Arctic Meltdown "Much Faster Than Our Most Pessimistic Models Expected" - Barber - U Manitoba

[hatrack]

Climate change is transforming the Arctic environment faster than expected and accelerating the disappearance of sea ice, scientists said on Friday in giving their early findings from the biggest-ever study of Canada's changing north.

The research project involved more than 370 scientists from 27 countries who collectively spent 15 months, starting in June 2007, aboard a research vessel above the Arctic Circle. It marked the first time a ship has stayed mobile in Canada's high Arctic for an entire winter.

"(Climate change) is happening much faster than our most pessimistic models expected," said David Barber, a professor at the University of Manitoba and the study's lead investigator, at a news conference in Winnipeg. Models predicted only a few years ago that the Arctic would be ice-free in summer by the year 2100, but the increasing pace of climate change now suggests it could happen between 2013 and 2030, Barber said.

EDIT

The loss of the sea ice is taking away areas for the region's mammals to reproduce, find food and elude predators, said Steve Ferguson, a scientist with the Canadian government who took part in the study. Whale species previously not found in the Arctic are moving into the region because there is less sea ice to restrict their movements. Climate change is also bringing more cyclones into the Arctic, dumping snow on the sea ice, which limits how thick it can get, and bringing winds that break up the ice, Barber said.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/arctic-ice-melt-worst-than-most-pessimistic-models-study-20100206-nj4u.html

[leftrightwingnut]

1. The way I understand the theory, when we lose the arctic ice, the Gulf Stream will stop.

The warming that the Gulf Stream brings to Northern Europe will vanish and trigger an "ice age" there. Would North America be affected? Would the ice shift from sea to land? Or would we see a fast cycling of the arctic ice on and off with intermittent restoration of the Gulf Stream?

There are other factors driving the Gulf Stream, I think, such as prevailing winds. Perhaps it will merely weaken and not vanish completely.

It is interesting to see that climate change scientists have been and still are extremely conservative in their predictions. Consistently, the time lines are getting shorter and shorter as time goes on and they gather more data.

[joshcryer]

7. Not exactly, the Gulf Stream needs to be "drowned" in fresh water.

It takes a lot to drown the gulf stream, something like 500 cubic km of water if I recall correctly. Greenland may be capable of doing this.

[FirstLight]

2. I hate to sound like a pessimist, but

I have been saying this for a few years too. The models have been trending to be shorter & shorter timeframes. Every time a new projection about extinction or climate shift, and they use the term "by the end of the century" I just whack that down to 20 years in my head.

We are the frog on the pot of boiling water...I wish that the oil supplies would dry up today so we could stop the monster. But humans will not change their easy lives and damaging ways unless the earth demands it of us. And the Earth is not going to stay still much longer, the tipping point is long since gone. That 'forced shift' in our human behaviors (and some serious culling of our herd) may very well occur in my lifetime, and I am only 40.

[Lorien]

3. It sounds like we're on the same page. I do expect it to happen in our lifetimes

(I'm only a few years older than you). Things are going to get rough regardless because at current consumption rates we'll run out of nearly all natural resources within 43 years-which means less than 43 years because consumption rates will continue to increase. When I was a kid my best friend's father studied climate change in the Antarctic for six months out of every year. I overheard conversations between he and his colleagues when I was very young that made me decide that I would never have children. The really it's been just as you've noted; "by the end of the century" really means "within 20 years." I hope that we both get to celebrate our 60th birthdays. :-(

[northernlights]

9. I expect it in my lifetime, FL

And I'm nearly 2 decades older than you. I've seen too many of the changes before my eyes. The last 7 years it has been speeding up. I've lived in new England for over 30 years. In the past 7, change has been massive. Rainstorms have turned into torrential downpours that overflow my gutters and drill holes in the ground. Last winter the snows were awful -- what Washington is getting today we got over and over and over. I ran out of space to put it for the 1st time since I've been here and sacrificed half my perennial garden. This year we've been warmer than normal so we've only had a couple snows, and then rain and rain and rain in December, January and February. We don't have summer any more. Just cold rain.

[XemaSab]

4. You called?

[phantom power]

5. I knew you'd come.

[joshcryer]

6. But, but! It's a natural cycle!

CO2 is only a tenth of a tenth of the atmosphere, it can't warm the planet!

Our temperature record is suspect!

---

If you don't know me you should know I'm being sarcastic, like others in this thread I saw this sort of thing coming from a long way away.

I simply sit back and wait for probes like CLARREO that will prove definitively that we are fucking the planet up, but it will probably be too late to do anything before it makes the case irrefutably.

[leftrightwingnut]

8. If you don't want to believe that CO2 is a poison, don't watch "Apollo 13."

Yes, I know that we would have to burn insane amounts of petroleum to get to the level where it is actually toxic to humans and other mammals. The point is, it is not a harmless gas like some people say. You know, the "natural == harmless" meme?