Y'all do realize that the Arctic sea ice is going to be GONE within the next administration...

[XemaSab]

...right?



http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/record-dominoes-9-piomas-sea-ice-volume.html

[CrispyQ]

1. We have our collective head in the sand.

We Are Writing the Epilogue to the World We Knew
by John Atcheson

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/31


snip...

In 1990 we could have averted this disaster and saved money doing it. As late as 2010 we still had a shot at avoiding it. But now, the die is cast, the future foretold. What follows will be an epilogue to civilization, as we knew it.

Hyperbole? Let’s look at the facts.

~more at link

Very depressing.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Can't find that graph on the link.

[XemaSab]

3. Here's how to find it:

There's a bar at the top that says Daily Graphs, then from there you go to Long-Term Graphs, then it's like 2/3 of the way down the page.

[dipsydoodle]

5. Got it thanks

Notwithstanding the extrapolations blame lies generally with all US adminstrations 1950's forwards. That is not to say you were attaching blame - I am.

[Junkdrawer]

4. Two unstoppable trains are racing toward each other on the same track....

The petro-driven techo-industrial train and the reality of tipping point AGW.

Faced with increasing evidence of the AGW train, the petro-driven techo-industrial train keeps mashing down the accelerator and giving more money to the scientific whores who tell them the AGW train is a liberal conspiracy.

The only certainty is that the crash will be horrific. Oh, and most of us will live to see it.

[coalition_unwilling]

29. "AGW"?? - don't recognize that acronym. 'Arctic Global Warming'? 'Accelerated

Global Warming'?

Dig the metaphor, just want to understand the terms.

[Junkdrawer]

33. Anthropogenic Global Warming....

Last edited Sat Sep 1, 2012, 05:53 PM - Edit history (1)

Common acronym at the climate blogs I've been reading lately.

On edit:

Changed Anthropomorphic to Anthropogenic. Silly me.

[coalition_unwilling]

35. Thanks! - n/t

[hatrack]

36. I though it was Anthropogenic . . .

But maybe that's just the heroin talking . . . .

[Junkdrawer]

38. You're right....But hey, GW does take the form of man nowadays....

[Kablooie]

6. What are the expected ramifications of no arctic ice?

Is it just a symptom of global warming or will the lack of ice cause new problems?

[Gregorian]

8. The energy that goes into melting ice will be free to heat up the planet even faster.

That's an educated guess.

[sabrina 1]

18. There will be lots of oil available, as the ice melts. Maybe that is why they have for so long

denied Climate Change.

Arctic oil rush will ruin ecosystem, warns Lloyd's of London

The far north has become a centre of commercial attention as global temperatures rise, causing ice to melt in a region that could hold up to a quarter of the world's remaining hydrocarbon reserves.

Cairn Energy and Shell are among the oil companies that have either started or are planning new wells off the coasts of places such as Greenland and Canada, while Total – currently at the centre of a North Sea gas leak – wants to develop the Shtokman field off Russia.

[sulphurdunn]

30. Ice reflects light and heat.

Liquid water absorbs them. Your statement is not an educated guess. It is a fact.

[Gregorian]

45. Even worse, once petroleum use goes down, global dimming will be reduced, allowing even more heat as

a result of more sunlight getting through to the surface of the earth.

It's all pretty shitty stuff. I'm all over the rage now. I'm just realizing that we're reducing the good living that was once here. And that humans have always fucked things up.

[Zoeisright]

9. Water absorbs heat. Ice does not.

So there will be more heat absorption. Ice also reflects heat back, and that won't be happening anymore. So it just adds to the cycle and will increase global warming even more.

Plus, there are huge reservoirs of methane in the permafrost. If it melts and that is released, all bets are off. It could really warm the earth and that would be the end.

[magical thyme]

21. ^^^^this. It's another tipping point, and potentially a big one. nt

[Ilsa]

28. That and possibly the release of

microbiologicals that could make us sick. Or ruin the chain of food supply.

At least, that's what I read somewhere.

