The Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica has broken up further, with an area of about 160 square kilometres breaking off from May 30 to May 31, 2008. The Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of floating ice on the Antarctic Peninsula, is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady. A report in ESA said that in February, an area of about 400 sq km broke off from the ice shelf, narrowing the connection down to a 6km strip.
New York: His new book, Physics of the Impossible, has been on the New York Times Best Seller's list for more than four weeks now. Michio Kaku, co-founder of string field theory and professor of theoretical physics at City University, New York, talks to Narayani Ganesh about the future potential of cutting-edge science: Why do you say we're in transition between the Age of Discovery and the Age of Mastery?
The sea-ice cover in the polar regions is one of the most expansive and seasonal geophysical parameters on the earth's surface. The presence or absence of sea-ice affects the atmosphere and the ocean, and therefore the climate in many ways. In this study we have used the Multi-frequency Scanning Microwave Radiometer (MSMR) brightness temperature data over the Antarctic/Southern Ocean region to calculate the weekly sea-ice extents, during the melting phase from August 1999 to March 2000 to quantitatively estimate the melting rates of sea-ice on a hemispheric scale.
In their policy forum ("The limits of consensus," 14 September 2007, P. 1505), M. Oppenheimer et al, make several misleading statements. They suggest that a premature drive for consensus led Working Group I to understate the risk of large future sea-level rise in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (WGI-AR4). (Letters)
a team of explorers is set to begin its journey to capture the most accurate data on the North Pole. The Vanco Arctic Survey lead by Pen Hadow will begin in February next year. The team will be in the arctic for trial of equipment in the last week of October.
On December 13, 2006, scientists warned that the Arctic ice is melting at a rate faster than was estimated. The ice has been shrinking steadily over the past 30 years, but now scientists say there's a possibility of an ice-free Arctic in the next few decades.
signatures of the past, embedded deep inside polar ice, reveal that the current levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (co2) and methane, are the highest over the last 650,000 years.
