Japan accepts court ban on Antarctic whaling. 31 March 2014Last updated at 08:08 ET Anti-whaling activists filmed Japanese whaling ships in January this year The UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that the Japanese government must halt its whaling programme in the Antarctic. It agreed with Australia, which brought the case in May 2010, that the programme was not for scientific research as claimed by Tokyo. Japan said it would abide by the decision but added it "regrets and is deeply disappointed by the decision". Australia argued that the programme was commercial whaling in disguise. The court's decision is considered legally binding. Japan had argued that the suit brought by Australia was an attempt to impose its cultural norms on Japan.
Science 'myth' Reading out the judgement on Monday, Presiding Judge Peter Tomka said the court had decided, by 12 votes to four, that Japan should withdraw all permits and licenses for whaling in the Antarctic and refrain from issuing any new ones. Underneath a glacier time lapse. "CHASING ICE" captures largest glacier calving ever filmed - OFFICIAL VIDEO. Glaciers. How does the Medieval Warm Period compare to current global temperatures? The Medieval Warm Period spanned between the 10th and 15th centuries, and corresponded with warmer temperatures in certain regions around the world.
During this time, ice-free seas allowed the Vikings to colonize Greenland. North America experienced prolonged droughts. Just how hot was the Medieval Warm Period? Was the globe warmer than now? Prior temperature reconstructions tend to focus on the global average (or sometimes hemispheric average). Figure 1: Reconstructed surface temperature anomaly for Medieval Warm Period (950 to 1250 A.D.), relative to the 1961– 1990 reference period.
How does the Medieval Warm Period compare to current conditions? Figure 3: Surface temperature anomaly for period 1999 to 2008, relative to the 1961– 1990 reference period. The Medieval Warm Period was not a global phenomenon. Figure 4: Global surface temperature reconstruction from Mann et al. (2008) They also found that the warming occurred at different times in different geographical areas. Extension - ice movement. Extension Monitoring Glaciers. Despite typical glaciers’ massive sizes, monitoring them is not always an easy task. Only specific types of small glaciers are good measures of climate change. Some glaciers are too large to measure accurately, and others are simply too unpredictable. Once scientists find a suitable glacier, they must take satellite images of the ice for a minimum of five years and compare the results.
They then have to look closely at the outside edge of the glacier (the glacier’s terminus). If a large percentage of the glacier’s edge is receding then the area around the ice is growing warmer, and if a large percentage is expanding then the area is growing cooler. Types of Glaciers The data used in this study are available in one or more of NASA's Earth Science Data Centers. Formation of Alpine Glaciers (Part 1 of 4) uses difereent terms!