New Research

[knocker]

Glaciers: A window into human impact on the global carbon cycle

Fossil fuel signature found in Alaskan ice

New clues as to how the Earth's remote ecosystems have been influenced by the industrial revolution are locked, frozen in the ice of glaciers. That is the finding of a group of scientists, including Robert Spencer of the Woods Hole Research Center. The research will be published in the March 2012 issue of Nature Geoscience.

Globally, glacier ice loss is accelerating, driven in part by the deposition of carbon in the form of soot or "black carbon," which darkens glacier surfaces and increases their absorption of light and heat. The burning of biomass – trees, leaves and other vegetation around the globe, often in fires associated with deforestation – and fossil fuel combustion, are the major sources of black carbon.

Spencer and his fellow scientists have conducted much of their research at the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, Alaska. Mendenhall and other glaciers that end their journey in the Gulf of Alaska receive a high rate of precipitation, which exacerbates the deposition of soot, but also makes for a good research site.

"We are finding this human derived signature in a corner of the U.S. that is traditionally viewed as being exceptionally pristine," Spencer notes. "The burning of biomass and fossil fuels has an impact we can witness in these glacier systems although they are distant from industrial centers, and it highlights that the surface biogeochemical cycles of today are universally post-industrial in a way we do not fully appreciate."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/whrc-gaw021612.php

[full_frontal_occlusion]

Here's another one, the latest from Abdussamatov on an expected deep, prolonged Solar minimum:

http://icecap.us/ima.../abduss_APR.pdf

Astonishing. The author makes a stupendous conclusion and utterly fails to quote neither source, derivation or proof. Thus his statement is an assumption at best leading on to further statements predicated on that assumption. This alone renders his whole paper rather worthless and would be utterly destroyed if presented at conference.

".......This, in its turn, will lead to the rise of Earth albedo, the

drop of atmospheric concentration of the most important greenhouse gas – water vapor, as well as of carbon

dioxide and other gases. Let us note that water vapor absorbs ~68% of the integral power of the intrinsic

long-wave emission of the Earth, while carbon dioxide – only ~12%. As a consequence, a portion of solar

radiation absorbed by the Earth will gradually go down together with manifestations of the greenhouse effect

caused by the secondary feedback effects. The influence of the growing consecutive chain of such changes will

cause additional decrease of the global temperature exceeding the effect of a bicentennial TSI decrease."

ffO.

Edited February 22, 2012 by full_frontal_occlusion

[knocker]

CFC substitutes: good for the ozone layer, bad for the climate

Protecting the climate by reducing fluorinated greenhouse gas emissions

The Montreal Protocol led to a global phase-out of most substances that deplete the ozone layer, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). A happy side-effect of the gradual ban of these products is that the Earth’s climate has also benefited because CFCs are also potent greenhouse gases. However, now a «rebound effect» threatens to accelerate the rate of global warming. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which have been used in recent years in increasing quantities as substitutes for CFCs, are also climatically very active and many are also extremely long-lived. In the renowned journal «Science» an international team of researchers recommends that the most potent of these gases also be regulated. This could save the positive «side effect» of the Montreal Protocol for the global climate.

http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/3/117472/---/l=2

[knocker]

Ancient Arabic writings help scientists piece together past climate

Iraqi sources from 9th and 10th centuries give new meteorological insights

Ancient manuscripts written by Arabic scholars can provide valuable meteorological information to help modern scientists reconstruct the climate of the past, a new study has revealed. The research, published in Weather, analyses the writings of scholars, historians and diarists in Iraq during the Islamic Golden Age between 816-1009 AD for evidence of abnormal weather patterns.

Reconstructing climates from the past provides historical comparison to modern weather events and valuable context for climate change. In the natural world trees, ice cores and coral provide evidence of past weather, but from human sources scientists are limited by the historical information available. Until now researchers have relied on official records detailing weather patterns including air force reports during WW2 and 18th century ship's logs.

