Polar Meltdown Update

"These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present"

Greetings

On the hoof at present so this is very much on the fly, but here are the latest on the meltdown of the Arctic. Together with the happy news that the amount of greenhouse gases likely to be released by thawing tundra is twice as much as has been previously estimated, and may release twice the amounts currently in the atmosphere.


1 ENN: Lowest ever sea ice in Arctic - 15 September

This story relates how it is now touch and go that this summer's minimum will be even lower than last year's, and thus the lowest ever recorded. That measure relates to the surface area, important for the albedo effect, survival of the polar bears etc. Perhaps more importantly for the continuation of the Arctic, the article also reports that the volume of ice is now almost certainly at the lowest ever known.


2 ISF: Permafrost: Frozen Organic Carbon Might be a Bigger Threat Than Previously Thought - 15 September

'Scientists say the amount of greenhouse gases released by widespread thawing of permafrost could be equivalent to twice the current amount of CO2 in the world's atmosphere.'


Enough said. There are links to a short paper on the major international study that has reached that conclusion.



3 New Scientist: Massive Canadian Arctic Ice Shelf Breaks Away - 03 September


Chillingly, this article is documents the end of a era in geological terms, as it details the terminal and irreversible break up of the Arctic ice shelves together with the loss of unique and unstudied ecosystems, never to return. All happening in your lifetime...

If you are looking for evidence that things are happening faster than predicted, the loss of ice from Ellesmere Island this summer was ten times the scientific estimates made as recently as 30 July this year.

Of its original 9000 sq kms, only 800 kms remain.



That's all for now. Happily it seems to bring things up to date, on a quick browse.


All the best

The Arctic becomes an island as ice melts

Hi again

It has been a while since an update on the meltdown of the Arctic (due to uncertainty about what was happening allied to a lack of connectivity), but having finally concluded the Climate Wars email just sent, I have just had time to turn up this.

Don't have much time to pontificate, but the Daily Telegraph of all papers seems to have had an exclusive on this story published on 31 August.

The Arctic becomes an island as ice melts

It reports the 'historic development' that

'The North Pole has become an island for the first time in human history as climate change has made it possible to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap.'

as the North-West and North-East Passages are now both open, detaching the Arctic from Europe, Asia and the Americas.


As well-informed as ever on climate change, The Telegraph states

'shipping companies are already planning to exploit the first simultaneous opening of the routes since the beginning of the last Ice Age 125,000 years ago.'

Most scientists are of the opinion that the last ice age was considerably more recent, peaking around 11,000 years ago, but no doubt they have got it wrong.

It reports

'Prof Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in the US said the images suggested the Arctic may have entered a "death spiral" caused by global warming.'

As, heartbreakingly, it would seem have our original friends, the polar bears we all began aspiring to save, who

'have been spotted off Alaska trying to swim hundreds of miles to the retreating ice cap.'

It has been more widely reported that this year's melt is now the second biggest ever, and we are waiting to see if the remaining melt, which usually ceases mid-September, will top the record, leaving the smallest extent of Arctic ice ever.

It may well do so, and as this was not a particularly favourable summer in terms of the factors influencing melting, the writing seems to be ever larger on the wall.

Well done The Telegraph for leading on this. On the bright side, if this report also marks the beginning of the paper's historic conversion at least the tide of public opinion is starting to turn in a positive direction.

Try your hardest, folks, whilst the possibility remains...

Be happy

Gwynne Dyer - Climate Wars

'US and UK military strategists have already started planning to deal with the threats posed by climate change: failed states, famines, floods, new warzones, and millions and millions of refugees'


Greetings

Rather a long time ago I stated an intention:

'finally, if it remains possible, to draw the main environmental and geopolitical strands together to make some tentative predictions of the main factors likely to be at play, to give some indication of where we might be heading on present trends.'

Clearly I've spun out hopelessly on that to date, but happily this fellow has spared us all the trouble. More happily still, being a strategic analyst of such eminent standing he is syndicated to 175 journals in 45 countries, he does so with an authority that is infinitely more credible than any layperson could ever hope to muster.

Which is just as well given the logical conclusions anyone considering the human and planetary predicament objectively and with clarity must inevitably come to.

