'Everyone should be concerned': Antarctic sea ice reaches lowest levels ever recorded

[jgo]

Source: The Guardian

For 44 years, satellites have helped scientists track how much ice is floating on the ocean around Antarctica’s 18,000km coastline.

But across those four decades of satellite observations, there has never been less ice around the continent than there was last week.

In the southern hemisphere summer of 2022, the amount of sea ice dropped to 1.92m sq km on 25 February – an all-time low based on satellite observations that started in 1979.

But by 12 February this year, the 2022 record had already been broken. The ice kept melting, reaching a new record low of 1.79m sq km on 25 February and beating the previous record by 136,000 sq km – an area double the size of Tasmania.



Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/04/everyone-should-be-concerned-antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-lowest-levels-ever-recorded

[Lochloosa]

1. Concerned? No. The worst of climate change is going to happen.

Governments don't have the backbone to change. It's going to happen.

[peppertree]

4. What's more - Big Awl (and the military) is already eyeing Antarctica for suspected mineral riches

With that in mind - they're singing Melt, baby melt!!...disco inferno...

[paleotn]

30. The Northwest Passage is an actual thing now.

and no longer a good way to kill your entire expedition by cold and hunger.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition

[jimfields33]

6. My goodness. We just passed 1.7 trillion dollar climate change bill.

We’re all going electric by 2035. I think we are on our way. Yes we’re behind but by 2040, we will see huge improvement in climate change due to electric cars alone and more with other stuff president Biden is doing. I think we’re going to be fine with President Biden at the helm.

[NJCher]

9. I also think

the economy will be ticking along quite nicely for th next two years and it will be the reason he will win a second term, if he decides he's going to run.

[Lochloosa]

12. Sorry, but I don't share your optimism. I was born and raised in Florida.

I've lived my life with the heat and humidity, hurricanes etc. Trust me, things have changed in the last few years.

I'm leaving. The heat has gotten so bad in the summers that working outside is not happening. Then having hurricanes blowing up in 24 hrs. from a Cat 1 to a Cat 4. Nope, hot hanging around.

The weather is changing and going to keep changing. It's not changing for the better, and I don't see anything we, or the world, is even scratching the surface of what needs to be done.

IMO, it's too late.

[Lancero]

18. Slowing our own impact doesn't mean we're turning back the clock.

And frankly, we're also a few decades late from preventing any cascading effects - Feedback loops, caused by our own damage, that will only worsen things.

One example of such is the Amazon Rainforest. Previously, it was a carbon sink... But, due to the damage caused by increased temperatures and rampant deforestation, it's now a net carbon emitter.

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-study-offers-latest-proof-that-brazilian-amazon-is-now-a-net-co2-source/

The biggest issue, the ticking timebomb that we're not going to be able to mitigate, is the sheer amount of green house gases trapped within the Arctic. And it's a timebomb that we've known about for years.

https://phys.org/news/2007-03-arctic-sea-ice-decline-trigger.html

And what are the greatest minds of the day doing in regards to the Arctic? What do the monied interests think, about the arctic melting? They fucking love it - It's the dawn of a grand new international trade routes, that will make shipping even easier and more profitable than ever.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/ice-melting-arctic-transport-route-industry/

The world's economic interests lay in letting that timebomb go off. It'll be what kills us, but why would the worlds wealthy care about that? Most of them are old enough that they'll be dead before it goes off, and the younger members of the 1% have more than enough money to ensure their own survival when everything goes to shit. But in the meantime, they greenwash it by proclaiming that melting Arctic ice is a good thing, because it'll decrease the carbon footprint of the shipping industry.

[Javaman]

23. 2.5 c is baked in. Talk to any of the 30k climate scientists

That means sea rise will happen.

Acidification of the oceans will happen

Coral reef die off will happen.

These are certain

We can dream all we want amount tech and money being the solutions, but even if we stopped polluting right this minute. Everything stops; 2.5 still happens

This isn’t the result of a few decades, this has been going on since the start of the Industrial Revolution. And ramped up considerably since the end of WWII.

We as a race complete shit the bed and now we are complaining about laying in it.

[paleotn]

29. Yep. We dithered way too long.

[orthoclad]

47. Mainly agree, but

we as a species ( not "race" ) did not shit the bed.
A very few people got obscenely rich by transforming the world into their externalized waste pit. The people of Bangladesh, for example, had little to do with industrialization, but they'll be among the first to go from rising seas and melting Himalayas.

