Neven Iceblog - Arctic Time Bomb

[hatrack]

While keeping an eye on day-to-day data and speculating about whether 2013 is going to overcome the odds and break last year's records, one tends to forget about the wider implications and what this actually is all about. A tree is incredibly interesting, but in the end it's all about the forest.

It's important to remember that the situation isn't looking good in the Arctic. Not good at all. We're witnessing things that were supposed to happen decades from now. Instead we're looking at a change that is hard to fathom, but takes place during our lifetimes, not on a geological timescale.

Last year Kevin McKinney and I wrote a piece about the potential consequences of all this, and I'll be sure to get back to it at the end of this melting season (and the next, and the...), but in the meantime here's what Gareth Renowden of the Hot Topic blog, one of the first bloggers to pay attention to the Arctic situation, has to say about it:

This should be headline news. It should be plastered all over the front pages of newspapers and web sites around the world. TV pundits should be demanding action from the politicians who have put action on emissions reductions in the “too hard” basket. The evidence is beginning to suggest that Wally Broecker’s angry beast, fed up with being prodded with ever bigger sticks, is going to bite back hard — and bite back soon. Is there time to stop all this happening? Perhaps — but it will take a huge effort, a wartime response when the world is being led by billionaires, ideologues and their appeasers intent on denying reality. We’re sleepwalking to disaster. By the time we wake up, it will be too late.

This was Gareth's conclusion. Here's what led him to it:

EDIT

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/arctic-time-bombs.html#more

[Berlum]

1. This could be posted to the GD forum

strong stuff

[DCBob]

2. Unfortunately I think its going to take someting near cataclysmic to wake up people..

something that forces the world to react. The other unfortunate part of that is by then it will probably be too late. I was hopeful this administration would have taken this issue more seriously. I think they have up to a point but with all the other "critical issues" they have to deal with this one has been put on the back burner.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. I've been saying that for many years....we an anesthetized society, in general.

[DCBob]

3. The acceleration of Greenland’s inland ice should also be sending off alarm bells.

Like butter: Study explains surprising acceleration of Greenland’s inland ice

Surface meltwater draining through cracks in an ice sheet can warm the sheet from the inside, softening the ice and letting it flow faster, according to a new study by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder.

During the last decade, researchers have captured compelling evidence of accelerating ice flow at terminal regions, or “snouts,” of Greenland glaciers as they flow into the ocean along the western coast. Now, the new CIRES research shows that the interior regions are also flowing much faster than they were in the winter of 2000-2001, and the paper proposes a reason for the speedup.

“Through satellite observations, we determined that an inland region of the Sermeq Avannarleq Glacier, 40 to 60 miles from the coastis flowing about 1.5 times faster than it was about a decade ago,” said Thomas Phillips, lead author of the new paper and a CIRES research associate at the time of the study. In 2000-2001, the inland segment was flowing at about 130 feet (40 meters) per year; in 2007-2008, that speed was closer to 200 feet per year (60 m).

more: http://research.noaa.gov/News/NewsArchive/LatestNews/TabId/684/ArtMID/1768/ArticleID/10186/Like-butter-Study-explains-surprising-acceleration-of-Greenland%E2%80%99s-inland-ice.aspx

[jimlup]

4. Yes that we don't understand the accelerated ice loss is

very troubling. While I'm glad to see the arctic sea ice extent not setting records this year it is a very temporary situation and should not be confused with arctic "recovery".

[chervilant]

5. Almost seven years ago,

I had a letter published in the LA Times, I think because they interpreted my letter as a slam on Gore and other global warming alarmists (of which I am one). I said that when Gaia has had enough of our destructive hubris, she'll simply roll over and scrape us off her backside. I think they missed my point entirely, actually.

First and foremost, Gore (et. al) -- well-intentioned though he might be -- seriously misunderstood his audience. Those of us who are capable of researching and understanding the implications of global climate change are already on board the "things gotta change" roller coaster, and actively share information to encourage more awareness of what's coming. Most of us truly appreciated "An Inconvenient Truth."

A greater number of us are suffering from depression or anxiety disorder, and simply cannot hear, much less assimilate, details about this unfolding catastrophe. One of my dearest friends told me not to bring up global climate change because it exacerbates her anxiety disorder, and -- besides -- there's nothing SHE can do about it.

Which brings me to the large segment of our population that feels helpless in the face of this yawning chasm -- this abyss of our extinction event. So much easier -- and more comfortable -- to wonder what the young royals will name their baby. Who wants to wonder when in HIS lifetime agriculture will fail to feed the teaming masses and water will be dearer than oil?

[90-percent]

6. nicely written post

I find it odd that the people running our planet don't give a rats ass about the future. What makes them think they won't suffer the same as the unwashed masses when massive drought, famine and extinctions happen?

The corporate instinct to produce quarterly profits at the expense of the future doesn't work well when those principals are applied to the ecosystem of the entire planet.

thanks again

Jim

[RC]

9. Corporatists are incapable of seeing past the next bottom line.

The profits blind them to the reality of what is coming next. They think they can always deal with it when it gets here.

[Angelonthesidelines]

10. Deal with it when corporations can make a profit

How else would we end up paying more for water than for gasoline?

[limpyhobbler]

8. K&R.

This stuff, and the community response to it, should be headlines every day. People don't understand how fast things are changing.

[chervilant]

11. Indeed, we live in

exponential times. I've tried to explain this to my math students (and to some DUers who insist we're at 'zero population growth'), but the concept is difficult for most of us.

I've used the destructive tsunami in Japan and the Fukushima events as fairly successful examples. Watching these catastrophes in real time as they occurred was made possible by technology that didn't exist a decade earlier, or wasn't available to the gp as the now ubiquitous and inexpensive toy owned even by those of modest means.