The Antarctica Ice Chime
Monday, March 26, 2007
The time is 1300 (1 PM). The penguins in the foreground are napping.
The weather conditions are foggy.
The time is 2200
The current offshore is fairly fast. The iceberg comes into view and within 30 minutes is nearly gone. The burg is easily seen here. In 30 minutes it has moved to the left and the top is only bearly discernable.
The penguins swim in that current. That's incredible to realize.
Penguin Cams don't always have penguins around but there is an interesting time lapse to a passing iceberg
This is hour 2230.
The most 'action' from the penguins today happens from, 1130 to 1730.
Click on for animation of satellite
March 26, 2007
6 PM
Antarctica is frozen today, except for WAIS which is seeing a temperate intrusion most of the day. The largest area of heat results at 6 AM. At 6 PM the satellite reflects a higher temperature at the same time the wind event is at a maximum. Here again the heat is always present but not necessarily seen on satellite consistently as the intensity waxes and wains during the day. The peninsula actually sees some relief today.
The coldest place in Antarctica today is:
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica
Elevation: 9285 ft / 2830 m
Temperatures :: -82 °F / -64 °C
Conditions :: Low Drifting Snow
Wind: 13 mph / 20 km/h / from the East
Wind Gust: -
Pressure: in / hPa (Falling)
Visibility: 5.0 miles / 8.0 kilometers
Raw METAR Aviation
Flight Rule: MVFR ()
Wind Speed: 13 mph / 20 km/h /
Wind Dir: 80° (East)
Ceiling: 100000 ft / 100000 m
Vostok, Antarctica
Elevation: 11220 ft / 3420 m
Temperature :: -78 °F / -61 °C
Humidity: 100%
Dew Point: -16 °F / -26 °C
Wind: 7 mph / 11 km/h / from the South
Wind Gust: -
Pressure: in / hPa (Steady)
Visibility: 12.0 miles / 20.0 kilometers
Raw METAR Aviation
Flight Rule: VFR ()
Wind Speed: 7 mph / 11 km/h /
Wind Dir: 180° (South)
Ceiling: 100000 ft / 100000 m
Warmest station is:
Base Jubany, Antarctica
Elevation: 13 ft / 4 m
Tempertures :: 34 °F / 1 °C
Conditions :: Light Drizzle
Humidity: 97%
Dew Point: 33 °F / 1 °C
Wind: 25 mph / 41 km/h / from the SW
Wind Gust: -
Pressure: 29.37 in / 994 hPa (Falling)
Visibility: 1.0 miles / 2.0 kilometers
Clouds: Mostly Cloudy 197 ft / 60 m
(Above Ground Level)
Raw METAR Aviation
Flight Rule: LIFR ()
Wind Speed: 25 mph / 41 km/h /
Wind Dir: 230° (SW)
Ceiling: 200 ft / 60 m
Click to animate the 'Winds' satellite map of Antarctica
March 26, 2007
6 PM
There is an absence of surface winds over WAIS in animation where the heat is lingering. The only time there are mild winds noted over WAIS is 6 PM. The 9 PM and 12 PM satellite image is missing. Also noted when the air mass meets with warmer air at the north coast and west coast there is nearly a tornadic event that brings the surface winds to 35 to 40 MPH (15 to 18 km/hr) or higher. This occurs in the west as 6 PM but in the north it sustains during all images except . Otherwise, the patterns are not dissimilar to last with only this week there is an absence of heat over The Blue Ice.
Glaciers Adding More To Global Sea Rise Than Ice Sheets, Says University of Colorado Study
Bering Glacier is near the Gulf of Alaska
The Bering Glacier on September 29, 2002 (click on for link to Bering Glacier Project)
The Bering Glacier is the largest (5200 sq km) and longest (190km) glacier in North America. Located in coastal south central Alaska at 60-61 degrees north (latitude) and 141-145 degrees west (longitude), it is bounded in the north by the St. Elias Mountains and in the south by the Gulf of Alaska. In various places, the glacier has a thickness of over 800m.
