Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than 'our most pessimistic models': researcher

[Elmore Furth]

Source: The Vancouver Sun

WINNIPEG — Sea ice in Canada’s fragile Arctic is melting faster than anyone expected, the lead investigator in Canada’s largest climate-change study yet said Friday — raising the possibility that the Arctic could, in a worst-case scenario, be ice-free in about three years.

University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study, said the rapid decay of thick Arctic Sea ice highlights the rapid pace of climate change in the North and foreshadows what will come in the South.

“We’re seeing it happen more quickly than what our models thought would happen,” Barber said at a student symposium on climate change in Winnipeg. “It’s happening much faster than our most pessimistic models suggested.”

Barber said before the expedition that climate scientists were working under the theory that climate change would happen much more slowly. It was assumed the Arctic would be ice-free in the winter by 2100.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Arctic+vanishing+fast+researcher/2532081/story.html

---

The same study estimated that the global cost of Arctic melting could reach $2.4 trillion by 2050 which is equivalent to the annual gross domestic products of Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom combined. The arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Arctic+melting+cost+trillion+2050+Study/2527615/story.html

There is also a positive feedback from arctic melting since trapped methane is released with warming increasing the greenhouse effect and the white ice is replaced by dark seawater which absorbs more of the sun's heat rather than reflecting it.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/arctic-ice-melt-could-cost-28tln-by-2050-report-20100206-nj47.html

[XemaSab]

1. .

[dencol]

4. Unsure, but let's start taking names!

I am coming to the realization that we will all be around long enough to see some widespread devastation caused by this.

[tavalon]

36. We've been in it now for at least five years and likely more

Catagory 5 Hurricanes use to be rare events. One after another came the year Katrina happened. They are predicting that this year's hurricane cycle may have even more cat 5 storms than that year did.

[ananda]

2. I wonder how the denialists will attack or spin this one.

nt

[greenman3610]

23. It's Gods vengeance

for Gay parades.

[tavalon]

37. Nope, it's God's vengeance for Pat Robertson

[beardown]

33. Worse than most pessimistic predictions.

Ha, more proof the climate scientists are wrong again. They admit it themselves.

I'm going out and buying six more Hummers and convert them to coal burning engines.

[Toots]

45. Well most don't deny the warming, what they deny is that man has anything to do with it.

They are basically say, hey we're for pollution because man didn't do it..They all seem to be Sarah Palin smart..

[Vidar]

3. K&R.

[proud patriot]

5. It's just heartwrenching to think of the polar bears

:cry:

[G_j]

26. it just does something to me inside

I can't watch the videos of the stranded bears, it's just too much.

[FedUpWithIt All]

63. It is the same for me. It haunts me to see the increasing struggle for survival so much of nature

is quietly enduring. They hold none of the blame for the conditions that are leading to their demise. It is those who have contributed the least that have been suffering the most, humans included.

I really wish i could say that i have had no part in it. I have learned my own part too late to make that claim. And I am mercilessly sorry for it.

[bread_and_roses]

27. yes. it's heart-gut-mind wrenching

the polar bears. the tigers. the very plankton. the entire ocean food chain. my grandchild. it goes on and on. I keep saying, we didn't have the science yet in the '60's, but we knew that the earth's life and life-systems were all connected. We may have been focused on pollution of the air, water, and earth, but it amounted to the same thing in the end.

I blame my generation. Far too many sold out to Corpo-merica. I remember the first of my contemporaries to leave a teaching job for Wall St. How shocked I was.

We have no one to blame but ourselves. We knew the way, and we abandoned it.

[superconnected]

44. Yep! I can't even look at those articles now because it bothers me so much.

[Odin2005]

46. you too?

:cry:

[Jefferson23]

6. We have wasted so much time, and then there is freaking China.

[hatrack]

51. It took China 20 yrs to double their coal consumption from 1981 to 2001

It took them five years to double it again between 2002 and 2007.