But it's all grim.

[Junkdrawer]

13. Short term / long term answers:

Immediate ramifications:
http://climatestate.com/pure-climate-science/item/arctic-amplification-and-extreme-weather.html

Bigger Picture:

&feature=player_embedded

[FedUpWithIt All]

32. Exponential warming increase due to the darker nature of the water once the reflective ice melts

The fact is, the ice no longer has enough time of cold enough conditions to refreeze as solid as it had been prior to the melt. Once that area is either thin enough or completely thawed, the sun will begin heating the water even more. This increased environmental heating causes Greenland and other land permafrost areas to melt at an increasing rate. Greenland's fresh water flows into the sea and the permafrost areas begin releasing more methane...which is, of course, very bad.

There is also the issue of ocean salinity as the icebergs are made up of fresh water (not to mention the water from a melting Greenland) and once that melts is pushes the denser salt water to the bottom and the fresher water stays more surface. Two problems arise from this, the first is that the deep ocean currents get very messed up and the second problem being the affect all this would have on phytoplankton.

This is a pretty basic overview and many of these problems would in turn lead to larger feedback loops.

[lunatica]

46. Rising sea levels and

warming permafrost is melting the methane in the ground into the atmosphere. Methane will evaporate into the atmosphere and is highly flammable. Watch this short video

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgk4wg_fire-and-ice-permafrost-melt-spews-combustible-methane_news

Rising sea level and it's effect in the US:

http://www.globalgreen.org/articles/global/95

SEA LEVEL RISE: THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES

The U.S. is a coastal nation with more than 12,000 miles of coastline, with more than half of all Americans living in and around coastal cities and towns. And of the top 10 cities/regions threatened by sea level rise, three are in the U.S. (Miami, Greater New York, New Orleans). Cities at risk cover a wide range of economic circumstances, but all require extensive infrastructure development to minimize the potential impacts of flooding, particularly from storm surge. (Source)

More about the potential impact to some of of our cities:

Boston

Over the next century, damage in Boston and the surrounding region to residential, commercial, and industrial buildings could exceed $20 billion, depending on how the city responds to rising sea levels. Costs could reach $94 billion, if climate weather conditions are more severe than expected. (Source: Tufts University civil and environmental engineering research professor Paul Kirshen)

Los Angeles

If the Pacific Ocean rises 55 inches by 2100 as scientists predict, Venice Beach could lose up to $440 million in tourism and tax revenue. (Source: Study commissioned by the California Department of Boating and Waterways)

The expected drop in visitors to an eroded Zuma Beach and Broad Beach in Malibu could cost nearly $500 million in revenue. (Source: Study commissioned by the California Department of Boating and Waterways)

New York

If global warming continues, sea levels around New York City could rise by twice as much as other parts of the United States within this century. (Source: Nature Geoscience from March 2011)

San Francisco

The increasingly erosive power of storm surges at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach could cause $540 million in damage to land, buildings, and infrastructure by the end of the century. (Source: Study commissioned by the California Department of Boating and Waterways)

Coastal California

• Parts of San Jose and Long Beach, California, are roughly three feet below sea level.

New Orleans

• New Orleans is about eight feet below sea level today.

[GliderGuider]

50. More droughts worse than this summer, leading to global food riots.

Polar warming changes the patterns and speed of the polar jet stream. The jet slows down and becomes more convoluted, so it draws more polar air southward or tropical air north into the mid-latitudes, and the resulting weather patterns stay in one place much longer.

Polar warming and jet stream shifts are the culprits behind both England's cold, wet, miserable summer and the American drought.

The ultimate concern is the impact of these weather changes on Northern Hemisphere grain production. That would lead in short order to global food shortages, food riots and other forms of social unrest, spreading regime changes and the rise of authoritarian governments to repress dissent.

Those are the ones I expect by the end of the decade, anyway.

[Junkdrawer]

63. And then there's this (from 3 years ago)....

Finally, we have a top administration official telling it like it is. Energy Secretary and Nobelist Steven Chu told a Los Angeles Times reporter:

In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear, all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.

