So far, on average we're seeing about a 30 percent speedup in 10 years," said Twila Moon, a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences and lead author of a paper documenting the observations published May 4 in Science.The faster the glaciers move, the more ice and meltwater they release into the ocean. In a previous study, scientists trying to understand the contribution of melting ice to rising sea level in a warming world considered a scenario in which the Greenland glaciers would double their velocity between 2000 and 2010 and then stabilize at the higher speed, and another scenario in which the speeds would increase tenfold and then stabilize.At the lower rate, Greenland ice would contribute about four inches to rising sea level by 2100 and at the higher rate the contribution would be nearly 19 inches by the end of this century. But the researchers who conducted that study ...

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Data sheds light on speed of Greenland’s glaciers

Ice rivers may be contributing significantly less to sea-level rise than had been thought Greenland's glaciers are not speeding up as much as previously thought, researchers have estimated.As a result, the ice rivers may be contributing "significantly less" to sea-level rise than had been thought.Previous studies had estimated that the nation's glaciers would double their flow by 2010 and continue to maintain that speed, they explained.But the team, writing in Science, said the glaciers could eventually flow faster than earlier studies estimated.The team of US researchers based their findings on data stretching back to 2000-2001, collected from more than 200 outlet glaciers."So far, on average, we are seeing about a 30% speed-up in 10 years," observed lead author Twila Moon from the University of Washington, Seattle.This is less than earlier projections, one of which estimated that glacial flow would increase by 100% between 2000 and 2010 before stabilising at that new velocity.Uncertain futureThe volume of ice and meltwater from land being deposited in the sea has a direct impact on global sea level.Glaciers are the main transportation mechanism that moves this material from the interior of land masses such as Greenland and Antarctica to the oceans.The faster ice-river flow results ...

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Why is Antarctica’s Ice Melting ?

New study claims that melting is caused by warm water from below Antarctica's massive ice shelves are shrinking because they are being eaten away from below by warm water, a new study finds. That suggests that future sea levels could rise faster than many scientists have been predicting.The western chunk of Antarctica is losing 23 feet of its floating ice sheet each year. Until now, scientists weren't exactly sure how it was happening and whether or how man-made global warming might be a factor. The answer, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is that climate change plays an indirect role - but one that has larger repercussions than if Antarctic ice were merely melting from warmer air.Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey, said research using an ice-gazing NASA satellite showed that warmer air alone couldn't explain what was happening to Antarctica. A more detailed examination found a chain of events that explained the shrinking ice shelves.Twenty ice shelves showed signs that they were melting from warm water below. Changes in wind currents pushed that relatively warmer water closer to and beneath the floating ice shelves. The wind change is likely caused by a ...

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Black carbon ranked number two climate pollutant by US EPA

BC emissions may be responsible for half or more of the warming in the Arctic The US Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a report to Congress that targeted strategies to reduce black carbon "can be expected to provide climate benefits within the next several decades," based on black carbon's strong warming potential and its short atmospheric lifetime of days to weeks.EPA concluded that black carbon was likely to be causing more warming than any climate pollutant other than CO2, although there was remaining uncertainty about the effects of black carbon on clouds, which still need to be resolved.The EPA report found that "currently available scientific and technical information provides a strong foundation for making mitigation decisions to achieve lasting benefits for public health, the environment, and climate."It highlights that cutting "BC emissions can halt the effects of BC on temperature, snow and ice, and precipitation almost immediately."Reducing BC will also provide significant public health and environmental benefits that "often exceed the costs of control.""Cutting black carbon is a triple win," said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development in Washington, DC. "Cutting black carbon reduces climate change, cleans the air, and saves lives.""And we can make ...

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Dust linked to increased glacier melting and ocean productivity

Study shows a link between large dust storms on Iceland and glacial melting A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led study shows a link between large dust storms on Iceland and glacial melting. The dust is both accelerating glacial melting and contributing important nutrients to the surrounding North Atlantic Ocean. The results provide new insights on the role of dust in climate change and high-latitude ocean ecosystems.UM Rosenstiel School Professor Joseph M. Prospero and colleagues Joanna E. Bullard and Richard Hodgkins (Loughborough University, U.K.) analyzed six years of dust concentrations collected at the Storhofi research station on the island of Heimaey, which is located 17 km (10.5 mi) off the south coast of Iceland. The results show large increases in dust concentration, which can be traced to dust sources adjacent to major glaciers on Iceland.As the glaciers melt, rivers of black, volcanic-rich sediments flow into the surrounding land and nearby ocean. Intense windstorms, common in the high-latitudes, eventually sweep up the dried sediments. The resulting dust storms are clearly visible in satellite images that show huge dust plumes extending hundreds of kilometers south over the Atlantic Ocean. Iceland glaciers are melting at a high rate ...