The most recent IEA data we have for China showed annual consumption of about 2.9+ billion tons in 2007.

Hmmm . . . I couldn't help wondering what's happened since 2007 - has China's coal consumption risen or fallen?

Tough question, huh?

[Cha]

7. Kick..it makes me mad at all the

people who "don't believe in Global Climate Changed" bc government scientist under bush said it wasn't so.

Follow the money.

[Gregorian]

8. Hello!

I hate being right about this. But I've been saying that this is going to be far more dramatic than anyone is ready for. The different modes of melting are going to be breathtaking in diversity. And I do not have any basis on which to make my predictions other than a lifetime of thermodynamic observations. It's a very large area and volume we are talking about. On one hand that has made the situation appear stable. But on the other hand, the fact that we are seeing changes in a system this large means that we have done some massive inputs to it. This is the part that people don't realize. What we have done, and are doing is huge.

Just the Berlin airlift. What was the effect of that on planet earth. Do people think about this stuff? I've posted videos of world war two aircraft manufacturing plants in the ecology forum, to make a point, and I get ooh's and aah's about how cool radial engines are. People don't seem to get the idea that we are killing this place in a real hurry.

[Uncle Joe]

14. One thing I do seem to recall after looking at a graph some time back regarding global termperatures

was a spike during World War II. I imagine from the all explosions, fire, burning of carbon and such.

"Just the Berlin airlift. What was the effect of that on planet earth. Do people think about this stuff? I've posted videos of world war two aircraft manufacturing plants in the ecology forum, to make a point, and I get ooh's and aah's about how cool radial engines are. People don't seem to get the idea that we are killing this place in a real hurry."

[DCBob]

9. This will get no press since there is a blizzard in DC.

The ice keeps melting in spite of those denying and ignoring the obvious.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

73. It turns my stomach the way deniers use any cold snap

or any winter weather to say, "Take that, Al Gore!" :grr:

[emmadoggy]

10. Not shocked by this, and I really can't think of anything else to say.

:cry:

[cachukis]

11. Pulease, I live in FLA. I need to sell in a bad market.

We've had the coldest winter in some time. Can't you pessimists wait a few more years before you expose that we are on "thin" ice. Wait, I live in FLA. We don't have ice here except for the tea.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DCBob]

12. Climate scientist predicts we could have a major ice melt this summer..

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scant ice over the Arctic Sea this winter could mean a "double whammy" of powerful ice-melt next summer, a top U.S. climate scientist said on Thursday.

"It's not that the ice keeps melting, it's just not growing very fast," said Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. In January, Arctic sea ice grew by about 13,000 square miles (34,000 sq km) a day, which is a bit more than one-third the pace of ice growth during the 1980s, and less than the average for the first decade of the 21st century.

more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6135TD20100204

[Uncle Joe]

13. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Elmore Furth.

[winyanstaz]

15. The poles have been moving for some time now..shifting towards russian...

at a nice clip.
This could easily explain the changes in weather.
The ice is melting in some places but forming in others.

[time_has_come]

20. That is interesting......you got any references for that?

Any news items or scientists saying that orbital tilting could be the cause of our current global warming?

[daleo]

21. He must be thinking of the magnetic pole

It has shifted some, but that is an entirely different matter from the spin axis.

[winyanstaz]

56. Here are a couple of books written by experts on the matter.....

http://books.google.com/books?id=zcr3WJ4wP10C&dq=scientists+saying+that+orbital+tilting+could+be+the+cause+of+our+current+global+warming%3F&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=4L9vS5DfEIK4swP8-s2yDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11&ved=0CCUQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=8HzBjbAaOVcC&dq=scientists+saying+that+orbital+tilting+could+be+the+cause+of+our+current+global+warming%3F&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=4L9vS5DfEIK4swP8-s2yDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CCcQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=&f=false

and an article to help ...
http://www.scienceclarified.com/scitech/Global-Warming/What-Is-Global-Warming.html

there are many many more.....