“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” he said.

Precisely. [You can listen to an interview with the LAT reporter and me on "To the Point" here.]

We face desertification of perhaps a third of the earth that is “largely irreversible for 1000 years” — if homo sapiens are not sapiens enough to sharply and quickly reverse emissions trends. Part 1 looked at the canary-in-the-coal mine for desertification: “Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in.”

But the Southwest from Kansas and Oklahoma to California are right behind Australia, according to a 2007 Science (subs. req’d) paper:

Here we show that there is a broad consensus among climate models that this region will dry in the 21st century and that the transition to a more arid climate should already be under way. If these models are correct, the levels of aridity of the recent multiyear drought or the Dust Bowl and the 1950s droughts will become the new climatology of the American Southwest within a time frame of years to decades.

Note: That study "only" modeled the A1B emissions scenario, which leads to 720 ppm by 2100. We are currently on track to 1000 ppm (see here).

A December US Geological Survey report also warned that the SW faces “permanent drying” by 2050.

....

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/02/04/203650/chu-were-looking-at-a-scenario-where-theres-no-more-agriculture-in-california-part-2/

Food and clean water shortages will be the first BIG results of climate change. (They have already hit in other parts of the world.)

[Gregorian]

7. No one is going to stop doing what they're doing.

The next Olympic village will be built. Military practices will continue. Tourists will fly and drive.

I can't hear you.

Edit- that graph is extrapolated. I seriously doubt all ice will be gone withing that short period of time. But it's the concern that I share.

[Junkdrawer]

17. I see an exponential process. The curve is a best-fit exponential curve.

So far, it's predicted each next data point with uncanny accuracy. Other models have under predicted.

[Gregorian]

19. I always suspected this.

As far back as 1972 I've been seriously concerned that this would happen just as fast as it is happening. I don't suppose that's worth posting. It just confirms that I have a degree of vision most people don't have. Too bad I had to helplessly watch.

[Hydra]

47. Being a Doomsayer is a lonely profession

But you see the facts, you put them together and you draw a conclusion...and unless you didn't take enough of the factors into consideration, you were right and everyone else is like "Huh? Nobody warned us about this..."

[GliderGuider]

52. The Curse of Cassandra

Everyone who has awakened to the snowballing Clusterfuck has faced that, so far.

Peoples' actions are usually driven by what they can see in their own lives, so those few of us who truly grok the significance of the change are so far ahead of their curve as to be incomprehensible to most. Even the people who do understand intellectually that it's happening (like 98% of Canadians) aren't emotionally moved enough by the idea to make changes in their lives.

Not yet. But this summer woke a lot of people up.

[AverageJoe90]

57. A lot of people are waking up, yes.

But here's the thing: those who really are waking up aren't listening to the doomers. Nope, they're getting their information from people like Peter Sinclair, a man who's been deeply involved with this subject for years.

[GliderGuider]

65. Passing a tipping point doesn't mean the pendulum swings instantly to the other stop

It means that the message is now being heard by more people who were previously asleep.

Whether that will do any good depends on how entrenched the opposition is (very), how much time we have left before the changes really start to bite (2 to 3 years?), and how fast the awakening snowballs.

A lot of one's attitude depends on your expectations for the future state of humanity. The more you want to preserve or improve on present conditions, the bleaker your outlook becomes.

One recipe for sanity in the face of the most probable outcomes is to discard all expectations for the future and be prepared to accept and work within whatever conditions arise.

[AverageJoe90]

58. And why not? I would LOVE for this to be true; it would have helped us GREATLY.

I'm sorry, but this would be a good thing if it were true. Sadly, the doomsayers have been a loud voice for quite sometime now, and many people didn't listen then because all of the wacky shit like "AGW will cause humanity's extinction", and stuff similar to it, was, and still is, all over the damn place; all it did was convince a lot of people to either stick their heads in the sand or ignore the evidence altogether. I've seen this happen many times.....and the truth is, it happened to me too. And I am far from alone in that matter.

