Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency - Next Month, Arctic Ice Will Hit Lows Not Expected Until 2050

[hatrack]

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Arctic sea ice has shrunk to a record low and will next month decrease to a level not expected until 2050, the Japan Aerospace Exploration agency said.

Sea ice at the North Pole was 5.31 million square kilometers (2.1 million square miles) as of Aug. 15, lower than the previous record of 5.32 million seen in September 2005, according to research released yesterday by the space agency and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

The area is expected to shrink further to about 4.5 million square kilometers by mid-September, the amount the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted would occur in 2050, the space agency said in a statement.

Arctic sea ice, which is at its smallest every year in September, is melting more than usual this year due to a low pressure system over Siberia that's causing warm air to flow over the Arctic region, the statement said.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a.w89M6qRlXk&refer=japan

Crosspost from E&E.

[donsu]

1. and as fast as the ice is melting the Gulf Stream is slowing down and

shortly will stop altogether.

what then?

nobody knows....

[GliderGuider]

2. Dr. Peter Ward knows.

And it's not pretty. Ward's latest book, "Under a Green Sky" lays it all out in excruciating detail.

Warmer polar seas mean less temperature differential between the poles and the equator. That differential is what drives the thermo-haline circulation aka the global ocean conveyor belt. Here's the proposed chain of events:

CO2 -> global warming -> melting permafrost -> methane release -> runaway global warming -> loss of polar/equator temperature differential -> THC shutdown -> loss of oceanic downwelling -> anoxic oceans -> growth of sulfur reducing oceanic bacteria -> atmospheric H2S -> Permian Extinction II. All happening within decades instead of millenia.

Coming soon to a planet near you.

Paul Chefurka

[donsu]

3. sigh - it seems crass but I've decided to enjoy each day as if the last

as many people in the world today have nothing to enjoy

[G_j]

4. K&R