North Pole Ice On Track To Melt By September? 978
phobos13013 writes "Recently released evidence is showing the North Pole ice is melting at the highest rate ever recorded. As a result, the Pole may be completely ice-free at the surface and composed of nothing but open water by September. As reported in September of last year, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time known to man. The implications of this, as well as the causes, are still being debated. Are global warming experts just short-sighted alarmists? Are we heading for a global ice age? Or is the increase in global mean temperature having an effect on our planet?"
From TFA (Score:5, Informative)
"The melt would be mostly symbolic--thicker ice, pushed against the Canadian continental shelf by weather and Earth's rotation, would still survive the summer."
So when we say the North Pole will melt we are talking about a point not the whole Artic ocean which is what impression one might get from the title.
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:5, Informative)
Polar bears don't actually live 'at the pole':
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Polar_bear_range_map.png [wikimedia.org]
They live in areas around which, according to the article, have plenty of ice...
Re:1421 (Score:5, Informative)
That book was powerfully bitch-smacked it was so debunked after it came out.
I wouldn't take any details in it seriously... good book, interesting theory, but most of the evidence was fabricated or misinterpreted.
What about that volcano under all that water? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe the melting ice could have something to do with this:
AFP Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study [yahoo.com]
Arctic Volcanoes Found Active at Unprecedented Depths [nationalgeographic.com]
Some analysis at:
Global Warming - Or Simply Massive Under Sea Volcanoes? [strata-sphere.com]
Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
Re:1421 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1421 (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that book is widely considered to be poppycock [1421exposed.com]?
Re:1421 (Score:2, Informative)
indeed, no to little human CO2 production back then, but again- the polar crossing, despite what you read in ONE book, most likely did not happen.
not to attack the parent (i do not know their stance), but as an aside, this is the problem i have with global warming deniers. they do not do proper research, and desperately cling to anything, no matter how fancifal or fragile, to support their narrow world view. Don't like the IPCC report, then please offer up a point by point rebuttle!
The 1421 hypothesis is moderately popular among the general public, but has been dismissed by most sinologists and professional historians.[2][3][4][5] Menzies has been criticized for his "reckless manner of dealing with evidence" that led him to propose hypotheses "without a shred of proof".[5] Critics have also questioned the extent of Menzies' nautical knowledge.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1421_hypothesis [wikipedia.org]
Re:From TFA (Score:5, Informative)
That's correct. The last estimate (2006) for a complete summer Arctic melt was the year 2013.
Before that it was 2038, and before that it was the year 2100...
Re:From TFA (Score:1, Informative)
Probably Not (Score:4, Informative)
According to this article [nytimes.com] the information was really extended beyond what the reporter had received from the scientist.
It was also suggested that the ice may have been flushed out due to the movement of water rather than melting so much. This flow of water might be caused by greenhouse gasses though.
Cryosphere Chart (Score:5, Informative)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ [uiuc.edu]
Best graph is :
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg [uiuc.edu]
My friends refer to it a climate-porn...
Can't say I strongly disagree since it has the feel of watching a loooong slow train wreck...
Re:Why no rising sea level (Score:4, Informative)
Arctic ice is floating, and thus already displacing water. It's the Antarctic and Greenland ice melting that would be a concern, since they rest on land.
Re:Why no rising sea level (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why no rising sea level (Score:3, Informative)
Not so fast... (Score:4, Informative)
The NY Times' environmental blogger has a bit of an analysis of this including a great animation of sea ice growth and melt from 1980 to 2007.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/whats-really-up-with-north-pole-sea-ice/index.html [nytimes.com]
From my read of his post, it sounds like the Independent may have over-stated its case and mis-represented the words of the experts they interviewed. Which isn't to say things aren't bad...
Re:From TFA (Score:5, Informative)
Tropical diseases were once common in the southern US. It wasn't climate change which made them rare; it was public health and medicine.
