Arctic sea ice melts to its lowest recorded level
Sept 2012
2012 Arctic sea ice extent lowest ever recorded
'It is official. Arctic sea ice for the year 2012 is at the lowest levels ever recorded since record keeping began nearly three decades ago, when scientists began monitoring the rate of ice with satellite measurements. In fact, Arctic ice dropped to levels unseen since we began measurements by August 26, 2012 – earlier than expected – as ice extent dropped under 4 million square kilometers (1.54 million square miles). According to Climate Central, the amount of ice that has melted in the Arctic is roughly around the size of Alaska and Canada combined. Since August, sea ice extent has remained lower than its 2007 lowest point, which once held the record for the lowest sea ice extent in the Arctic. Scientists say we have now likely hit the low point of Arctic melting for the 2012 season. But, if the trend of melting sea ice in the Arctic summertime continues, which appears to be likely, we’ll see ice in the Arctic shrink in size each summer – sometimes more, sometimes less – perhaps reaching an even lower lowest point within the coming years.'
http://earthsky.org/earth/2012-arctic-sea-ice-extent-lowest-ever-recorded
The reduction of sea ice in the Arctic to the smallest extent ever recorded has prompted renewed warnings of accelerated climate change.
The alarm has been sounded before, and ignored, but the dramatic character of the latest findings can only be ignored by a species hell-bent on suicide.
Satellite images have revealed that the summer melt has been so rapid and so extensive as to reduce the area of frozen sea to less than 3.5 million square kilometres. This represents less than half the area typically occupied four decades ago.
The record has been officially declared by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, whose data shows sea ice extent at a new low of 3.42m sq km.
Scientists are now predicting that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer months within the next 20 years, something which could have major climate impacts. The dramatic nature of the collapse surprised the scientists themselves. "I am surprised. This is an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing. The trends all show less ice and thinner ice," said Julienne Stroeve, a research scientist with the NSIDC.
Back in the 1970s, Arctic sea ice cover averaged around 8 million sq km a year, but has been shrinking ever since. However, the extent of the collapse in ice cover in this last year is extremely unusual. The previous record low of 4-17million sq km recorded in 2007 was broken on 27 August 2012. Since then, further melting has removed another 500,000 sq km.
What surprised sea ice experts most of all about the radical collapse is the fact that weather conditions this year have not been especially conducive to a major melt.
Scientists now think that the ice is now much thinner than it used to be and much easier to melt. If this is true, then the consequences are alarming. Arctic sea ice follows an annual cycle of melting through the warm summer months and refreezing in the winter. This may sound like a statement of the obvious, but the point is worth making since the likes of Christopher Booker have a tendency to trip up on the simplest science. Booker thinks that ice thickening in the winter months between September and January is evidence against claims that the ice caps are melting. Ice thickens in winter? Who didn’t know this? The important point is the extent of the melt in the summer and the extent of the freezing in the winter. The ice is thinner than it used to be and easier to melt. This is important since the sea ice plays a critical role in regulating climate. The white ice acts as a giant mirror that reflects much of the Sun's energy back, thus helping to cool the Earth. The less ice there is, the more heat is absorbed, thus warming the Earth, in turn leading to a greater melt. A vicious cycle begins that becomes impossible to arrest.
“If climate change really is the biggest threat facing humanity, let's have a more measured and reasoned argument in which the sceptics are not shouted down or ignored. If our way of life is to be changed, and our countryside transformed, and the Third World possibly deprived of the opportunities of economic growth, we deserve a bit more than bogus pictures of polar bears perched on lumps of ice…” (Stephen Glover I might not know the truth about climate change, but I recognise trickery and slippery excuses when I see them. Daily Mail, November 26,2009).
The pictures are real and there are plenty of them. The scientific evidence for global heating as a result of carbon emissions is sound. We now need a transformation leading from the wasteful, exploitative capitalist way of life towards some genuine growth for the world?
For environmental groups, the NSIDC report confirms what they have been saying all along with respect to carbon emissions, arguing that the shrinking of the ice cap is evidence of long-term global warming caused by human-made greenhouse gas emissions. In July (2012), the journal Environmental Research Letters published a study that compared model projections with observations, estimating that the dramatic reduction in Arctic sea ice has been between 70-95% as a result of human activities. As John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK, comments: "We are on the edge of one of the most significant moments in environmental history as sea ice heads towards a new record low. The loss of sea ice will be devastating, raising global temperatures that will impact on our ability to grow food and causing extreme weather around the world."
For David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK, "The sheer scale of ice loss is shocking and unprecedented. This alarm call from the Arctic needs to reverberate across Whitehall and boardrooms."
But will it? For Ed Davey, the UK climate and energy secretary, "These findings highlight the urgency for the international community to act. The fact is that we cannot afford to wait".
Similar statements have been made before. And little by way of real action has followed. It begs the question that, since politicians know the nature of the climate problem, what forces stand in the way of concerted action? How about short-term electoral and business cycles? The task before us is clear - we need to find a way of disengaging the way we govern our lives from these myopic political and economic necessities, and start to engage in strategic long term thinking and planning for the general good.