The Bering Glacier area is exceptionally diverse and valuable from both an ecological and cultural perspective. Unique plants and animals have evolved in this area as a result of the dynamic conditions and rugged terrain found within the Bering Glacier. From a human perspective, the Bering Glacier area is used for recreation, subsistence hunting, and commercial fishing, among other activities.
Click on for view of the complete demise of the glaciers of Muir Inlet, Glacier Bay National Park
Topographical map of Glacier Bay National Park and Muir Inlet
Glacier Recession in Muir Inlet, Glacier Bay, Alaska by William O. Field, Jr. as printed in Geographical Review, pp. 369-399 (click on)
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (crystal ice chime) is:
Elevation: 33 ft / 10 m
Temperature :: 30 °F / -1 °C
Conditions :: Partly Cloudy
Humidity: 75%
Dew Point: 23 °F / -5 °C
Wind: 7 mph / 11 km/h / 3.1 m/s from the ESE
Pressure: 29.92 in / 1013 hPa (Rising)
Windchill: 23 °F / -5 °C
Visibility: 10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV: 2 out of 16
Clouds: Few 2700 ft / 822 m
(Above Ground Level)
Elevation: 33 ft / 10 m
Temperature :: 30 °F / -1 °C
Conditions :: Partly Cloudy
Humidity: 75%
Dew Point: 23 °F / -5 °C
Wind: 7 mph / 11 km/h / 3.1 m/s from the ESE
Pressure: 29.92 in / 1013 hPa (Rising)
Windchill: 23 °F / -5 °C
Visibility: 10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV: 2 out of 16
Clouds: Few 2700 ft / 822 m
(Above Ground Level)
Left to right: Barry Lopez, Ted Clarke, and Al Gore
From Barry Lopez's Diary:
In the austral spring of 1988, I camped for a month in West Antarctica with a field party of four glacial chemists, on Newell Glacier in the Transantarctic Mountains. After several weeks of surveying, the scientists pinpointed a promising site at the head of the glacier where they could drill to retrieve an ice core. Two drillers were flown in and, with some of us dressed in sterile gear to handle sections of the ice core, we began work.
On November 17, 1988, Al Gore flew out to our camp from McMurdo Station, the main American base in Antarctica. He was eager to learn first-hand how ice cores, which preserve a record of the Earth’s atmospheric history, were being retrieved and how they might be used to clarify growing concerns about global climate change.
Gore impressed us as someone unusually well-informed about the scientific questions involved, and he struck us as the model of a public servant. He was smart, courteous, a determined questioner, and a keen listener. It was -5° F and he'd had to hike a half-mile uphill to the drill site from the spot where the helicopter set him down. He didn’t complain and never struck a pose. He was a man on a mission.
Gore refers to this visit to our Newell Glacier camp in his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. In the film, the difference between a public servant and what you might call a corporate servant among America’s political leadership becomes profoundly and sickeningly clear.
In a relentless and devastating way, the film dismantles the claptrap that characterizes efforts by the Bush White House and American energy corporations to misrepresent and refute global warming. Willfully uneducated, greedy, and arrogant, this small consortium of wealthy men in business and government represents one of the greatest examples of political cowardice and irresponsibility in the history of the Republic.
Given what is at stake, and the number of voters who remain “unconvinced” about global climate change, they constitute a dangerous and malicious group of people. Please see the film, if you haven’t already. And thank Gore for the constancy of his citizenship.
Warming Up on Capitol Hill
Al Gore held his first hearing on global warming about 25 years ago, when he was a member of the House of Representatives, and a quarter century later Congress seems to be listening to him. Apart from the usual dinosaurs — James Inhofe, who took great glee in pointing out that Mr. Gore had a big house that used lots of energy, and Trent Lott, who dismissed the former vice president’s ideas as “garbage” — Mr. Gore received a strong welcome from the two Congressional committees that will frame any legislation to deal with the warming threat.
Legislating, of course, will be the hard part. But Mr. Gore’s efforts to raise both public and Congressional awareness are likely to make that easier. As is his habit, Mr. Gore spoke in dramatic, almost apocalyptic terms, at one point demanding an “immediate freeze” in carbon dioxide emissions. This certainly overestimates America’s capacity for rapid social and technological change in much the same way that his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” seemed on occasion to overstate how quickly we will see the consequences of climate change.
