Dramatic temperature increase confirmed in the Artic…

Debate and Discussion. Hmmmm. I figure someone would try and make this Bush's fault. Nice restraint. This has shown up for 30 years, or after it. But isn't that about all the time that this has really been examined? I've heard some say that this is a natural cycle, and that after the next 30-50 we'll see a cooling off as well. I believe it was on discovery channel.

 

Well, at least this thread finally heated up... and got one, no two, responses!

 

inFOURno...

 

Things are getting hotter!!! More retreating glaciers:



June 8, 2004

An Icy Riddle as Big as Greenland
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

SWISS CAMP, Greenland Ice Cap - This vaulting heap of ice and the swirling seas nearby have emerged as vital pieces of an urgent puzzle posed by global warming. Can the continuing slow increase in worldwide temperatures touch off abrupt climate upheavals?

Each piece of the puzzle is a dynamic and complicated body of water. One, the North Atlantic, is some two miles deep and liquid. The other, this ice cap, is two miles high and solid. For scale, think of it as a freshwater Gulf of Mexico that has been frozen, inverted and plunked atop the world's largest island.

Experts have reported a series of observations in recent months that show that the ice and the waters here are in a state of profound flux. If the trends persist, they could mean higher sea levels and widespread coastal flooding. There is also a small chance that the changes could lead to a sharp cooling in parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

Although nobody expects shifts as rapid or cataclysmic as portrayed in the new movie "The Day After Tomorrow," the cooling could disrupt the relatively stable climatic conditions in which modern human societies have evolved.

In the last few years, Greenland's melt zone, where summer warmth turns snow on the edge of the ice cap into slush and ponds of water, has expanded inland, reaching elevations more than a mile high in some places, said Dr. Konrad Steffen, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado.

Recent measurements by NASA scientists show that such melting can have outsize effects on the ice sheet. Meltwater formed on the surface each summer percolates thousands of feet down through fissures, allowing the ice to slide more easily over the bedrock below and accelerating its slow march to the sea.

Some jutting tongues of floating ice, where riverlike glaciers protrude into the sea, are rapidly thinning. Measurements this year by Dr. Steffen and others on the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland show that more than 150 feet of thickness melted away under that tongue in the last year. Such melting can speed the seaward movement of ice in the same way that removing a doorstop lets a door swing freely.

As Dr. Steffen settled in with three colleagues for weeks of grueling research at this half-buried wind-tattered camp 4,000 feet up the flanks of the ice cap, he described how other Greenland glaciers were speeding their discharge of icebergs into the sea.

"If other ice streams start to react in a similar way," he said, "then we will actually produce much more fresh water."

This influx of fresh water could block North Atlantic currents that help moderate the weather of the Northern Hemisphere. "If that feedback kicks in," he said, "then the average person will worry."

Some oceanographers say global warming may already be pushing the North Atlantic toward instability. In less than 50 years, waters deep in the North Atlantic and Arctic have become significantly fresher, matched by growing saltiness in the tropical Atlantic. Worldwide, seas have absorbed enormous amounts of heat from the warming atmosphere. A big outflow of water from Greenland could take the system to a tipping point, some say.

In past millenniums when such oceanic breakdowns occurred, the climate across much of the Northern Hemisphere jumped to a starkly different state, with deep chills and abrupt shifts in patterns of precipitation and drought from Europe to Venezuela. Some changes persisted for centuries.

But whether something similar is likely to result from the new melting in Greenland is far from clear. The forces that caused abrupt climate change in the past, like monumental floods released from collapsing ice-age glaciers, are different from the much slower ones being measured today.

Gaps in understanding are enormous. Scientists have been unable to devise computer simulations that consistently replicate past jolts to the climate, leaving intellectual heartburn about the future.

"The models are not nearly as sensitive as the real world," Dr. Richard B. Alley, an expert at Penn State on Greenland's climate history, said. "That's the kind of thing that makes you nervous."

