at least for rational people

[Guest guest]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Studies looking at the oceans and melting

Arctic ice leave no room for doubt that it is getting warmer, people

are to blame, and the weather is going to suffer, climate experts

have said.

 

New computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the

atmosphere show the clearest signal yet that global warming is well

under way, Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography

said.

 

Speaking at an annual meeting of the American Association for the

Advancement of Science, Barnett said climate models based on air

temperatures are weak because most of the evidence for global warming

is not even there.

 

" The real place to look is in the ocean, " Barnett told a news

conference.

 

His team used millions of temperature readings made by the U.S.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to calculate steady

ocean warming.

 

" The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is

now over, at least for rational people, " he said.

 

The report was published one day after the United Nations Kyoto

Protocol took effect, a 141-nation environmental pact the United

States government has spurned for several reasons, including stated

doubts about whether global warming is occurring and is caused by

people.

 

Barnett urged U.S. officials to reconsider.

 

" Could a climate system simply do this on its own? The answer is

clearly no, " Barnett said.

 

His team used U.S. government models of solar warming and volcanic

warming, just to see if they could account for the measurements they

made. " Not a chance, " he said.

 

And the effects will be felt far and wide. " Anywhere that the major

water source is fed by snow ... or glacial melt, " he said.

 

" The debate is what are we going to do about it. "

 

Other researchers found clear effects on climate and animals.

 

Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that

melting ice was changing the water cycle, which in turn affects ocean

currents and, ultimately, climate.

 

" As the Earth warms, its water cycle is changing, being pushed out of

kilter, " she said.

 

" Ice is in decline everywhere on the planet. "

 

A circulation system called the Ocean Conveyer Belt is in danger of

shutting down, she said.

 

The last time that happened, northern Europe suffered extremely cold

winters.

 

She said the changes were already causing droughts in the U.S. west.

 

Greenland's ice cap, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels

globally by 23 feet (7 meters), is starting to melt and could

collapse suddenly, Curry said.

 

Already freshwater is percolating down, lubricating the base and

making it more unstable.

 

Sharon Smith of the University of Miami found melting Arctic ice was

taking with it algae that formed an important base of the food supply

for a range of animals.

 

And the disappearing ice shelves meant big animals such as walruses,

polar bears and seals were losing their homes.

 

" In 1997 there was a mass die-off of a bird called the short-tailed

shearwater in the Bering Sea, " Smith told the news conference.

 

The birds, which migrate from Australia, starved to death for several

years running when warmer waters caused a plankton called a

coccolithophore to bloom in huge numbers, turning the water an opaque

turquoise color.

 

" The short-tailed shearwater couldn't see its prey, " Smith said.

 

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