THE UNIVERSITY JAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, FERRUARY 24, 2009
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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2009
NEWS
3A
ENVIRONMENT
Polar explorers report on Antarctica's ice sheets
Their work will help determine how much the continent's melting ice could raise sea levels in the future
BY CHARLES J. HANLEY
Associated Press
TROLL RESEARCH STATION, Antarctica — Policymakers met polar explorers on the boundless ice of Antarctica Monday as a U.S.-Norwegian scientific expedition came in from the cold to report on the continent's ice sheets, a potential source for a catastrophic "big melt" from global warming.
"Our preliminary finding is that there's a slight warming trend in East Antarctica," American glaciologist Ted Scambos told the group of visiting environment ministers.
It was an early estimate regarding just one region of a huge continent, drawn from first analyses of ice cores drilled along the team's route. But it caught the ear of the visiting politicians, who are this year weighing a grand new global deal for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to avert the worst of climate change.
"It's important to hear the latest science," said Hilary Benn, Britain's environment minister. "I was impressed that they're finding temperatures rising. But there is still so much not
still so much not known."
Representatives from more than a dozen nations, including the U.S., China and Russia, rendezvoused at this Norwegian research station with the scientists completing the last
leg of a 1,400-mile (2,300-kilometer) two-month trek over the ice from the South Pole.
The 12-member Norwegian American Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica is a leading project in the 2007-2009 International Polar Year (IPY).
It is a mobilization of 10,000
scientists and 40,000 others from more than 60 countries engaged in intense Arctic and Antarctic research over the past two southern summer seasons - on the ice, at sea, via icebreaker, submarine and surveillance satellite.
Learning more about historic temperature trends has been a prime concern in examining
whether global warming - already occurring elsewhere on the planet - might cause Antarctica's huge store of ice to start melting, raising sea levels, potentially to a disastrous point for coastal cities and shorelines worldwide.
Speaking to the environment ministers over breakfast, Kim Holmen, research director for the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Troll station's operator, noted that scientists had generally thought Antarctica as a whole was not warming in recent decades.
"I was impressed that they're finding temperatures rising. But there is still so much not known."
"This new analysis shows us actually the whole of Antarctica has been warming."
HILARY BENN Environment minister
But a recent study in the journal
Nature shook that view.
Such work will be combined with another IPY project, an all-out effort to map by satellite radar information about Antarctic ice sheets over the past two summers, an attempt to assess how fast ice is being pushed into the surround-
from the South Pole were also gathering important data on how much snow has fallen historically.
KIM HOLMEN Research director
"This new analysis shows us actually the whole of Antarctica has been warming," Holmen said.
The preliminary finding from the on-the ground Traverse expedition - if it is would reinforce that
confirmed - would reforce that Nature study, which extrapolated temperature trends by blending satellite information with scarce weather-station data available in and around Antarctica.
By drilling deep cores into the annual layers of ice sheet in this little explored region, the trekkers
ing sea.
Then scientists may understand better the "mass balance" — how much the snow, originating with ocean evaporation, is offsetting the ice pouring seaward. That, in turn, would help them judge fast and
high ocean levels may rise from Antarctic melt.
Since Antarctica accounts for 90 percent of the world's ice, "a small change in accumulation rate in this area could lead to significant sea-level rise." Tom Neumann, American leader of the Traverse, told the ministers.
The visitors also included the environment ministers of Algeria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Other countries were represented by climate policymakers and negotiators, including Xie Zhenhua of China and Dan Reifsnyder, a deputy assistant U.S. secretary of state.
During their long day here under the brilliant 17-hour sunlight of a dying southern summer, when the temperature still dropped to -20 degrees Celsius (near-zero Fahrenheit), the group traveled by snow tractor over the 500-meter-deep (1,500-foot-deep) ice sheet to stand in awe before ludussessen, a jagged wall of towering peaks in the 2,400-meter-high (8,000-foot-high) Gjielsvik Mountains.
A member of a group of visiting environment ministers and other representatives from more than a dozen nations gazes up at the monumental rock towers rising from 1,500-foot-deep ice sheets near the Norwegian Troll Research Station in Antarctica on Monday. The group flew to the remote station to learn from international scientists about whether and how global warming may melt Antarctic ice, raising sea levels.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
STATE
Senator proposes end to death penalty
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOPEKA — The state's need to cut spending to prevent a budget deficit is a good argument for abolishing the death penalty to save money, Senate leaders said Monday.
The Senate Judiciary Committee plans hearings Thursday and Friday on a bill by Sen. Carolyn McGinn (R-Sedgwick) to abolish the death penalty starting July 1. Chairman Tim Owens, an Overland Park Republican, said the committee would vote on the bill either Friday or next week.
The bill wouldn't affect the 10 inmates already under sentence of death, nor would it apply to Justin Thurber, convicted in Cowley County of killing Jodi Sanderholm, a 19-year-old community college student, in 2007. A jury recommended death, and Thurber is to be sentenced March 20.
When McGinn introduced the bill, she said death sentences were too expensive and unnecessary because a person can be sentenced to life in prison without parole. She said lawmakers needed to save money to keep the budget balanced for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Senate President Steve Morris (R-Hugoton) said a 2003 state audit showed that death penalty cases averaged $1.2 million, compared with $740,000 for non-death penalty murder cases.
"This is a question of cost comes as one of the factors about whether we need the death penalty," said the Topeka Democrat. "It's a proven fact that it costs more to put people to death than to keep them in prison for the long term."
"It if does have a chance of being repealed, it would because of economics," the Hugoton Republican said. "That would be the best choice of getting it repealed."
Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley agreed that costs could become an issue but didn't know whether it would be a convincing argument for enough lawmakers.
Aside from costs, opponents also say there's the chance of innocent person being executed. The center says some 130 death row inmates have been exonerated since 1973.
State Budget Director Duane Goossen speaks to reporters Monday afternoon in Topeka. In an attempt to save the state some money, Sen. Carolyn McGinn (R-Sedgwick) proposed a bill that would abolish the Kansas death penalty Monday.
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