Now a team of Spanish scientists from the Universidad de Extremadura have turned to Arabic documentary sources from the 9th and 10th centuries (3rd and 4th in the Islamic calendar). The sources, from historians and political commentators of the era, focus on the social and religious events of the time, but do refer to abnormal weather events.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/w-aaw022312.php

[knocker]

Yet another study on this subject.

Ocean acidification rate may be unprecedented, study says

Few parallels in 300-million-year geologic record

The world's oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/teia-oar022912.php

[knocker]

Observed decreases in the Canadian outdoor skating season due to recent winter warming

Global warming has the potential to negatively affect one of Canada's primary sources of winter recreation: hockey and ice skating on outdoor rinks. Observed changes in winter temperatures in Canada suggest changes in the meteorological conditions required to support the creation and maintenance of outdoor skating rinks; while there have been observed increases in the ice-free period of several natural water bodies, there has been no study of potential trends in the duration of the season supporting the construction of outdoor skating rinks. Here we show that the outdoor skating season (OSS) in Canada has significantly shortened in many regions of the country as a result of changing climate conditions. We first established a meteorological criterion for the beginning, and a proxy for the length of the OSS. We extracted this information from daily maximum temperature observations from 1951 to 2005, and tested it for significant changes over time due to global warming as well as due to changes in patterns of large-scale natural climate variability. We found that many locations have seen a statistically significant decrease in the OSS length, particularly in Southwest and Central Canada. This suggests that future global warming has the potential to significantly compromise the viability of outdoor skating in Canada.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014028/pdf/1748-9326_7_1_014028.pdf

[knocker]

Greenland ice sheet may melt completely with 1.6 degrees global warming

The Greenland ice sheet is likely to be more vulnerable to global warming than previously thought. The temperature threshold for melting the ice sheet completely is in the range of 0.8 to 3.2 degrees Celsius global warming, with a best estimate of 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels, shows a new study by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Today, already 0.8 degrees global warming has been observed. Substantial melting of land ice could contribute to long-term sea-level rise of several meters and therefore it potentially affects the lives of many millions of people.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/pifc-gis030912.php

[songster]

Interesting, but frankly tangential to the real issue, which is the speed of change. If (say) the Greenland ice cap is doomed, and destined to melt fully away over the next 50,000 years... should we really care? Even with 8 degrees C warming, their model says it still takes 2000 years to melt the Greenland ice cap - i.e. a sea level rise of ~0.8m / century, and noticeably less than that for the first few centuries. Perhaps perversely, I find this reassuring.

However, I understand that the rate-of-melt question - despite being the most important - is the one that's most poorly characterised. At this point I'm not sure we need more models of equilibrium climate change: we need much better understanding of the non-equilibrium dynamics of ice cap melt.

[knocker]

Iron is key to reversing global warming, Concordia and McGill research shows

Montreal, March 14, 2012 - Canada defines itself as a nation that stretches from coast to coast to coast. But can we keep those coasts healthy in the face of climate change? Yves Gélinas, associate professor in Concordia’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has found the solution in a surprising element: iron.

http://www.concordia.ca/now/media-relations/news-releases/20120314/fielding-questions-about-climate-change.php

[loafer]

(PhysOrg.com) -- The ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide emissions from human activity appears to be surprisingly robust as the climate warms, according to groundbreaking research.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-mop-carbon-lab-conditions.html

[knocker]

A new proxy.

Scientists use rare mineral to correlate past climate events in Europe, Antarctica

New study published in April issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters

The first day of spring brought record high temperatures across the northern part of the United States, while much of the Southwest was digging out from a record-breaking spring snowstorm. The weather, it seems, has gone topsy-turvy. Are the phenomena related? Are climate changes in one part of the world felt half a world away?

To understand the present, scientists look for ways to unlock information about past climate hidden in the fossil record. A team of scientists led by Syracuse University geochemist Zunli Lu has found a new key in the form of ikaite, a rare mineral that forms in cold waters. Composed of calcium carbonate and water, ikaite crystals can be found off the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland.