As Mr. Gore concedes, he is more salesman than scientist. But most scientists acknowledge that he is absolutely right on the fundamentals: humans are artificially warming the world, the risks of inaction are great, the time frame for action is growing short and meaningful cuts in emissions will happen only if the United States takes the lead.
An increasing number of business leaders and politicians outside Washington are moving his way. These include Republican governors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, major investment companies like Goldman Sachs, venture capitalists hoping to profit from cleaner technologies and even a few big power companies preparing for the day when they will have no choice but to reduce their emissions.
Congress is paying attention to this shift. Representative Henry Waxman of California has signed up 127 co-sponsors for a very tough bill he proposed last week that seeks to reduce United States greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by midcentury, which is close to what Mr. Gore wants. When you consider that Mr. Gore and President Bill Clinton could not find five senators willing to ratify the far more modest 1997 Kyoto treaty — which called for a mere 7 percent reduction below 1990 levels, with no further reductions scheduled after 2012 — you get some idea of how far the debate has come.
The next task will be to translate this new awareness into legislation capable not only of surviving the House but also of mustering a veto-proof 60 votes in the Senate. All of the bills — there are now five — start with the premise that forcing polluters to, in effect, pay a fee for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit will create powerful incentives for developing and deploying cleaner technologies.
Setting up a system that fairly distributes the cost of reducing emissions across a giant economy — without creating a bureaucratic nightmare — will require great skill. And nobody, including repeat viewers of “An Inconvenient Truth,” has a real grip on what it will cost. Given the consequences of doing nothing, it’s surely worth it, but Congress will have to be upfront about the numbers.
Then there will be those who argue that it is pointless for America to go down this road if China and India will not come along. But that one is easy. The United States produces 25 percent of global emissions with only 5 percent of the population. If the world’s biggest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide doesn’t act, why should anyone else?
Legislating, of course, will be the hard part. But Mr. Gore’s efforts to raise both public and Congressional awareness are likely to make that easier. As is his habit, Mr. Gore spoke in dramatic, almost apocalyptic terms, at one point demanding an “immediate freeze” in carbon dioxide emissions. This certainly overestimates America’s capacity for rapid social and technological change in much the same way that his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” seemed on occasion to overstate how quickly we will see the consequences of climate change.
As Mr. Gore concedes, he is more salesman than scientist. But most scientists acknowledge that he is absolutely right on the fundamentals: humans are artificially warming the world, the risks of inaction are great, the time frame for action is growing short and meaningful cuts in emissions will happen only if the United States takes the lead.
An increasing number of business leaders and politicians outside Washington are moving his way. These include Republican governors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, major investment companies like Goldman Sachs, venture capitalists hoping to profit from cleaner technologies and even a few big power companies preparing for the day when they will have no choice but to reduce their emissions.
Congress is paying attention to this shift. Representative Henry Waxman of California has signed up 127 co-sponsors for a very tough bill he proposed last week that seeks to reduce United States greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by midcentury, which is close to what Mr. Gore wants. When you consider that Mr. Gore and President Bill Clinton could not find five senators willing to ratify the far more modest 1997 Kyoto treaty — which called for a mere 7 percent reduction below 1990 levels, with no further reductions scheduled after 2012 — you get some idea of how far the debate has come.
The next task will be to translate this new awareness into legislation capable not only of surviving the House but also of mustering a veto-proof 60 votes in the Senate. All of the bills — there are now five — start with the premise that forcing polluters to, in effect, pay a fee for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit will create powerful incentives for developing and deploying cleaner technologies.
Setting up a system that fairly distributes the cost of reducing emissions across a giant economy — without creating a bureaucratic nightmare — will require great skill. And nobody, including repeat viewers of “An Inconvenient Truth,” has a real grip on what it will cost. Given the consequences of doing nothing, it’s surely worth it, but Congress will have to be upfront about the numbers.
Then there will be those who argue that it is pointless for America to go down this road if China and India will not come along. But that one is easy. The United States produces 25 percent of global emissions with only 5 percent of the population. If the world’s biggest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide doesn’t act, why should anyone else?
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