Now things are finally starting to get bad, and the deniers & their idols have gotten a huge jump ahead of us. And guess what? As terrible as the influence of big money was, and is, it wasn't the only factor. The doomsayers, like it or not, inadvertently did some real harm to our attempts to wake people up; at least if they had been reined in, it would have been much harder for the Koch Bros. and all the other criminals to brainwash & confuse people other than the idiots on the far right who still believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old or that insects all have four legs.....

[undergroundpanther]

54. When I was a kid

In the 70's the sunlight was more soft,golden. I have watched the color of sunlight change in the 80's the 90's and now in 2012 the sunlight is unbearably white.There were other changes too.I also hate helplessly watching it too.

[Gregorian]

62. I've experienced the same

I remember the days when I could see every tree on the mountain. Even the light has changed. There are so many things that we aren't even aware of yet. I cringe to think of the damage that is not only being done to the planet but to the souls of those who live here.

It's hard to put words to this. But I'm glad to know it's not just me. That's a big help.

[CK_John]

11. A China flagged freighter this past week made it from China through the NW Passage to Vancouver

I hope Canada has built up its Navy and Coast Guard.

[PavePusher]

24. Ummm.... I assume it went from Europe to Vancouver via the NWP?

Because otherwise, I'm baffled...

[hatrack]

37. A 28-foot fiberglass sailboat also just made it through

And through the McClure Strait, which is one of the hairiest and northernmost routes on the Passage.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112722927

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. I think you're referring to China to Iceland via the Northern Route (ie north of Russia)

First Chinese ship crosses Arctic Ocean amid record melt

The voyage highlights how China, the world's no.2 economy, is extending its reach to the Arctic which is rich in oil and gas and is a potential commercial shipping route between the north Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, arrived in Iceland this week after sailing the Northern Route along the coast of Russia.

Expedition leader Huigen Yang, head of the Polar Research Institute of China, said he had expected a lot more ice along the route at this time of year than the vessel encountered.

"To our astonishment ... most part of the Northern Sea Route is open," he told Reuters TV. The icebreaker would return to China by a route closer to the North Pole.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/17/us-china-environment-idUKBRE87G0P820120817

(The Northern (Sea) Route is often called the North East Passage in Britain, but that name makes less sense elsewhere)

[lovuian]

64. Imagine 24 hour sun on a ocean of water

we are talking hurricanes in the North

[Ship of Fools]

12. He who dies with the most toys wins, doncha know?

[ZombieHorde]

14. Well, we had a good run.

I need to get some nice looting, I mean running shoes.

[ellisonz]

15. And we're still fighting over who gets a bigger piece of the resource pie...

[KoKo]

20. Yep....

[Motown_Johnny]

16. IMO we are already past the point of no return.

The climate is going to change radically even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels yesterday.

That isn't to say that we should not try to mitigate the damage, we should. Anything that can be done to reduce the damage should be done. Unfortunately it will be to little to late.

This time in history will be known as a new dark age. We like to think we are a in a new Enlightenment due to our technological advancements but we are wrong. We are children with matches who have learned to start a fire but without the ability to comprehend that the house being on fire is a bad thing.

[AverageJoe90]

56. Not quite.

To be honest with you, we really don't know if have hit the true tipping point. And it sure as hell isn't
"too little, too late". That kind of talk doesn't help. It really doesn't, and it sure as hell won't convince people that we DO need to mitigate the damage; it'll only cause people to stick their heads in the sand.

[Motown_Johnny]

60. I know that we don't know, that is why I said it was my opinion.

I did not state it as a fact.


Have you read this article? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719


Here is a taste.


^snip^


Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is


The First Number: 2° Celsius

If the movie had ended in Hollywood fashion, the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 would have marked the culmination of the global fight to slow a changing climate. The world's nations had gathered in the December gloom of the Danish capital for what a leading climate economist, Sir Nicholas Stern of Britain, called the "most important gathering since the Second World War, given what is at stake." As Danish energy minister Connie Hedegaard, who presided over the conference, declared at the time: "This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we get a new and better one. If ever."