And there's more... http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/science/earth/08gree.html



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

Thanks KC,

I think it belongs in D&D for two reasons.

1. This forum doesn't have to be all politics all the time.
2. People have really debated the reality of global warming and human influences on climate in the forum in the past.

I have to say I'm surprised. I've kept in touch with the data for years, and this is happening faster than many people expected. Will be interesting to watch.

Maybe all the blue states will be underwater soon, and that's part of Rove's long term vision! ...sorry, j/k, I couldn't resist.

 

The Bushies are trying to make the scientists tone down the report and the data won't bend. That's why it's in D&D.

 

I know Bush's fans are on a high right now, and I don't blame them, but the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of all of you will look back on these times and say, "What were they thinking??"


Nov. 6, 2004, 3:50PM

Bush steadfast on rejection of global warming

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is holding fast to his rejection of mandatory curbs on greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming, despite a fresh report from 300 scientists in the United States and seven other nations that shows Arctic temperatures are rising.

This week, a four-year study of the Arctic will document that the region is warming rapidly, affecting global climates.

Scientists project that industrial gases such as carbon dioxide will make the Arctic warmer still, which would raise the level of the seas and make the earth hotter. The world's atmosphere now includes about 380 parts per million of carbon dioxide, compared with 280 parts per million in 1800, according to scientists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Kyoto international climate treaty last week, which puts it into effect early next year without U.S. participation. The treaty requires industrial nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels.

"President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost," said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Headed into his second term, Bush continues to believe he "made the right leadership choice" by repudiating the U.N.-sponsored pact negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, Connaughton said.

Former President Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, negotiated the treaty for the United States and had a major role in its final form.

"Kyoto was a bad treaty for the United States," said Mike Leavitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Leavitt added in an interview Friday that climate change is not an issue the administration dismisses. "I know that it is of importance to the president that we continue to make progress," he said.

So far, Bush's policy has amounted to spending a few billion dollars each year on research.

White House officials contend the drastic cuts in pollution that the treaty would have imposed on the United States would have cost nearly $400 billion and almost 5 million jobs. Many would have shifted to other countries that were not obligated to reduce their pollution levels, the Bush administration says.

Russia, by contrast, can increase its pollution substantially under the treaty with a positive rather than detrimental impact on its job market, the officials say.

From 1990 to 2002, U.S. greenhouse gases increased 13.1 percent while Russian greenhouse gases decreased 38.5 percent, partly because of shrinkage in its industrial base after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to the latest U.N. figures.

Global warming is a recurring theme that punctuated the start of Bush's terms in office.

In March 2001 Bush broke his campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions and withdrew the United States from the Kyoto treaty, which seeks to slow global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Gore signed the treaty in 1997, but it never was ratified by the Republican-controlled Senate. Bush said it also should have included developing countries such as China and India, which are major polluters.

Achieving the treaty's target will be difficult without participation by the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized nations' carbon dioxide emissions in 1990. Russia accounted for 17 percent.

Critics say Bush's opposition is ironic because the treaty was modeled after the market-based U.S. program for cutting acid rain created in 1990 by Bush's father and often pointed to by the current administration as a success story.

"Indeed, it would be very, very surprising if this instrument were not used by the people who invented it," Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the Kenya-based U.N. Environment Program, said in an interview.

Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for New York-based Environmental Defense, a nonprofit group that says it is dedicated to protecting the environment, said the United States will be left isolated on the biggest environmental challenge of the century. She said the White House estimates of Kyoto's costs do not appear to include the cost savings from trading pollution rights.

"For business, it's quite serious because it means that the global carbon market is going to move, and U.S. companies are going to be left out of that market," Petsonk said. She helped shape the Kyoto treaty and the first President Bush's climate policy as a Justice Department lawyer.

By signing on to the treaty, industrialized nations commit themselves to cutting their collective emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels.

