Amount of ice in Bering Sea reaches all-time record
Hippies get it wrong again
The amount of floating ice in the Arctic's Bering Sea - which had long been expected to retreat disastrously by climate-Cassandra organisations such as Greenpeace - reached all-time record high levels last month, according to US researchers monitoring the area using satellites.
The US National Snow and Ice Data Center announced last week that ice extent in the Bering for the month of March has now been collated and compared, and is the highest seen since records began. The NSIDC boffins said in a statement:
As winds from the north pushed Arctic ice southward through the Bering Strait, the ice locked together and formed a structurally continuous band known as an ice arch, which acts a bit like a keystone arch in a building. The ice arch temporarily held back the ice behind it, but as the winds continued, the arch failed along its southern edge, and ice cascaded south through the strait into the Bering Sea. Sea ice also piled up on the northern coast of St Lawrence Island, streaming southward on either side of it.
This contrasts sharply with the grim future for the Bering predicted by Greenpeace. Thirteen years ago in 1999, the hippies* had this to say:
The first regions to be affected will be ice-dependent seas near but outside the Arctic Ocean proper, including the Bering Sea ... These areas are currently covered in seasonal winter ice, which could vanish altogether with continued warming.
Walruses, which travel long distances on floating sea ice that allows them to feed over a wide area may be particularly vulnerable ...
Many species of seal are ice-dependent, including the spotted seal, which in the Bering Sea breeds exclusively at the ice edge in spring; the harp seal, which lives at the ice edge all year; the ringed seal, which give birth to and nurse their pups on sea ice; the ribbon seal and the bearded seal.
Polar bears would be threatened by any decline in ringed seal populations, their main food source.
Which now looks alarmist to say the least.
The NSIDC boffins add, however that overall the Arctic ice - while up on recent years - is below the average seen since records began in 1979. In fact, according to the Cryosphere Today website run by the Polar Research group at Illinois uni, it's down by 443,000 square km. However the sea ice around the Antarctic coasts is above average by 452,000 km2, so overall the planet's sea ice is at the moment slightly above average in extent - and in the Bering Sea, the walruses, seals and polar bears can quite literally chill out in comfort. ®
Standard Bootnote on Why Greenpeace are Definitely Hippies
*We've had various mail and comments from people who object to the characterisation of Greenpeace as a bunch of hippies. We would refer you to the words of Greenpeace International's Director of Information Technology & New Media, Brian Fitzgerald, a multi-decade veteran of the organisation and its top worldwide mouthpiece and IT expert. In an induction speech for new Greenpeace people which he has given "again and again and again" he says:
Greetings, hippies!
Aha, I see a few of you cringing — but you’re in Greenpeace now ... Which means you’re hippies ...
And if you, dear hippies, are going to make a difference in this organization, you’re going have to embrace that madness. You’re just gonna have to honor your hippy roots, find your inner mystic...
So, welcome hippies ... hold on to your hippy heart.
If you work for Greenpeace, you're a hippy - it's compulsory. This is just a fact, and one confirmed by the organisation itself. QED - Greenpeace are a bunch of hippies.
COMMENTS
"Show me on the doll where the bad environmentalist touched you."
Someone seems to be on a one-man crusade..
"climate-Cassandra organisations "
Not sure if that's an appropriate term for this article: if I remember correctly, Cassandra's curse was that she was right but no one believed her.
I wish I had a popular news website
Truly, I really do. If this is the level of skill expected of science writers today, I've got whole stables of 10 year olds who could churn out this rubbish 24/7.
Aside from the fact the author is looking at one small location at one time, which clearly invalidates everything he says, let's throw in a bit more context for the textually impaired
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent_hires.png
That is the sea ice, as of two days ago, sourced from the same blokes who are cited in the report. The Bering Sea is that little strip on the top left, and as you can see, is the only bit of sea ice showing any kind of growth, being dwarfed by the losses in the rest of the arctic, particularly on the pacific side.
I think the most ridiculous part of this story is the quotation from the NSIDC even explains that the build up of ice in the bering sea is a direct consequence of ice further north melting. The ice has melted, been blown south and then physically come together to form new ice packs, blocking further movement. Now, you might think this is alright, that it's just ice moving, but you have to bear in mind this is the peak of the ice season (the "melt" season started exactly a week ago). Think about what would happen if those floating ice packs hadn't re-frozen, blocking the sea, and anyone with half a brain should immediately see how catastrophic even a single season of above-average melting can be.
I know you're a bunch of anti-scientific dogmatists over in the el reg "science" department, but really, you could at least try and pretend you're not just shitting on the keyboard and passing it off as work. If you'd just stuck to bashing Greenpeace this would've been a heartily entertaining bit of gutter journalism that we could all get behind.
Also, records didn't "begin" in 1979, that's just when precise, daily satellite recordings began. We can gauge the minima/maxima of ice going back millenia.
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