Go watch BBC's Earth serries. (Score:4, Informative)
Polar bears already have problems. Ice freezes later and thaws sooner, so bears have to swim further and many drown. Seals, their primary food source, are also under pressure because they need the ice to birth. Your wiki source also includes this [wikipedia.org]:
Finally, the National Geographic was a little glib, if not intentionally missleading, when it said:
Any reasonable person quickly realizes there will be no ice to "push" if it's all gone in the center. Models that have not predicted the rapidity of ice loss need to be recalibrated as do politicians who deny global warming and it's impact. The alarmists are alarmingly correct.
The Cyrosphere Today (Score:5, Informative)
As shown here [uiuc.edu] and here [uiuc.edu] and here [uiuc.edu], the arctic ice extent is actually greater than last year, although lower than historical averages.
We seem to have conflicting data.
Re:Tell us in September (Score:5, Informative)
It does contain news -- the news that the current melting rate of the polar ice is the highest recorded.
It's just that the rest of it is speculation.
Yeah, except that... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Al Gore is just an environmentalist and a politician. In terms of delivering facts about climate change, he's not relevant. I'm not quite sure why he does so much speaking about it -- often scientific ideas are presented by non-scientists, but then, at least, they should be chosen for their charisma.
Re:bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
He's not, the thousands of climate scientists who back him up are. Who does that hack Chrichton have on his side? Some republican politicians and a shit load of gullible right wing retard slashdotters?
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Why no rising sea level (Score:2, Informative)
Since I don't have mod points:
-1, wrong. Melt the ice, and it exactly fills the "hole" it's displacing in the liquid.
Re:Cycles (Score:5, Informative)
But at a scale a lot greater than the human one, our sun is growing fast. A couple hundredths of a percent every decade. So our faith is there. As the sun will grow larger and larger, our planet is going to heat more and more, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Bzzzztt!!! I call Bullsh-t.
WTF are you talking about? The sun is growing larger? Why would you pull something so incredibly obviously wrong out of your arse, and why would anybody be dumb enough to mod this up?
The output of the sun is so even and so predictable, it's called the "Solar Constant [wikipedia.org]". There is a variation of about 1 part per thousand over a 30-year cycle [wikipedia.org]. In short, the idea that the sun is getting hotter every year is not just wrong, it's absurdly so.
Come back when you have some "facts" that reflect reality, mmmkay?
Re:Why no rising sea level (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, free-floating ice is displacing 100% of the volume it would displace once melted.
Simulate this yourself (Score:3, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Re:Is this being caused by . . . (Score:5, Informative)
Changes in solar energy output (the "ringing" of the Sun)?
Well that's certainly a hypothesis worth investigating. Thankfully people other than yourself did actually think about that one, and have done a significant amunt of research on the amount of solar variation and how much of the change in global average temperature over the last century or so is attributable to those variations. The short answer is that, while solar variation has contributed (around 30% according to the IPCC) it can't fully account for the observed temperature changes. Indeed, solar variation flattened off in the last few decades, while temperature continued to rise see here [wikipedia.org].
Naturally occuring changes in the planetary atmosphere (as has happened before on this planet)?
An interesting hpothesis; perhapsthe dramatic rise in CO2 has nothing to do with humans. Fortunately, again, other people thought of this possibility and actually did the research. Since fossil fuels have rather distinctive isotope ratios we can gauge how much of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to fossil fuel burning by analysing the changing isotope ratios of atmospheric CO2. Unfortunately your hypothesis just isn't borne out; humans are responsible for the most recent dramatic rise in levels of atmospheric CO2.
But you get the point - when we at least have an educated guess as to the 'why'...
But we do have an educated guess as to why, significant amounts of research into that, and the alternative possibilities you suggest have been explored, and the results are that, to the very best of our current understanding, anthropogenic CO2 (and to a lesser degree other anthropogenic greenhouse gases) are a very significant factor -- indeed, the most significant -- in causing the observed increase in global average temperature. That rise in temperature is easily the prime candidate for blame with regard to melting arctic sea ice.
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:5, Informative)
Citation?
So many people toss around opinions without backup here I've given up on listening since the whole thing is such a hotpotato.
