Melting Arctic and Global Warming

East coast of Greenland on April 14, 2010. Photo by Bill Fintel

The title link is to a Los Angeles Times article reporting on research studies published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The bottom line is that melting arctic sea ice, northern hemisphere glaciers and snow cover have a larger effect on global climate than previously calculated. From the article:

'The "albedo" effect, in which the blinding white cover reflects sunshine, has been calculated in numerous computer-generated climate models. But the new study goes beyond those theoretical calculations. Using field measurements and satellite observations, a team led by University of Michigan researcher Mark Flanner found that the warming effect of the loss of snow and ice is "substantially larger" than was predicted in the estimates of 18 climate models.'