"Ikaite is an icy version of limestone," say Lu, assistant professor of earth sciences in SU's College of Arts and Sciences. "The crystals are only stable under cold conditions and actually melt at room temperature."

It turns out the water that holds the crystal structure together (called the hydration water) traps information about temperatures present when the crystals formed. This finding by Lu's research team establishes, for the first time, ikaite as a reliable proxy for studying past climate conditions. The research was recently published online in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters and will appear in print on April 1. Lu conducted most of the experimental work for the study while a post-doctoral researcher at Oxford University. Data interpretation was done after he arrived at SU.

The scientists studied ikaite crystals from sediment cores drilled off the coast of Antarctica. The sediment layers were deposited over 2,000 years. The scientists were particularly interested in crystals found in layers deposited during the "Little Ice Age," approximately 300 to 500 years ago, and during the "Medieval Warm Period," approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago. Both climate events have been documented in Northern Europe, but studies have been inconclusive as to whether the conditions in Northern Europe extended to Antarctica.

Ikaite crystals incorporate ocean bottom water into their structure as they form. During cooling periods, when ice sheets are expanding, ocean bottom water accumulates heavy oxygen isotopes (oxygen 18). When glaciers melt, fresh water, enriched in light oxygen isotopes (oxygen 16), mixes with the bottom water. The scientists analyzed the ratio of the oxygen isotopes in the hydration water and in the calcium carbonate. They compared the results with climate conditions established in Northern Europe across a 2,000-year time frame. They found a direct correlation between the rise and fall of oxygen 18 in the crystals and the documented warming and cooling periods.

"We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica," Lu says. "More importantly, we are extremely happy to figure out how to get a climate signal out of this peculiar mineral. A new proxy is always welcome when studying past climate changes."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/su-sur032112.php

[knocker]

CO2 was hidden in the ocean during the Ice Age

Bremerhaven/Bern, 29 March 2012. Why did the atmosphere contain so little carbon dioxide (CO2) during the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago? Why did it rise when the Earth's climate became warmer? Processes in the ocean are responsible for this, says a new study based on newly developed isotope measurements. This study has now been published in the scientific journal "Science" by scientists from the Universities of Bern and Grenoble and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association.

Around 20,000 years ago, the atmospheric CO2 concentration during the last Ice Age was distinctly lower than in the following warm period. Measurements from Antarctic ice cores showed this already two decades ago. An international team of glaciologists thereafter looked even further back in time. The climate researchers found that this close connection between carbon dioxide and temperature has existed over the past 800,000 years: with low CO2 concentrations during the Ice Ages and higher CO2 values during warm periods. Now they tried to answer also the question as to where the carbon dioxide was hidden during the Ice Ages and how it got back into the atmosphere at their ends.

"We have now been able to identify processes in the ocean which are connected to the observed rise in CO2", says Dr. Jochen Schmitt, lead author of the recently published study and researcher at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern. According to Schmitt, during the Ice Age more and more carbon dioxide accumulated in the deep ocean, causing the concentration of atmospheric CO2 to drop. Only at the end of the Ice Age was this stored CO2 transported back to the sea surface through changing ocean circulation and thus emitted back into the atmosphere, write the scientists in the scientific journal "Science".

A new method for isotope measurements has now made it possible for the first time "to reliably decode the fingerprint of the CO2 preserved in the ice", explains Schmitt. He and his colleague Prof. Hubertus Fischer initially developed these new isotope measurement methods for ice cores at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and further refined them in many years of research work after moving to Bern. Using the new method the glaciologists extract the air trapped in the ice core completely and the CO2 contained in the air is thoroughly cleaned. The different isotopes of the CO2 are analysed in a mass spectrometer and from this data the origin of the carbon dioxide can be derived.

Researchers suggested back in the eighties that this puzzle could be solved using an isotopic "CO2 fingerprint". However, it had so far not been possible to make a precise analysis of the carbon dioxide trapped in the Antarctic ice due to the technical hurdles. The glaciologists and the climate researchers at the Universities of Bern and Grenoble and of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have now managed a breakthrough with their study.