[muriel_volestrangler]

61. Competitive Enterprise Institute? Yet another RW reference?

Anyway, we've no established you are talking about a movement in the magnetic poles, not orbital tilt, which is what you were looking for there (I searched the 2nd book, and there's nothing in it about the movement of the magnetic poles; neither is there in the 3rd link you give). I'll skip on the right wing, Inhofe-recommended screed. Please, stop listening to the oil-company funded RW sources - they lie to you (eg the lie on the cover of the CEI book about "only a tiny portion of greenhosue gases are man-made - CO2 is more than 35% up on the pre-industrial revolution level. At least 30% more than at any time in the last 800,000 years).

Please, stop reading these RW references. They are feeding you lies.

[winyanstaz]

57. more info

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091224-north-pole-magnetic-russia-earth-core.html

that is just about the shift.....

[time_has_come]

67. This says nothingabou magnetic pole movement affecting weather...

...sorry, I don't mean to seem dismissive of you...but you are being condescending and acting like others here aren't "doing their homework," but your information is absolute garbage. Really, total garbage.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. The *magnetic* poles are shifting

and no, that cannot 'easily explain' any changes in weather. It can explain changes in where you can see the Northern Lights, but no-one has any model in which the magnetic poles affect temperature. The geographic pole, ie where the axis of the earth is compared to the surface, is exactly where it has been for all of history (a change in this is plate tectonics, on the scale of millimetres per year). The axis, and the earth's surface, is precessing just as it always has (this does have an effect, being part of the Milankovitch cycle, but in the predictable, slow, 26,000 year cycle - because it alters the time of year (ie the year we normally think of, when the northern hemisphere winter is always at the same time of year) when the earth is closer to, or further away from, the sun).

[winyanstaz]

38. Well it is only my own opinion but if we live in a electro-magnetic energy field...

I see no reason why shifting the major energy lines of the planet wouldnt have some effect.
It is not the shifting of the plates etc but the shifting of the patterns which I believe effect everything on this planet to some degree or another and which could include the upper atmosphere and the weather patterns of the jet streams etc.
If it can't..please point me to a link that proves it cannot effect the planet.
As man-made global warming has already been debunked..there has to be a natural cause.

[NickB79]

40. When exactly was man-made global warming debunked?

Because EVERY reputable climatological organization still says humans are the primary cause of global warming.

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

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[winyanstaz]

55. is that right?

"Because EVERY reputable climatological organization still says humans are the primary cause of global warming."

NOT hardly.

Its been debunked so much..even the kids have proven it...

Al Gore's global warming philosophy has been debunked by many scientists and studies, and now it has met the same fate at the hands of children, in "The Sky's Not Falling" video/essay contest, sponsored by WND Books, formerly World Ahead Media.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=62598

then there are the over 600 top world scientists that also disagree.
U.S. Senate Minority Report Update: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674e64f-802a-23ad-490b-bd9faf4dcdb7 (This report came out on December 15th, 2008.)

http://community.livinglakecountry.com/blogs/its_hemmer_time/archive/2008/12/20/hundreds-of-international-scientists-debunk-man-made-global-warming.aspx

There are tons more but I shall leave you to do your own homework...

Please try to note that I am NOT refuting that the planet is getting warmer, only that it is man that made it that way.

[muriel_volestrangler]

60. Ha-ha-ha, WND and Senator Inhofe

Start off with links that aren't infamous constant liars on climate, and we'll bother reading them.

For fuck's sake, can't you find sources that aren't to the right of Sarah Palin?

A clue: you haven't refuted anything.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. Thankfully, your own opinion doesn't count as scientific evidence

Since the components of the atmosphere aren't magnetic, there's no reason to assume that the location of the magnetic pole will have an effect on climate or weather. But you've said you can 'easily explain' this; the onus is on you to give this novel explanation.

