[asa] climate change severity

This caught my eye this morning on the CNN site about the Ayles ice
shelf collapse. ...quoting Vincent Warwick of Laval university:

"It is consistent with climate change," Vincent said, adding that the
remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first
discovered in 1906.

I assume he was just referring to the six major Canadian ice sheets.
Can this be right? Am I interpreting this correctly, then, that we
have only 10% of the ice sheet area (or mass?) in the Canadian arctic
than was known to exist in 1906? And, if this has been a somewhat
linear loss since 1906, then could human-caused global warming still be
the primary agent? If it hasn't been a linear loss, then how much of
that 90% loss occurred in recent decades? I'll need to research some of
this on the web myself, but meanwhile, if there is a pool of experts
right here...

Please note: I do NOT consider myself one of those who mistrusts all
science in its advocacy for care of environment. Stewardship is a
Christian calling (which predated the scientific enlightenment and is
not founded on it.) Wendell Berry is a great author, IMO. I
seriously endorse the bicycle as the superior transportation technology
over the automobile (even if I hypocritically fall short of living that
ideal -- I still aspire to it). My convictions here obviously are not
based on science. But I am interested in any clarity science can bring
to our knowledge of our footprint.

--merv

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Received on Tue Jan 2 18:41:20 2007