Development of Future Scenarios

"The new data have already enabled us to revise and improve a few theories about the possible reasons for CO2 fluctuations. Measurement data from the past enable us to gain a clearer idea about how the climate must have looked at the end of the Ice Age", says Jochen Schmitt. And now the data must be compared with the results from climate models to verify and further develop the models. "In addition to the scientific curiosity about how our Earth functioned in the past, the main question to be asked is how the Earth will develop under the influence of man", explains Jochen Schmitt. These are important scenarios for the future because the CO2 content in the atmosphere has never been anywhere near as high over the past 800,000 years as today, says the climate researcher.

#

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/haog-cwh032912.php

[knocker]

UNH Research Brings New Understanding to Past Global Warming Events

DURHAM, N.H. – A series of global warming events called hyperthermals that occurred more than 50 million years ago had a similar origin to a much larger hyperthermal of the period, the Pelaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), new research has found. The findings, published in Nature Geoscience online on April 1, 2012, represent a breakthrough in understanding the major “burp†of carbon, equivalent to burning the entire reservoir of fossil fuels on Earth, that occurred during the PETM.

“As geologists, it unnerves us that we don’t know where this huge amount of carbon released in the PETM comes from,†says Will Clyde, associate professor of Earth sciences at the University of New Hampshire and a co-author on the paper. “This is the first breakthrough we’ve had in a long time. It gives us a new understanding of the PETM.†The work confirms that the PETM was not a unique event – the result, perhaps, of a meteorite strike – but a natural part of the Earth’s carbon cycle.

http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2012/apr/bp02warming.cfm

[knocker]

Confirming carbon's climate effects

Researcher helps paint the fullest picture yet of how increases in CO2 helped end the ice age

Harvard scientists are helping to paint the fullest picture yet of how a handful of factors, particularly world-wide increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, combined to end the last ice age approximately 20,000 to 10,000 years ago.

As described in a paper published April 5 in Nature, researchers compiled ice and sedimentary core samples collected from dozens of locations around the world, and found evidence that while changes in Earth's orbit may have touched off a warming trend, increases in CO₂ played a far more important role in pushing the planet out of the ice age.

"Orbital changes are the pacemaker. They're the trigger, but they don't get you too far," lead author Jeremy Shakun, a visiting postdoctoral fellow in Earth and Planetary Science Shakun, said. "Our study shows that CO₂ was a much more important factor, and was really driving worldwide warming during the last deglaciation."

Though scientists have known for many years, based on studies of Antarctic ice cores, that deglaciations over the last million years and spikes in CO₂ were connected, establishing a clear cause-and-effect relationship between CO₂ and global warming from the geologic record has remained difficult, Shakun said. In fact, when studied closely, the ice-core data indicate that CO₂ levels rose after temperatures were already on the increase, a finding that has often been used by global warming skeptics to bolster claims that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change.

Many climate scientists have addressed the criticism and shown that the lag between temperature and CO₂ increases means that greenhouse gases were an amplifier, rather than trigger, of past climate change, but Shakun and his colleagues saw a larger problem – while CO₂ measurements taken from air bubbles in the ice cores reflect levels throughout the global atmosphere, temperatures recorded in the ice only reflect local Antarctic conditions.

To get a more accurate picture of the relationship between global temperature and CO₂, they synthesized dozens of core samples – 80 in all – collected from around the world.

"We have ice cores from Greenland, people have cored the sea floor all around the world, they've cored lakes on the continents, and they have worked out temperature histories for all these sites," Shakun said. "Putting all of these records together into a reconstruction of global temperature shows a beautiful correlation with rising CO₂ at the end of the ice age. Even more interesting, while CO₂ trails Antarctic warming, it actually precedes global temperature change, which is what you would expect if CO₂ is causing the warming.

