White House task force discusses Alaska's oceans

The following never got any publicity from NASA website:
October 4, 2007
A team led by Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., studied trends in Arctic perennial ice cover by combining data from NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) satellite with a computing model based on observations of sea ice drift from the International Arctic Buoy Programme. QuikScat can identify and map different classes of sea ice, including older, thicker perennial ice and younger, thinner seasonal ice.

Son Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

"The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said.

"We're from the government and we are here to help you..."
We're in real trouble now.

Hmmm, let me see. We can't predict the weather, earthquakes, volcanos or even guarantee that we will wake up tomorrow, but we may be able to figure out a way to stop global warming? When scientists stop using words and phrases like "we think, might, maybe, could have, might have, may have," etc. I might be inclined to believe they can come up an answer but till then that little piece of paper they have called a diploma says they know more than the common folks:(. That is why they create task forces to ask the locals to answer the problems for them.

Nicke wrote:

The following never got any publicity from NASA website:
October 4, 2007
A team led by Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., studied trends in Arctic perennial ice cover by combining data from NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) satellite with a computing model based on observations of sea ice drift from the International Arctic Buoy Programme. QuikScat can identify and map different classes of sea ice, including older, thicker perennial ice and younger, thinner seasonal ice.
Son Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
"The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said.

Quik Scat???

Isn't "quik scat" something produced by the Obama administration?

I'm new to the arctic. I have seen how the natives live up here and approve of each and every way they live and hunt to sustaine their way of life.With that being said comercial fishing and offshore drilling would take away and ruin our arctic natives way of life. Comercial fishing would interupt whaling, while taking away much needed fish. Drilling would also interupt whaling by possibly changing the whales route away from the whalers.And by unforseen accidents polute our/their arctic waters and have the whales leave the area all together.