You also need to tell us about "man-made global warming has already been debunked"; since this is global news, the most important that we've had in thus millennium, I think you ought to share that discovery with us, which has unaccountably been missed by the world's media. Who debunked man-made global warming?

[winyanstaz]

58. you may find this educational

You might be interested in this paper.
Climate Change and the Earth's Magnetic Poles, A Possible Connection
Author: Kerton, Adrian K.
Source: Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, January 2009 , pp. 75-83(9)
Publisher: Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd

As for who all debunked it...I have already posted that up above...its been debunked so much..even kids can do it now...hahhaa

[muriel_volestrangler]

59. On 'Energy & Environment' :

Climate skeptics and conservative politicians find all the science
they need in the journal Energy & Environment.

If the manuscripts of climate-change skeptics are
rejected by peer-reviewed science journals, they can
always send their studies to Energy & Environment.
“It’s only we climate skeptics who have to look for little
journals and little publishers like mine to even get
published,” explains Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, the
journal’s editor.

According to a search of WorldCat, a database of libraries, the journal is found in
only 25 libraries worldwide. And the journal is not included in Journal Citation
Reports, which lists the impact factors for the top 6000 peer-reviewed journals.
...
“I’m definitely a political scientist,” says Energy & Environment editor Boehmer-
Christiansen. A reader in geography at the University of Hull (U.K.), Boehmer-
Christiansen describes her doctoral work as covering international relations, but says
she consults others before publishing any studies in her journal. “My science is Alevel
chemistry, physics, one year of geography at university, and a bit of math.” She
adds that her husband has a Ph.D. in physics.

http://www.realclimate.org/docs/thacker/skeptics.pdf

And I can't find out what area Adrian Kerton works in at all.

So, what does this paper say? How does it analyse its data?

[winyanstaz]

65. sorry...please do your own homework...

You will learn better that way..

[muriel_volestrangler]

66. I've done mine; you're the one claiming a theory you can't explain

and now you seem unable to desribe it properly. How am I meant to 'do my homework' on something you can't even describe? I'm not a mind-reader.

Your links are tending very right-wing; doesn't that give you a clue that the only people claiming 'global warming has been debunked' are lying right-wingers? The deniers are lying to you. Please, do your homework. Here's a start for you:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9903-instant-expert-climate-change.html

[winyanstaz]

68. Your link wouldn't open...

and if you could read you would find I already replied and posted all the links I am going to post.
If you don't like them..too damned bad...
Now go harass someone else who likes to play your little games. thanks.
have a great day.

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[muriel_volestrangler]

70. You don't need to provide links; you need to read some by scientists, not ones by RWers

The New Scientist one opens fine for me; there's nothing unusual about it. Here's another good starting point - the people who produce this site are climate scientists:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

Or you can try the UK Met Office:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/

One last thing: this is not a game. The future of our societies depends on us doing what we can to get climate stable. Please take this seriously.

[Name removed]

71. Deleted message

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[Odin2005]

48. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

:rofl:

[Chemisse]

31. Are you being sarcastic?

Because you are parroting the climate deniers' talking points.

[Odin2005]

49. No, she's spewing ignorant new age nonsense

[Odin2005]

47. The magnetic poles have nothing to do with the geographical poles.

Better to have people think you are a fool than opening your mouth and removing all doubt like you just did.

[Name removed]

72. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FarCenter]

16. Despite cool temperatures, ice extent remains low

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ see link for daily update of sea ice extent and maps

Despite cool temperatures over most of the Arctic Ocean in January, Arctic sea ice extent continued to track below normal. By the end of January, ice extent dropped below the extent observed in January 2007. Ice extent was unusually low in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, the one major area of the Arctic where temperatures remained warmer than normal.

Overview of conditions

Arctic sea ice extent averaged for January 2010 was 13.78 million square kilometers (5.32 million square miles). This was 1.08 million square kilometers (417,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for January, but 180,000 square kilometers (69,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in January 2006.

