by Damozel |Climate change deniers who live on high ground may not be worried, but we all live in Florida.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center has reported that sea ice in the Arctic now covers about 2.03 million square miles. The lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles, last September. With about three weeks left in the Arctic summer, this year could wind up breaking that record, scientists said. (NYT)
We might be obsessing over the US elections; the arctic ice caps don't know and don't care. Alarming changes are proceeding apace while we remain distracted by events nearer home and more within our immediate control.
But will sticking our heads in the sand work? Doesn't look like it.
“We could very well be in that quick slide downward in terms of passing a tipping point,” said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the data center, in Boulder, Colo. “It’s tipping now. We’re seeing it happen now.”
Five climate scientists, four of them specialists on the Arctic, told The Associated Press that it was fair to call what was happening in the Arctic a “tipping point.”
Last year was an unusual year when wind currents and other weather conditions coincided with global warming to worsen sea ice melt, Dr. Serreze said. Scientists wondered if last year was an unusual event or the start of a new and disturbing trend....
On top of that, researchers are investigating “alarming” reports in the last few days of the release of methane from long-frozen Arctic waters, possibly from the warming of the sea, said Bill Hare, a Greenpeace climate scientist, who was attending a climate conference in Ghana. Giant burps of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, is a long-feared effect of warming in the Arctic that would accelerate warming even more, according to scientists.
Over all, the picture of what is happening in the Arctic is getting worse, said Bob Corell, who headed a multinational scientific assessment of Arctic conditions a few years ago. “We’re moving,” he said, “beyond a point of no return.” (NYT)
It's not just the ice caps. Go here to see footage of China's melting glacier in the Tian Mountains an its effect on the locals.
Meanwhile, climate change is "wreaking havoc" in the South Pacific, according to this report. Some communities are already at risk of being submerged. (BBC 8-26-08) The Guardian has a report on some UK British spots that are in imminent danger.
Some of Britain's most famous coastal landmarks will be radically changed or even lost because it is no longer possible to hold back rising seas and coastal erosion, according to the National Trust.
The castle of St Michael's Mount off the coast of Cornwall, the white cliffs of Birling Gap in East Sussex, Studland beach in Dorset and the dunes of Formby, near Liverpool, are among the places which could alter dramatically. In one of the most extreme cases to be identified by the trust, the entire 18th-century fishing village of Porthdinllaen on the north-west coast of Wales could be left to crumble into the sea.
The report on the 10 coastal hotspots will be published this week to highlight the problems of climate change which threaten about 70 sites around the coastline owned by the trust. (The Guardian)
The cedars of Lebanon are also in danger. (BBC 8-28-08) And speaking of trees, Ben Caldecott at The Guardian points out that it's impossible to slow down or prevent climate change if we continue deforestation.
Forests and peatlands have a unique role to play in the battle against climate change. Living forests and peatlands can sequester carbon emissions, while dying ones release previously stored carbon. Every year the annihilation of these two habitats generates more greenhouse gas than every car, truck, train and plane on earth. This is roughly the same as the amount of CO2 that is emitted by the United States or China each year.
Politicians and policymakers too frequently ignore this critical area. Yes, it is vital that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, by changing behaviour, improving energy efficiency, investing in renewables and bringing forward new low-carbon technologies. But, it is impossible to prevent dangerous climate change by doing this alone. If forest and peatland destruction continues unabated, we will never be able to stop climate change. (More)
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How come you don't talk about Antartica's ice cap expanding? up 1 mil. sq. K
Posted by: jimbo | September 01, 2008 at 02:59 AM
My neighbor is a geologist told me that if all the ice melted that the oceans would only rise inches not feet. There is a lot of bad propaganda out there.
Posted by: jim | September 03, 2008 at 01:19 AM