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NASA Finds Sea Ice Decline Driving Rise in Arctic Air Pollutants

Drastic reductions in Arctic sea ice in the last decade Drastic reductions in Arctic sea ice in the last decade may be intensifying the chemical release of bromine into the atmosphere, resulting in ground-level ozone depletion and the deposit of toxic mercury in the Arctic, according to a new NASA-led study.The connection between changes in the Arctic Ocean's ice cover and bromine chemical processes is determined by the interaction between the salt in sea ice, frigid temperatures and sunlight. When these mix, the salty ice releases bromine into the air and starts a cascade of chemical reactions called a "bromine explosion." These reactions rapidly create more molecules of bromine monoxide in the atmosphere. Bromine then reacts with a gaseous form of mercury, turning it into a pollutant that falls to Earth's surface.Bromine also can remove ozone from the lowest layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere. Despite ozone's beneficial role blocking harmful radiation in the stratosphere, ozone is a pollutant in the ground-level troposphere.A team from the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, led by Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., produced the study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical ...

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From Antarctica to Bangladesh: The Story of Rising Seas

Ice in Antarcica is melting at fast rate, sea levels are rising After crossing the legendary Drake Passage, we came in sight of the Antarctic continent. It is a majestic, otherworldly place. The Antarctic Peninsula, which juts northward toward South America, is lined with ice-covered mountains and surrounded by abundant wildlife in the sea. But even on this continent that looks and feels pristine, a troubling process is underway because of global warming.The ice on land is melting at a faster rate and large ice sheets are moving toward the ocean more rapidly. As a result, sea levels are rising worldwide. Most of the world's ice is contained in Antarctica -- more than 90 percent. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which lies south of the Peninsula, contains enough water to raise sea levels worldwide by more than 20 feet. Part of the ice sheet, the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, is among the many in Antarctica that are shrinking at an accelerating rate. This has direct consequences for low-lying coastal and island communities all over the world -- and for their inland neighbors.In analyzing the relationship between melting ice and sea level rise, it is important to distinguish between two ...

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Arctic ice melt lifts hopes for Russian maritime trade

Mining the Arctic's vast energy resources When severe snowstorms prevented life-sustaining fuel supplies from reaching the frozen Alaskan town of Nome, U.S. officials turned to a Russian company for help.The relief mission through perilous, ice-choked seas was the first mid-winter fuel delivery to western Alaska, capping a year of pioneering shipping as oil and gas development and climate change increase traffic along northern trade routes sought by centuries of Arctic explorers.Russia has staked future growth on mining the Arctic's vast energy resources, and reviving a Soviet-era shipping route along its Siberia coast is an integral part of that plan. It could also promise economic revival for Russia's ports and shipyards, struggling since their Soviet-era glory days.But industry analysts and mariners say ice floes, narrow straits, shallow waters, poor infrastructure and stormy winters continue to loom as obstacles to safe and profitable shipping through the polar shortcut."We must develop the Arctic!" said Fazil Aliyev, a sea captain and owner of the tanker that voyaged to Alaska."It is profitable for everyone. Our clients win because their cargo is delivered faster, now we need to make it economically viable... try to make it a year-round route," he said, speaking by phone from Vladivostok, ...

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Melting Ice Makes Arctic Access a Hot Commodity

New opportunities for shipping and resource extraction in the Arctic region China, Brazil and India want seats on the Arctic Council as global warming creates new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction in the vast Arctic region.There are concerns this is the beginning of a 21st century "scramble for the Arctic", but rather than staking territorial claims, non- Arctic countries want to exert economic and political influence in the region.China already has a research station in Norway's high Arctic and is building an 8,000-tonne icebreaker.Canada has a great opportunity to become an influential Arctic power, and to ensure the resource-rich but fragile region doesn't become a "Wild West" where the views of indigenous and other longstanding residents are ignored, said Tony Penikett, former premier of the Yukon, one of Canada's three Arctic territories.In 2013, Canada will chair the Arctic Council, a highly influential governmental forum originally created to promote international cooperation in the North. The council faces major issues such as expanded membership, increases in trans-Arctic shipping, resource extraction, and environmental protection of the fragile region already hard hit by climate change.The council is unique amongst international bodies by including six Arctic indigenous groups as permanent members along with eight ...

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