And anyways, massive coastal flooding only happens if the south pole melts (because it's actually on land). If you fill a glass with water and ice, just to the point of overflowing on the edges, and cubes are sticking out the top, when that ice melts, does your glass of water overflow? Same concept with the north pole here.
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:1, Informative)
AC shuddering at an AC with mod points... I shudder.
Re:Is this being caused by . . . (Score:3, Informative)
He doesn't want 100% proof, he just wants an educated guess.
Of course, we have an educated guess. So educated, it's not proper to continue calling it a "guess". However, some combination of not paying attention to scientific reports and not liking the answers has caused him to decide, without a reasonable basis for doing so, that anthropogenic climate change evidence doesn't meet the standards of "an educated guess".
Re:Cyclic? (Score:3, Informative)
...but I heard one report that ice levels right now are higher than at the same time last year.
According to http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png [nsidc.org] that is true, but not by a significant amount. Last year was an unusual anomaly, but the question is whether the feedbacks from that will be enough to tip us into a new regime where that level of ice loss is normal. I think it's too early to know, but so far this year isn't a strong argument against that happening.
Re:Go watch BBC's Earth serries. (Score:2, Informative)
Seals, their primary food source, are also under pressure because they need the ice to birth.
Really? Because if that's the case, the ones that live down here on the Oregon Coast [oregonstate.edu] have been well and truly fscked for quite a few centuries now.
(They get rained on a lot during Winter, if that helps...)
Re:bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
Then please, please tell me why anyone thinks Al Gore is remotely relevant on the issue of climate change!!!
Perhaps because Al Gore has stated sources for all his information, which comes from climatologists. Unlike every bit of anti-global warming data, which is usually a non-climatologist quoting either himself or someone he knows (also not a climatologist). Why are people so willingly ignorant to issues that could easily come to the end result of the extinction of our species? Do Oil tycoons not realize that they will DIE like the rest of us? Its not a "poor humans will become extinct" thing, its a "money won't save your greedy ass from suffocation" thing.
Re:Why no rising sea level (Score:2, Informative)
True. I had a brain fart. Displacement is by weight, not density. Still, the point stands, melting ice in water doesn't have an effect on the level.
BTW, in the future, if you ever do have mod points, the conversation is better served by posting a correction, as you did, rather than just modding down.
Check out his bio (Score:1, Informative)
I don't call a plumber when I'm sick; I don't ask an M.D.'s opinion on climate change.
Then please, please tell me why anyone thinks Al Gore is remotely relevant on the issue of climate change!!!
If you'd watched "An Inconvenient Truth", you'd have known he has been interested in the environment since taking classes with professor Roger Revelle who was a frontrunner in the field of climatology.
movie quoting... ur doint it rong! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:2, Informative)
"The massive amount of CO2 in the air is having a strong impact on the enviroment. Out side of politics and religion, this is the accepted fact. It has mountains of evidence."
No, no and no. Maybe you just need to read up on the subject?
To start with; http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23387 [heartland.org]
followed by;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDX2ExKYyqw&feature=related [youtube.com] (see the sidebar for the other three parts)
and;
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf [griffith.edu.au]
Happy studying!
Re:Cycles (Score:3, Informative)
Just curious, did you not learn in school that as stars the size/type of our sun age, the tend to get larger as the nuclear fuel is consumed?
It is absolutely absurd that you think the life of a star is a constant.
Its great that you quoted wikipedia though the perfect source of information, cause if you look around a little more you'd find this in the article about the sun specifically which contridicts what you've said (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun):
I love quoting wikipedia, its great to make it obvious I don't actually know anything about the subject but I can paste the first google result.
Re:From TFA (Score:3, Informative)
Ice cores are only good for ~100k years due to the laws of diffusion. Beyond that and they're inaccurate as the CO2 has dispersed and is no longer representative of what the level in the air was when that ice was formed.
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:2, Informative)
No, you won't, because you'll be wiped out. Wiped out individuals are beyond caring.
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:2, Informative)
I could argue with you point by point, but I don't feel like rehashing all these issues One More Time. If you google around, you can find the standard arguments on both sides. Every issue you raise has been answered before, so If you really want to hear counterarguments, they're there for you to examine.
