Arctic Ice may 'melt away' this summer

Cid_Yama · Last edited by Cid_Yama on Sat Apr 26, 2008 6:50 pm; edited 1 time in total

It has been 1.1 million years since the Arctic had an ice-free summer, long before humans existed.

The loss of old, thick ice has continued through the winter months, despite the unusually cold weather deriving from La Nina conditions (the other extreme of the El Nino Southern Oscillation) in the Pacific.

The winter ice loss is thought to be driven mainly by the transport of old floes from Arctic waters out into the Atlantic Ocean. The currents driving this are stronger than usual as a consequence of another natural cycle, the Arctic Oscillation.

The net result is that most of the cover consists of ice that has formed since last summer.

With the ice pack containing such a high proportion of thin, salty ice, the scientists believe another major melt is likely in the summer.

"It's becoming thinner and thinner and much more susceptible to melting during the summer - much more likely to melt away," commented Walt Meier from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder.

"It may look OK on the surface, but it's like looking at a Hollywood movie set - you see the facade of a building and it looks OK, but if you look behind it, there's no building there."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7303385.stm
_________________
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

Cid_Yama

Enjoy life while you can

Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's most respected - if maverick - independent scientists. Working alone since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all climate science.

Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won't make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.

"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do."

Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics.

Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."

Interviewers often remark upon the discrepancy between Lovelock's predictions of doom, and his good humour. "Well I'm cheerful!" he says, smiling. "I'm an optimist. It's going to happen."

"There have been seven disasters since humans came on the earth, very similar to the one that's just about to happen. I think these events keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we'll have a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly. That's the source of my optimism."

What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can.

link
_________________
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

Ludi

Cid_Yama

I know, but I don't think he really believes we'll do any of what really needs to be done.

For that matter, I don't either.
_________________
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

Cashmere · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 27, 2008 Posts: 1058

kpeavey · Expert Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 905

I think I should like to find me a place, not unlike Lovelock's, that has an old mill, and finally settle down. There's a lot you can do with an old mill.

Lovelock strikes me as the kind of guy who enjoys his time thinking. I can relate to that, do it a great deal myself. He tends to put things into perspective. There is always a greater priority. As far as the world is concerned, Peak Oil is a small matter, as are humans. In the end, climate has far more power than a bunch of evolved primates or their energy sources. You could go further, I suppose, think about the environment the Earth is in. The sun will go nova in a few Gozillion years. Kinda makes the climate issue moot. After that, we all get sucked into a maverick black hole, then the universe frigs itself up.

As far as our species goes, the climate of the world would be the greatest concern, so I think Lovelock has his mind in the right place.
As I've always said: Ontogeny begets Phylogeny. What better way to understand ourselves and the direction we are headed than to understand the climate we live in?
_________________
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984

______________
Accept the Facts.

Cid_Yama

tell me again, body snatchers, why a couple of degrees is cataclysmic?

Melting Methane - Hydrate Armaggedon upon us

"The seawater proved to be "highly oversaturated with solute methane," reports Shakhova. In the air over the sea, greenhouse-gas content was measured in some places at five times normal values. "In helicopter flights over the delta of the Lena River, higher methane concentrations have been measured at altitudes as high as 1,800 meters," she says."

It's beginning now. This will not be a gradual trend. This will be an event, a giant methane burp, so to speak.

AWI's results show that permafrost in the flat shelf is perilously close to thawing. Three to 12 kilometers from the coast, the temperature of sea sediment was -1 to -1.5 degrees Celsius, just below freezing.

Another 1-1.5 degrees and the shelf will look like a shook up soda can. An ice-free summer in the Arctic will do it.

link
_________________
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

Plantagenet

Ludi

Cid_Yama

*hands Ludi a candle and horse-driven plow(plough)* how exciting - just discovered another deviation in American English from British English. (Yes, I know, I don't have a life.)
_________________
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

Ludi

I don't need to plough, but thanks, I can use the candle! Smile

_________________
"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2334 Location: MA

auscanman

Homesteader

mos6507 · Fission Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 2492