And of course, the gigatons of cheap carbon, mainly from methane, also wind up in the form of the plastics and toxic organic chemicals which are choking the world. See the recent post about the beaches of Normandy and the massive methane release in Wyoming. Methane is a feedstock for virgin plastic as well as a fuel.

This all started when, in what is now the UK, the steam engine was developed in order to supply the coal for the nascent steel industry. Climate change and capitalism go hand-in-hand.

But you're right that a couple trillion now can't compete against the many, many trillions of wealth already laid by, which trillions represent the exploitation of the world enabled by fossil energy. Back around 2010, I forget exactly when, Dr. Susan Solomon published a paper which calculated that it would take a thousand years for CO2 levels to return to pre-industrial levels IF WE STOPPED BURNING CARBON NOW.

We lost the chance to stop it. The symbolic turning point was when Reagan removed the Carter solar panels from the White House. I worked in industrial process control. The response equations have a time element in them; there is a lag between changing an input and seing a response. The instrumentation and controls had to plan ahead, not be just reactive. Well, we didn't plan ahead, we're doing too little too late, so we're going to have to live with consequences no matter what we do now. We can only slow the rate of change and hope we have time to adapt. And pray the feedback loops, like from all the Arctic methane in the form of ocean clathrates and thawing permafrost, don't take over.

People in the Global South are gonna be really pissed. REALLY pissed. And some of them have nukes.

[Javaman]

52. We all collectively shit the bed.

Tell me you don’t use any fossils at all and I’ll give you a pass.

[orthoclad]

53. You're thinking only of the US and the global north

I'm thinking of indigenous people living in the mangrove swamps of Bangladesh.
We flush the toilet on them. They didn't cause the problem, but they'll be the first to suffer.

It's not the species. It's the rich. As a species we were doing somewhat OK in the world until the industrial revolution, when the rich took over from the feudal lords and needed vast amounts of fossil energy to power their profits.

And yes, I use net zero fossil energy. If I do hours of math I might be a tank of gas behind. But that's a drop in the bucket compared to First World industry. One tank, private jet, SpaceX launch, or F-35 wipes out a lifetime of frugality. Doesn't compare to a fisherman's motorboat, if they're wealthy enough to have one.

I don't need your pass. The world's poor, a few billion people, do.

[Javaman]

54. okay, then.

that was a back handed acceptance of blame.

we all contribute. period. no one is free from blame.

Cheers.

[IbogaProject]

57. I've read 3 centigrade is death to the human race

The issue isn't total heat but how often the wet bulb temp (combination of temp and humidity) gets above where we can't cool off by sweating. Most of the continental USA will be uninhabitable for a few months per year. https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/climate-change-wet-bulb-temperature.html

[Javaman]

61. yup. absolutely.

sadly, there are areas of the third world that are already experiencing it.

[Kaleva]

64. Only parts of the US

"The United States isn’t immune, however. Within 50 years, Midwestern states like Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa will likely hit the critical wet-bulb temperature limit."

https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/3151/too-hot-to-handle-how-climate-change-may-make-some-places-too-hot-to-live/

"By 2050, parts of the Midwest and Louisiana could see conditions that make it difficult for the human body to cool itself for nearly one out of every 20 days in the year,”"

https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/climate-change-wet-bulb-temperature.html

[NickB79]

42. The last time we had 400 ppm CO2, seas were 75' higher

Pliocene era, 2.5 million years ago.

Pine forests like we have in Minnesota today grew at the North Pole.

Cypress swamps like in Louisiana today grew in Minnesota.

Today, we just broke 421 ppm.

Just getting to net zero carbon won't save our asses any longer.

[IbogaProject]

62. And those shifts were more gradual

We've moved from. 250 to 420 in 250 years those changes before happened over thousands and even tens of thousands of years. That slower pace likely allowed the forests to move half a mile every few years to migrate those great distances w only slow displacements.

[NickB79]

63. That's why assisted migration of plants needs to happen pronto

Growing southern species hundreds of miles north of their native ranges to get them pre-established to distribute seeds once the current forest species die off. And they will start to die off in large numbers.

I'm already growing more southern tree and shrub species like pawpaws, persimmons, chestnuts, Osage orange, bigleaf magnolia, tupelo, flowering dogwood, bald cypress, tulip poplar and pecan up here in southern Minnesota. I obtain seed from Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and southern Wisconsin and plant the seedlings on my land. I was just talking to my aunt today to enlist her help finding 20-30 acres of land to purchase in central Minnesota to expand my planting in the next 5 years.