On the other hand, if you just want to do the standard ignorant sniping that's the favorite sport in the blogosophere, then dude, you are certainly part of the problem.
Re:Cyclic? (Score:3, Informative)
Your own sources tell you that the NW passage has never been open for commercial shipping. It has been traversed during summer times with expedition boats, but never as part of a commercial trading system.
Re:Tell us in September (Score:5, Informative)
if by 100 years, you mean 750K years, the yes.
Ice core samples are wonderful things.
Re:The Cyrosphere Today (Score:4, Informative)
That's consistent. A lot of the ice we have is thin, the result of only one season of accumulation. The observation that it's covering more area than last year is consistent with the observation that it's melting fast and the extrapolation that it could be gone by September.
Re:Why is this even being debated? (Score:3, Informative)
>But the argument can also be made that the consensus prior to global-warming was not there-is-no-warming, but rather global-cooling and trying to drive policy to prevent the coming ice age.
That argument can be made, but only by ignoring the actual literature on climate from the last generation [wmconnolley.org.uk].
Re:Why no rising sea level (Score:3, Informative)
920 kg/m^3 is the density of ice. 1000 kg/m^3 is the density of fresh water.
The mass of water an iceberg displaces is equal to the mass of the iceberg. As ice has a lower density than water, part of the ice is above the water line. However, when that ice melts, it's water again and has the density of water. You can easily determine that the volume that water takes up is equal to the volume of water displaced by the iceberg. So, melting icebergs don't raise the sea level. Melting land-bound ice does.
There is the density difference between fresh and salt water, which is about 2.5%.
Re:Go watch BBC's Earth serries. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yeah, except that... (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, you are smarter that all those stupid scientists. They didn't realize that 10.5 is bigger than 7.5. You sure showed them!
It couldn't have anything to do with that larger figure being primarily thin one-year ice that melts quicker than normally thick ice formed over many years like the article said, now could it?
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:5, Informative)
I used to read this propoganda all the time in Australian papers, less so since the change of government. In reality the US is now the only nation on Earth not willing to sign up to an international treaty. For the past several years China and India's simple negotiating strategy [youtube.com] has been..."we want what the same deal as the US plus the compenstation for past emmisions the rest of the world has already ageed to".
Two basic ideas of the draft treaty [unfccc.int]...
1. Cap and trade (based on tonnage not GDP as the US wants) is the way to go, currently we emmit 10Gt/yr of GHG and the best scientific advise says it would be prudent to reduce that to 3-4Gt/yr by 2050-60. The best economic advise says the sooner we take our medicine the better. The obvious way to do this is start with 10Gt of permits in year 1 and reduce that to 3-4 by mid-century, the hard part is not the technology it's the allocation and accountability of permits. Permits are allocated to national governments once a year who then auction/sell/hoard them ( a decent government would use it to offset other taxes ). For those caught cheating sanctions/tarrifs are applied to their inputs/outputs. Estimated cost per ton of the permits varies between $20-200 depending on what global development senario you belive in.
2. The treaty is designed to account for the fact that early FF users (US/Russia/EU/Japan/Au) have already benifited from past emmisions. The per-capita emmission curves for different nations are drawn to account for these past emmisions and merge into a single curve by ~2030. Between now and 2030 China and India will have steep curves, OTOH if they can flatten out their curves by undertaking huge renewable efforts earlier rather than later then they will be compensated by auctioning their permits to other nations.
The basic problem with the draft treaty...
Creative accounting.
"How about giving up our panic attacks."
Agreed, but for a while there it looked like "the economy would be ruined".
Re:Why is this even being debated? (Score:3, Informative)
(From: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/23/18534/222 [grist.org])
Re:You know who I feel sorry for? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure why you were modded flamebait.
But, in any case, here's the article you should give out:
Climate change: A guide for the perplexed [newscientist.com]
It links to peer-reviewed research while rebutting the myths we're tired of seeing perpetuated. It doesn't guarantee the horse will drink, but you'll soon find out who is in the closet and who is simply misinformed.