"The previous science clearly said that CO₂ had something to do with warming," Shakun added. "It has gone up and down in tandem with the ice ages, so it is clearly involved. If it was an amplifier, the question was how big of an amplifier? Does it explain a lot of climate change, or was it a small piece, and other factors were more important? I think this research really points a strong finger at the idea that CO₂ was a major player."

Armed with that evidence, Shakun and colleagues were able to sketch out how a series of factors aligned that eventually led to a worldwide warming trend and the end of the ice age.

Most scientists now believe, Shakun said, that the first domino wasn't an increase in greenhouse gases, but a gradual change in Earth's orbit. That orbital change resulted in more sunlight hitting the northern hemisphere. As the ice sheets over North America and Europe melted, millions of gallons of fresh water flooded into the North Atlantic and disruped the cyclical flow of ocean currents.

"Ocean circulation works like a global conveyor belt," Shakun said. "The reason it's important for climate is because it's moving heat around. If you look at it today, the northern hemisphere is on average, a couple degrees warmer than the south, and that's partly because the ocean is pulling heat northward as it flows across the equator in the Atlantic.

"But if you turn the conveyor belt off, it's going to warm the south because you're no longer stealing that heat away. Warming the southern hemisphere, in turn, shifts the winds and melts back sea ice that had formed a cap, trapping carbon in the deep ocean."

As more and more CO₂ enters the atmosphere, Shakun said, the global warming trend continues, "and pretty soon you're headed out of an ice age."

While the research strengthens the link between CO₂ and the Ice Ages, Shakun believes it also reinforces the importance of addressing CO₂-driven climate change in our own time.

"I don't think this tells us anything fundamentally new about global warming," Shakun said. "Most scientists are not in doubt about the human-enhanced greenhouse effect – there are nearly a dozen strong pieces of evidence that it is affecting global climate. This is just one more log on the fire that confirms it."

###

Shakun's research was supported by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate and Global Change Fellowship and by the National Science Foundation, and conducted using resources at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/hu-ccc040312.php

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.arcus.org/files/projects/supplemental/674/stroeve_etal_seaice_synthesis_2011.pdf

Latest on Arctic Ice loss.

[knocker]

Pollution teams with thunderclouds to warm atmosphere

New simulation study shows that atmosphere warms when pollution intensifies storms

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Pollution is warming the atmosphere through summer thunderstorm clouds, according to a computational study published May 10 in Geophysical Research Letters. How much the warming effect of these clouds offsets the cooling that other clouds provide is not yet clear. To find out, researchers need to incorporate this new-found warming into global climate models.

Pollution strengthens thunderstorm clouds, causing their anvil-shaped tops to spread out high in the atmosphere and capture heat -- especially at night, said lead author and climate researcher Jiwen Fan of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/dnnl-ptw051812.php

[knocker]

Some interesting research by the University of Copenhagen.

Old aerial photos supply new knowledge on glaciers in Greenland

CLIMATE

The glaciers in southeast Greenland are retreating rapidly with the ongoing global climate change. But now research from the University of Copenhagen shows that the glaciers can recuperate within a short timeframe if temperatures are to drop. The results are based on a collection of Danish aerial photos combined with both old and modern satellite imagery as well as field work. The scientific results have created international attention and have been published as a cover story in the highly esteemed journal Nature Geoscience.

Of course the paper itself is in Nature Geoscience.

http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2012/2012.5/glaciers_greenland_photos/

[knocker]

Very interesting.

June 6, 2012

Until now, studies of Earth's climate have documented a strong correlation between global climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide; that is, during warm periods, high concentrations of CO₂ persist, while colder times correspond to relatively low levels.

However, in this week's issue of the journal Nature, paleoclimate researchers reveal that about 12-5 million years ago climate was decoupled from atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. New evidence of this comes from deep-sea sediment cores dated to the late Miocene period of Earth's history.

During that time, temperatures across a broad swath of the North Pacific were 9-14 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today, while atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations remained low--near values prior to the Industrial Revolution.