The scariest thing is, most of my trees are surviving, year after year now. The climate has visibly warmed in just the past 20 years. The speed of this shift is striking.

[Magoo48]

39. "First World" individuals will not be inconvenienced to sacrifice for their freedoms or environment.

[Lucinda]

2. Thank you for the info!

❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

[JanMichael]

3. The train has left the station. Used to think 2070 would be THE year.

Now 2030 looks more likely.

[Lochloosa]

13. I agree. It's a done deal.

[Javaman]

24. Yup.

We are speeding toward negative feed back. And it’s going to happen so much sooner than we were first told or loses to about

I remember reading a paper about 8 years ago. It was an interview with several climate scientists

They were screaming and yelling about how dire things are, but we’re told to “tone it down” because people would be scared or think them crazy

And so the reports were put through the political filters and here we are: completely fucked

Not that we were any less fucked 8 years ago, but you see my point

[roamer65]

5. This Northern Hemisphere summer is gonna be a cooker.

Get ready for it.

A lot is gonna burn.

[OhNo-Really]

7. 15 years ago Sir John Houghton co-chair IPCC rang the alarm

No one of power wanted to downgrade lifestyles.

And here we are

In our well lit homes with our fancy social media devices, food cooling, water heating fossil fuel operated everything.

We don’t know how to downgrade.

And I conserve and bundle up….still

What a disaster unbridled greed has created.

[roamer65]

8. How true this rant was in Kingsman.

Just a movie..but how true.

[Delphinus]

26. That

sounded intriguing.

[cstanleytech]

10. The melting is not alarming. What is though is the amount of pollution we pump both into our air

and our water as we can survive higher ocean levels but we need oxygen and fresh water to survive.

[Quixote1818]

11. The problem with the rising oceans is that so much of the population lives near sea level

We get a few natural disasters that abruptly start flooding some of these large cities and then you get millions of refugees and potential geo political conflicts kicking in.

[cstanleytech]

15. The population being forced to move is a very short term problem. The pollution though will be alot

longer one.

[orthoclad]

48. Don't be cavalier, please

We're talking about 20-25% of the world's population having their homes and livelihoods destroyed. It'll make the Great Depression look like a party.

I'm not talkng about rich retirees in Florida or Hollywood stars. I'm talking about poor and working people all over the world, many of whom had no or little input to the disaster. They won't have real estate agents helping them move.

Pakistan asked for climate compensation when 1/3 of their country flooded in last year's monsoon. ONE-THIRD of the country. Pakistan contributed very little to pollution.

And yes, that flood water will be toxic, especially after it hits all the coastal oil and chemical plants and landfills. Look at what happened to Houston just from hurricane rainfall. The plants won't clean up the soil if and when they move, that would cost money. If we try to force a cleanup, they'll fight it in court until it's too late. They'll abandon their toxic mess and make it everybody else's problem.

When people say they live too high to be flooded, I ask them where the shit goes when they flush. In coastal areas, it goes to the edge of tide to be treated and dumped as wastewater. What happens when the tide starts rising above the wastewater plants (and don't forget storm surge)? Pollution and epidemics. Cholera outbreaks. The impact goes far beyond the high tide line.

Nukes are another conversation. Nuclear plants tend to be near cooling water, mainly along coasts, and they have storage pits and pools full of radioactive waste, because we've never solved the waste problem. So flood water could be radioactive, as well. Look at Fukushima when the tidal wave hit.

Stopping or slowing the flooding will also stop or slow the pollution, since most of the pollution is chemicals from the same fossil sources which are causing the flooding. The bulk chemicals in East Palestine were from fossil sources. Two problems with one solution.

I understand your concern about pollutants destroying the biosphere, like PFAS "forever chemicals" (another fossil organic poison), but toxic pollution tends to be invisible and diffuse, thus hard to fight. But the threat of flooding gives a VERY concrete issue to use for curtailing pollution.

[cstanleytech]

56. I am not trying to be cavalier rather I am trying to be realistic.

I simply believe the pollution is a bigger problem plus the other thing you seem to be overlooking is the pollution is also what's causing the warming to speed up.
That is the other reason why our focus should be on fixing it and working to reduce it.