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is releasing a report this week that says there is strong evidence that climate change already has begun to affect ecosystems and wildlife in the United States and around the world.

Some animal species are already moving from one habitat to another to adapt to warmer temperatures, according to the Pew report, and future warming probably will exceed the ability of many species to migrate or adjust.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/2887867




Keep D&D Civil!!

 

That's an uplifting article.

Say what you will about the Kyoto treaty, clearly America needs to do something. If Bush won't do what's right, Americans as individuals will have to (and should anyway) be more proactive.

 

Here's an update, with the released report. The rate of change is just unbelievable.

Excerpts...
----------------
OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- Global warming is heating the Arctic almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens millions of livelihoods and could wipe out polar bears by 2100, an eight-nation report said on Monday.

The biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, by 250 scientists, said the accelerating melt could be a foretaste of wider disruptions from a build-up of human emissions of heat-trapping gases in the earth's atmosphere.

The "Arctic climate is now warming rapidly and much larger changes are projected," according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), funded by the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Arctic temperatures are rising at almost twice the global average and could leap 4-7 Celsius (7-13 Fahrenheit) by 2100, roughly twice the global average projected by U.N. reports. Siberia and Alaska have already warmed by 2-3 C since the 1950s.

 

Al Gore in 2008 !



DD

 

When I retire in three decades I will be able to move to Alaska and plant a citrus farm.

 

An editorial from the Washington Post:

Arctic Thaw

Tuesday, November 9, 2004; Page A26

NOT ONLY HAS it moved beyond the realm of science fiction, but the Arctic ice cap's melting has been much faster than anyone has suspected. That is one of the important conclusions of a report published yesterday at the behest of the Arctic Council, a forum composed of eight nations with Arctic territories, including the United States. Yet the report, produced over four years by several hundred scientists, government officials and indigenous groups, is not sensational or alarmist. It simply compiles the data, noting that because of long-term global warming, average winter temperatures in Alaska, western Canada and eastern Russia have increased by as much as seven degrees over the past 50 years. If the trend continues, about half of the Arctic sea ice is projected to melt by the end of this century.

The report describes some of the possible environmental effects of this change. Many northern animal species, including polar bears and seals, are likely to become extinct. Vegetation and animal migration patterns around the world will shift. Low-lying parts of the world, including Florida and coastal Louisiana, are likely to experience serious flooding. But although the report's scientific conclusions will be the subject of an international conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, this week, the authors intentionally do not offer specific recommendations, political or environmental, on how to halt or cope with these changes.

Such recommendations are supposed to come from diplomats and indigenous representatives who will also be meeting at the Reykjavik summit, however. And already, these are the subject of controversy: Some participants have accused the Bush administration of resisting a mild endorsement of the report and of rejecting even vague language suggesting that greenhouse gas reduction might be part of the solution. Given the thorough nature of this report, and given that the election is now over, that would be inexcusable. At the very least, we hope that the final language reflects a practical, commonsensical and depoliticized approach to what will certainly be one of the most pressing environmental issues of the next half-century.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35441-2004Nov8.html



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

Front page headline in today's Anchorage Daily News. This has been front and center up here lately since, quite frankly, we Alaskans are feeling the more immediate effects, at least in comparison with the rest of the country.

Although considering it was 23 degrees below zero the other day, I say bring it on

Climate change devours arctic ice




Climate change devours Arctic ice
STUDY: Rapid melting is threatening Earth's "air conditioning," experts say.


Daily News wire services

(Published: November 9, 2004)


WASHINGTON -- Scientists reported Monday that changes in the Earth's climate from human influences are occurring with particular intensity across the Arctic, evidenced by widespread melting of glaciers, thinning sea ice and rising permafrost temperatures.

A study released Monday said the annual average amount of sea ice in the Arctic has decreased about 8 percent in the past 30 years, resulting in the loss of 386,100 square miles of ice -- an area bigger than Texas and Arizona combined.

