I posted this message at the DesertUSA.com environmental topics board last week. I got zero response aside from a few comments about asteroids destroying the earth before it matters and "This forum is for desert issues only" despite global warming affecting the deserts as well as the oceans.

Hopefully the crowd here will have more insightfull input for the discussion so here goes:

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I've read a few interesting articles this week and this seemed like the best place to discuss them.

The first few delt with the disintegration of the Larsen B Ice sheet in Antartica:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/...000/1880566.stm
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/News/Press_Rel...2/20020319.html

It was interesting reading but not too shocking if you look at the big picture. Even in those articles they admit that other areas of Antartica are seeing thicker ice developing and colder temperatures. The area where this ice sheet fell off is in one of the most northern reaches of Antartica and is on a peninsula surrounded by warmer waters. Having grown up in Ohio and spending many a winter lunch break watching the ice on Lake Erie break up I don't find the rapid disentigration all that shocking.

Many times I would watch large ice floes in Lake Erie for weeks at a time as they would slow break off small chunks. But while that was happeneing the entire ice flow itself would slowly be developing cracks allowing water to seep in - and suddenly the entire thing would disentigrate. It was quite spectacular to watch. You can also see it on a smaller scale by watching ice form and melt in small streams and rivers.

But today I found a few other articles that seem like the big picture that helps make some sense out of this:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/20/n...pole/index.html

Yep, on the other side of the planet comes a clue. The earth is not steady - meaning it drifts in many ways all at the same time. One of these ways is a wobble that causes magnetic north to move as the earth tilts in space.

Could it be that the earth has taken a slight tilt moving this already northern streatch of the antartic even further north causing the rising temperatures in that area?

Just curious what others think about these things.

Remember this, the earth's rotation around the sun is eliptical. We are closer to the sun in WINTER than we are in SUMMER. That's right, we're closer in winter. BUT, in winter the Earth's Axis tilts, well, it's always 'tilted' in relationship to the sun. The North Pole tilts away from the sun, causing the light to be more stretched across the northern hemisphere and more directly in the southern hemisphere. In the summer, the north pole tilts towards the sun, causing the light to hit more directly onto the northern hemisphere, heating it up and causing summer.

The Ice Pak breaking up in Antartica doesn't supprise me either. A long time ago, earth was as it is now, with more Oxygen of course. Then most of Earth froze over during the ice age, now it's like it is now. Maybe there is a trend, it will get warmer, but one day, it might start cooling off and we could have another ice age!!!

My $0.02

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/l...3180mar31.story

go here to read a long story in today's LA TIMES about the changes in the Arctic.