In the event, of course, we missed it. Copenhagen failed spectacularly. Neither China nor the United States, which between them are responsible for 40 percent of global carbon emissions, was prepared to offer dramatic concessions, and so the conference drifted aimlessly for two weeks until world leaders jetted in for the final day. Amid considerable chaos, President Obama took the lead in drafting a face-saving "Copenhagen Accord" that fooled very few. Its purely voluntary agreements committed no one to anything, and even if countries signaled their intentions to cut carbon emissions, there was no enforcement mechanism. "Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight," an angry Greenpeace official declared, "with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport." Headline writers were equally brutal: COPENHAGEN: THE MUNICH OF OUR TIMES? asked one.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn't pump out their reserves, the value of their companies would plummet. John Fullerton, a former managing director at JP Morgan who now runs the Capital Institute, calculates that at today's market value, those 2,795 gigatons of carbon emissions are worth about $27 trillion. Which is to say, if you paid attention to the scientists and kept 80 percent of it underground, you'd be writing off $20 trillion in assets. The numbers aren't exact, of course, but that carbon bubble makes the housing bubble look small by comparison. It won't necessarily burst – we might well burn all that carbon, in which case investors will do fine. But if we do, the planet will crater. You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet – but now that we know the numbers, it looks like you can't have both. Do the math: 2,795 is five times 565. That's how the story ends.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile the tide of numbers continues. The week after the Rio conference limped to its conclusion, Arctic sea ice hit the lowest level ever recorded for that date. Last month, on a single weekend, Tropical Storm Debby dumped more than 20 inches of rain on Florida – the earliest the season's fourth-named cyclone has ever arrived. At the same time, the largest fire in New Mexico history burned on, and the most destructive fire in Colorado's annals claimed 346 homes in Colorado Springs – breaking a record set the week before in Fort Collins. This month, scientists issued a new study concluding that global warming has dramatically increased the likelihood of severe heat and drought – days after a heat wave across the Plains and Midwest broke records that had stood since the Dust Bowl, threatening this year's harvest. You want a big number? In the course of this month, a quadrillion kernels of corn need to pollinate across the grain belt, something they can't do if temperatures remain off the charts. Just like us, our crops are adapted to the Holocene, the 11,000-year period of climatic stability we're now leaving... in the dust.

This story is from the August 2nd, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.






Go ahead, tell me again how "too little too late" isn't a valid point of view.

[shawn703]

22. The 1% don't care

Because they'll find ways to thrive and make money off this ecological disaster we're facing. The 1% will be fine.

It's the rest of us that will be fucked.

[ThomThom]

25. no they will be the least prepared

they will be crying in the street
without public protection they will be easy pickens

[Junkdrawer]

26. Said it before, and I'll say it again. I smell a French Revolution scenario brewing...

The enlightened aristocracy never saw it coming. Completely blindsided.

[coalition_unwilling]

39. 'Enlightened aristocracy' is (or was) an oxymoron. The aristocracy (2nd estate) in 1789

was as decadent and degenerate as today's 1%, if not more so.

[Junkdrawer]

41. Yes and no....

From H.G. Wells "Outline of History"

....

Like the British revolution and like the revolution in the United States, the French revolution can be traced back to the ambitious absurdities of monarchy, The schemes of aggrandisement, the aims and designs of the Grand Monarch, necessitated an expenditure upon war equipment throughout Europe out of all proportion to the taxable capacity of the age. And even the splendours of monarchy were enormously costly, measured by the productivity of the time. In France, just as in Britain and in America, the first resistance was made not to the monarch as such and to his foreign policy as such, nor with any clear recognition of these things as the roots of the trouble, but merely to the inconveniences and charges upon the individual life caused by them. The practical taxable capacity of France must have been relatively much less than that of England because of the various exemptions of the nobility and clergy. The burthen resting directly upon the common people was heavier. That made the upper classes the confederates of the court instead of the antagonists of the court as they were in England, and so prolonged the period of waste further ; but when at last the bursting-point did come, the explosion was more violent and shattering.