Gwynne Dyer gave an interview on the Late Night Live show on ABC (by approximation, the equivalent of the BBC in Oz) on 26 August. The billing for the programme states:

'US and UK military strategists have already started planning to deal with the threats posed by climate change: failed states, famines, floods, new warzones, and millions and millions of refugees'

It is the first I am aware of that someone of his stature and with access to the necessary privileged (ie classified) information has spoken out candidly and coherently on this subject, rather than partially and piecemeal.

The interview runs one by one through the main strategic risks such as food scarcity, water, mass migrations and so on, and analyses the likely geo-political effects on each region of the globe. As you would expect from a defence analyst, the tone is absolutely measured throughout, yet the conclusions are as sensational - read frightening - as any currently abroad.

As such it is an analysis of the deepest importance which I would encourage all to spare the 40 minutes necessary to listen to here.

But for the sceptical or more heavily pressed, a short yet telling report which went out on the Environmental Network News on 29 August can be found here.

As an appetite whetter, here is a snippet from the latter:

'there is a sense of suppressed panic from the scientific and military leaders.

"And it's not just the analysts. I spent the past year doing a very high-speed self-education job on climate change but I think I probably talked to most of the senior people in the field in a dozen countries," Dr Dyer said.

"They're scared, they're really frightened. Things are moving far faster than their models predicted. "You may have the Arctic ocean free of ice entirely in five years' time, in the late summer. Nobody thought that would happen until about the 2040s - even a couple of years ago." Dr Dyer says there is a sense of things moving much faster, and the military are picking up on that. He also says we will be playing climate change catch-up in the next 30 years. "The threshold you don't want to cross, ever, is 2 degrees Celsius hotter than it was at the beginning of the 1990s," he said.

"That is a margin we have effectively already used up more than half of. It would require pretty miraculous cooperation globally and huge cuts in emissions." And if the world does not decarbonise by 2050, you don't want to be there, according to Dr Dyer. "My kids will and I don't think that is going to be a pleasant prospect at all, because once you go past 2 degrees - and you could get past 2 degrees by the 2040s without too much effort - things start getting out of control," he said. "The ocean starts giving back to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide it absorbed.

That world is a world where crop failures are normal.'

Inevitably he discusses James Hansen's critical role in alerting us to this and Hansen's current view that the safe limit for CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere is 350 ppm (covered with references in my email of 02 May entitled “Finding oil isn't the issue – it is whether we want to find it, burn it and all fry” - do ask if you would like it resent). According to this interview we are currently at 387 ppm. That is not a typo.

He also considers that the current consensus to be that 425 ppm is the ultimate threshold beyond which you may as well forget about a future because everything blows. It is pertinent to note here that the fourth IPCC report, which remains current in that all political solutions are based upon it but is now hopelessly out of date scientifically, considers 450 ppm to be the goal to be aimed for. That is not a typo either. Allow the implications of those figures to permeate your consciousness.

Also:

'"[There will be] huge falls in the amount of crops that you can grow because there isn't the rain and it's too hot," he said. "That will apply particularly to the Mediterranean... and so not just the north African countries, but also the ones on the northern side of the Mediterranean. The ones in the European Union like Spain and Italy and Greece and the Balkans and Turkey are going to be suffering huge losses in their ability to support their populations.'

He also predicts the militarisation of the US border with Mexico within ten years.

The rest I leave for you.

In passing, I have had no success in downloading the podcast from ABC, but the streaming works perfectly via either channel offered; and there are a few inaccuracies in the ENN report - for instance the date of the broadcast, which is possibly something to do with the dateline.


Finally, in response to some very kind requests to make these discussions more widely available they have been posted on a rather rudimentary blog. It is still in beta and rather rough round the edges, but functional. All the material circulated over the last year or so is there (after a long list of vibes, hopefully to inspire, which speak of our predicament), including that originally posted on the now defunct Wild Law forum. In addition there is an RSS feed which, if you subscribe to it, has the advantage of alerting you to new postings automatically as they appear. All at

http://pensiveprognosticator.blogspot.com


Hope it helps

Stay happy