Ice extent remained below normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Barents Sea, part of the East Greenland Sea, and in Davis Strait. The only region with above-average ice extent was on the Pacific side of the Bering Sea.

[skip fox]

17. We might been said to be the first generation of humans who KNOW

that the world faces catastrophic changes which may well lead to the extinction of our species, taking many others with us as well.

I hope that is not the case.

[glinda]

24. I used to think I would not be alive to see it but I guessed wrong perhaps. Sh%$%#t!

[Hissyspit]

18. .

[Peace Patriot]

25. "The arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet." Anybody know why?

Is this because the methane trapped in the ice is being freed? Or some other reason?

[ronnie624]

39. With methane being about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a green house gas,

that part scares the hell out of me. There seems to be a lot of potential for a massive feedback loop.

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/14/arctic-permafrost-methane>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate#Natural_deposits>

<http://www.physorg.com/news171116588.html>

[muriel_volestrangler]

43. That could be one factor; the increased absoprtion by darker water may be a major one

Why is the Arctic warming so quickly?

The rapid warming that has been observed in the Arctic and is projected to continue well into the future is caused by a number of factors, but one of the most important is the so-called “ice-albedo feedback.” It is uncertain what percentage of the observed warming is explained by the ice-albedo feedback, because there are other possible influences, such as natural variability in Arctic temperatures and the transport of heat to the Arctic by the oceans.

What is the Ice-Albedo Feedback?

In addition to increasing global temperatures, global warming contributes to the melting of polar ice over the Arctic Ocean and land surfaces. Such ice masses have a high albedo, meaning they reflect more incoming solar radiation than many other surfaces. As the Arctic warms and the ice melts, the uncovered land or water has a lower albedo, or a lower reflectivity. As a result, more solar radiation is absorbed at the surface, which amplifies the warming effect.

http://www.pewclimate.org/arctic_qa.cfm#8

[file83]

28. "global cost of Arctic melting could reach $2.4 trillion by 2050"

If something "costs" $2.4 trillion, that means someone is "receiving" $2.4 trillion.

My question is who or what organizations (read: corporations) are going to be making money off this?

My guess is that those people have a vested interest in making global warming happen, and are probably doing everything possible NOW to convince others that global warming is NOT happening.

[kjones]

41. I think it's more like...

There's a tornado and it tears everything up...the costs were "x million dollars."
It doesn't mean anyone made money (unless all of it was rebuilt), it just means
damage I think.
Of course, I'm asking how they could put a value on climate...I'd say it would
cost us everything.

Dike builders will probably make a lot of money though. :O

[earcandle]

29. Somebody should check and see if the repugs have submarines or satelites beaming onto them to make

them melt. 

[earcandle]

30. They need natural disasters and a red cow to back up their ugly fantasy

[Systematic Chaos]

32. Fuckin' MOO.

:cry:

[jimlup]

34. I've been monitoring the NSIDA time series with alarm

The ice drop in summer 2007 set the all time minimum. The current year is hugging the 2007 line right now so we may well challenge that record minimum this summer. As a scientist, it is alarming to see that the ice coverage is so far below 2 standard deviations. That is the signal of global warming plain as day for anyone who cares to see:

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

35. Nonsense.

It's merely migrating to the east coast.

:evilgrin:

[teknomanzer]

52. Don't worry so much... the nuclear winter will fix EVERYTHING!

:evilgrin:

[Dover]

53. Unbelievable their first inclination is to measure this catastrophic event

in monetary/economic terms.

That's how we measure, value and quantify everything isn't it?

[marshall]

62. It starts in grade school

They teach math and counting with money. It locks everybody's frame of reference for understanding figures large and small.

[24601]

54. Chill out - I found it - It fell in DC & Maryland this weekend..... n/t

[fascisthunter]

64. we are all screwed because too many idiots are in denial

and yes, I think calling them idiots is justified, since our fucking lives are at stake.

Oooh, no... don't mess with the rich man's profit, you sychophantic right wing mush heads!