During the years of the American War of Independence there were a few signs of any impending explosion in France. There was much misery among the lower classes, much criticism. and satire, much outspoken liberal thinking, but there was little to indicate that the thing as a whole, with all its customs, usages, and familiar discords, might not go on for an indefinite time. It was consuming beyond its powers of production, but as yet only the inarticulate classes were feeling the pinch. Gibbon, the historian, knew France well; Paris was as familiar to him as London; but there is no suspicion to be detected in the passage we have quoted that days of political and social dissolution were at hand. No doubt the world abounded in absurdities and injustices, yet nevertheless, from the point of view of a scholar and a gentleman, it was fairly comfortable, and it seemed fairly secure.

...

http://www.oldandsold.com/articles32n/history-line-57.shtml

[glinda]

23. K & R n/t

[villager]

27. And even a Democratic administration won't do too damn much about it

m/t

[jtuck004]

31. Ghost Glacier in Jasper (North, in Canada, of Montana and Washington) fell

into the lake, and the resulting tsunami wiped out parking and trails.

Centuries of glacier buildup, gone.

http://www.examiner.com/article/ghost-glacier-falls-closes-popular-edith-cavell-trails-at-jasper-national-park

[sulphurdunn]

34. So why exactly

are rational people permitting this? Considering what's at stake, there's really nothing to lose fighting it. Could it be that the sane segment of the population doesn't really want to believe it, or that it's so psychologically traumatizing that the sane try to ignore it and the insane simply deny it? Maybe we've become such sheep that we can only bleat and debate whether or not that really is the wolf knocking at our door?

[Hydra]

49. Power issue

The people who take this seriously don't have the kind of money the Koch's do.

The 1% are planning on moving underground(literally) and they aren't planning on making space for the rest of us.

All that's left for them to do is keep the issue in doubt long enough that no one is ready when it comes but them. This summer was a good warning- it was consistently 5-10 degrees hotter all summer than previous averages in my area.

[HereSince1628]

40. Pretty amazing to see the northwest passage and the northeast passage ice-free

The big upwelling north of siberia this year means young ice over a huge area. Of course young ice all around the arctic means early melt-away next year. And when that young ice clears mid summer next year big seas will swell across the Siberian, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas and smash against and more quickly erode the ice-cap.

I'm not sure about how long it will be before the NW passage is dependably open mid-summer, but there is no doubt that near the end of the summer ships will be able to move freely from the Lancaster Sound in the east to the McClure Straits in the west.

I wonder how fast the phytoplankton will respond and expand the bottom of the arctic area seas' food chain.

[Golden Raisin]

42. Stop being so serious and

just turn on 'Dancing With The Stars', 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' or 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo' and forget all about it. That's what those shows are there for (distracting modernday bread and circuses). While you're at it make sure you buy yourself (on credit) the latest cellphone, tablet and gigantic flatscreen TV that you really can't afford. That'll take your mind off of it too. We can all go glub, glub, glub in our foreclosed or mortgaged-to-the-roof houses. The career politicians and oligarchs will have enough money to get themselves to high ground while we get kicked under the bus (or submarine).

[stuntcat]

43. K&R

(but this isn't NEAR as important as the elections, the economy, Clint Eastwood, etc )

[Honeycombe8]

48. Neither candidate will do much about it. nt

[Bonobo]

51. B-B-But there are no "viable" choices. nt

[Odin2005]

53. Fuck, there may be open water at the pole next summer.

[longship]

55. Not likely.

There is still a fuck of a lot of ice up there. But that is thinning as well. It will take some time, but the apparent acceleration of events has outpaced the climate models. That is clear from some of the very alarming papers being published this season in reputable journals.

But the pole will not likely be ice free for some number of years.

AFAIK.

[Sunlei]

61. If we could only learn to use all that sea water we would be fine.