The research shows that, in the last five million years, changes in ocean circulation allowed Earth's climate to become more closely coupled to changes in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

The findings also demonstrate that the climate of modern times more readily responds to changing carbon dioxide levels than it has during the past 12 million years.

"This work represents an important advance in understanding how Earth's past climate may be used to predict future climate trends," says Jamie Allan, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=124393&org=NSF&from=news

[BornFromTheVoid]

Large phytoplankton blooms observed under the Arctic sea ice.

NASA Discovers Unprecedented Blooms of Ocean Plant Life

Scientists have made a biological discovery in Arctic Ocean waters as dramatic and unexpected as finding a rainforest in the middle of a desert. A NASA-sponsored expedition punched through three-foot thick sea ice to find waters richer in microscopic marine plants, essential to all sea life, than any other ocean region on Earth.

The finding reveals a new consequence of the Arctic's warming climate and provides an important clue to understanding the impacts of a changing climate and environment on the Arctic Ocean and its ecology. The discovery was made during a NASA oceanographic expedition in the summers of 2010 and 2011

Full report with video and pictures here

[Gray-Wolf]

Large phytoplankton blooms observed under the Arctic sea ice.

Full report with video and pictures here

I've been monitoring discussions on 'blue ice' on recent Modis images (Siberian side but , later in the year, the C.A.) and must wonder if we are actually seeing these blooms through the ice? I know we can watch the same discoloration as our blooms head north in early summer but if we do see a 'darkening' of the ice then this must have implications for ice melt with less reflection over the blooms?

This years pack appears to have a lot of young ice in the center of the basin so I wonder if we will see a similar 'blueing' of the ice there prior to melt out?

The other thing I know from the southern oceans is the amount of mixing biological processes cause in the water column so more blooms mean more plankton means more mixing of the surface of the ocean?

There appears to be so much we have yet to learn about the processes we have set into motion by warming the Arctic.

[BornFromTheVoid]

It would be interesting to know if it has any relation to the fresh water dome that has been building over the pole.

I think the blue ice is much too widespread to be related to the under ice blooms. I think last year there were some massive blooms around the Barents sea. Actually, here's a modis image of them http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2011051.terra.4km

[Gray-Wolf]

^{Sorry BFTV? not seeing it myself (nor most of Barentsz as it's feb and in darkness??).}

^{As for the 'blue ice', I can't remember spending a lot of time on early season melt before 08' so I can't recall if we saw similar? It has to have some local reason, be it freshwater river runoff (re-frozen altering R.I. of the ice) or the uniform nature of F.Y. ice acting as a window to the ocean below. As for Algal blooms? well if they do double in size so much faster than in open ocean then why not over such a scale?}

^{When we have more data on the occurance then maybe we'll be in a better position to answer such questions?}

[BornFromTheVoid]

^{Sorry BFTV? not seeing it myself (nor most of Barentsz as it's feb and in darkness??).}

^{As for the 'blue ice', I can't remember spending a lot of time on early season melt before 08' so I can't recall if we saw similar? It has to have some local reason, be it freshwater river runoff (re-frozen altering R.I. of the ice) or the uniform nature of F.Y. ice acting as a window to the ocean below. As for Algal blooms? well if they do double in size so much faster than in open ocean then why not over such a scale?}

^{When we have more data on the occurance then maybe we'll be in a better position to answer such questions?}

To the south of the white-out area, the brown water stretching from Greenland across to Novaya Zemlya and northern Norway?

I suppose I'd have to wonder why the blooms under the ice would appear as blue when they're usually not that colour? My thinking is that the blue ice is more of a refraction issue then caused by anything underneath, though I may well be completely wrong.

I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty about them in the coming years, and hopefully a more definite explanation for the blue ice.

[Methuselah]

Don't know whether this'll help at all: http://www.weather.gov.hk/education/edu06nature/ele_water_e.htm

[BornFromTheVoid]

NCEP/CPC forecast now shows a 50% chance of El Nino developing from the J-A-S onward, and 50% chance of remaining neutral.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html