The report, a four-year effort involving hundreds of scientists, describes vast areas of melting ice, declining species and fading indigenous cultures.

"The bottom line is that the Arctic is warming now, much more rapidly than the rest of the globe, and it's impacting people directly," said Robert Corell, chairman of the scientists' study panel and a senior fellow with the American Meteorological Society.

The report states that climate change is accelerating sharply, spurred by human production of greenhouse gases, which have increased in the atmosphere by nearly 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution.

The report was produced by the Arctic Council -- comprising government representatives from Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States -- along with scientists and members of indigenous groups.

The 140-page report chronicles the many changes that have resulted as the Arctic has warmed in recent decades.

In the past 50 years, average yearly temperatures in Alaska and Siberia rose about 3.6 degrees to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, and winters in Alaska and western Canada warmed an average of 5 degrees to 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Parts of Alaska and Russia, for example, have seen average winter temperatures rise 11 degrees since the 1970s and are the highest in 400 years, according to the report. The amount of ocean covered by ice over the past three years has been the lowest ever recorded.

Among the other changes, according to the report, are the melting of the massive Greenland ice cap and other Arctic glaciers and the decimation of northern forests by foreign insect invasions. Some coastal villages, including several in Alaska, are jeopardized by erosion and rising seawater.

"The polar regions are essentially the Earth's air conditioner," Michael McCracken, president of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences, told a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday. "Imagine the Earth having a less efficient air conditioner."

Scientists have long puzzled over how much of the Arctic warming is due to human influence and how much is due to natural climate cycles.

For decades, an oceanic and atmospheric pattern known as the Arctic oscillation has been stuck in a phase that increases warming over parts of the Arctic. In recent years, the pattern has shifted to a more neutral state, "yet the Arctic is still warming, and we're still losing sea ice," said Mark Serreze, a researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, who contributed to the report.

"This is one of the pieces of evidence that we're starting to see more clearly the effects of greenhouse warming," he said.

Using computerized projections based on a "moderate scenario" of climate change, the authors say the Arctic faces an even warmer future, with half as much sea ice in summer by the end of the century.

Large sections of the report deal with problems faced by indigenous Arctic people, who tell of hunters falling through melting sea ice, declining reindeer herds and difficulty traveling in roadless regions with no snow for their snowmobiles and sleds.

In more developed areas of the Arctic, buildings, pipelines, runways and roads are beginning to crumble as the permafrost beneath them thaws and becomes less stable.

If the trend continues, the report says, it would wreak havoc on polar bears, ice-dependent seals, caribou and reindeer herds -- as well as indigenous people who hunt those animals for food.

"Global warming connects us all," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian Inuit who chairs the Inuit Circumpolar Council. "The Arctic is the world's health barometer, and Inuit are the mercury in that barometer."

The study projects that in the next 100 years the yearly average temperatures will increase by 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit over land and 13 to 18 degrees over the ocean, mainly because the water absorbs more heat.

Although the problems are immediate to many of the Arctic's 4 million residents, the changes will affect the rest of the world as well, scientists said. Melting sea ice and ice sheets raise the sea level, which could affect low-lying cities in Florida and Louisiana, for example. The fresh water flowing into the ocean could alter the marine circulation patterns that help moderate the global climate.

The report is not all gloomy. A warmer Arctic could increase the numbers of some species, such as Arctic char. It could extend the growing season for wheat in Canada and open up now-treacherous sea routes such as the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route, which parallels Russia, for shipping and resource exploration.

Pointing to the report as a clear signal that global warming is real, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said the "dire consequences" of warming in the Arctic underscore the need for their proposal to require U.S. cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

President Bush has rejected that approach. James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Bush administration is spending $10 billion yearly on research into climate change and related issues. "The president's strategy on climate change is quite detailed," he said.

 

Also, my university (UA-Fairbanks) recently released a collaborative report on the subject, which can be seen here:

International Arctic Science Committee