[Ford_Prefect]

16. What is alarming is how the melting affects the chemistry and temperature of the Oceans.

If it changes enough fish cannot spawn nor live in it, along with the entire food chain from amoeba, to plankton, to krill and other small creatures which not only feed larger ones but also help maintain the chemistry of the oceans and the cycle of evaporation which drives our weather.

In addition certain critical ocean currents are driven by cycles of cold water sinking towards the ocean floor, which in turn shape wind patterns above the ocean. along with the distribution and concentration of airborne moisture.

[GPV]

19. Wait until the ocean swallow whole cities. The contamination will

be off the charts.

[Ford_Prefect]

21. We've already seen that when NYC got flooded during the hurricane.

[GPV]

22. That was just a teaser.

[orthoclad]

49. Houston,

when the petrochemical plants and sewage plants flooded.

[Javaman]

27. Miami is already seeing regular high tides that flood the city

Nearest the ocean.

Sometimes the water sticks around for a while before it recedes.

That’s a coming attraction

[cstanleytech]

33. Yup as there are a ton of factories as well as chemical storage and oil facilities in a number of

places that will be flooded as the ocean levels rise.
That's not to mention the buried waste dumps and nuclear reactors which are the cherry on top.

[GPV]

34. A dead ocean could be our future.

[cstanleytech]

35. Dead? Doubtful. Greatly reduced? Yup. The real worry about it in regards to the ocean are the effect

it will have on the plankton as they produce most of our planets oxygen which we kind of need if we want to be able to keep breathing.

[GPV]

36. Massively reduced. We already have acidification, dead zones, and

other problems like plastic contamination. I just fear that those swallowed cities will make it that much worse.

[cstanleytech]

37. I know and but I lump all that in with the pollution problem so we should be far more focused on

trying to fix it because our species will be long dead before our planet is able to do it.

[orthoclad]

50. Mass extinction

with a whole new speciation in a million years or so. We'll have to re-imagine our time scales to understand the impacts.

Ten years ago a researcher told me the ocean was already saturated with CO2. It won't absorb any more. He said it kept him up at night. Ten years ago.

[Javaman]

25. I guess you don't live along the coasts. nt

[cstanleytech]

32. No, I don't. I do know what it's like to have to move constantly as I grew up poor so we ended up

being evicted a lot so I know it can be stressful as well as very traumatizing.
Nonetheless though it can be done and at least 99.9% of the people should in the end survive it.
What they cannot survive without though is oxygen and fresh water (both to drink and to grow food) so working to cut pollution should be our primary concern.

[Javaman]

40. You have heard of back feeding rivers right?

Those are the rivers that empty directly into the ocean. With sea level rise, not only will people have to move, not because of poverty (per say) but
because they are completely flooded out and not be able to find any other living spaces for many miles inland; couple that with back fed rivers that are so spoiled due to sea water that potable water of any kind won’t be available for many miles inland. Ground water and aquifers also fall into this category as well.

It’s not a matter of just moving inland, the true implications of sea level rise will not only be completely devastating to coastal communities, it will have far reaching effects know and unknown upon the rest of the population.

This effect that I wrote of, has been witnessed time and time again with oceans surge with each and every hurricane that has hit the U.S.; however with sea level rise the effect will be permanent.

[cstanleytech]

45. Yes, I know about that and the same still applies as people will have to move and

that includes myself potentially if I am still alive when it starts happening though thats unlikely.

[Javaman]

46. Hate to break it to you, but it's already happening

We are just witnessing the previews

[NickB79]

44. The melting will drive a mass exodus inland

Which will result in farmland destroyed to house refugees, and depletion of aquifers.

It means vast areas of coastal rice production destroyed as fields become salty from encroaching seas.

It means seafood production destroyed as reefs die, and seafood produces a quarter of the world's protein.

It means coastal cities that handle food imports and exports swamped.

You can't separate ice cap melting from global food and fresh water issues. It is most assuredly alarming.

As a species, we can survive higher sea levels. But as a civilization? A lot of the planet will be basically ungovernable in 50 years, ruled by regional warlords and petty dictators instead of effective, organized government.

[ancianita]

14. Not to lose sight that it's also summer down there right now. Even so, the Antarctic has lost much

less ice in past decades. I haven't read what the difference has been, though. Scientists have had their own inertia about calling climate intensity out to the world.

And now that climate intensity is at disaster levels, affecting whole economies, the financial world is finally paying attention. Concern isn't even the right word. What the world should feel is panic.

[Mr. Evil]

17. I wonder what the concern will be

when Thwaites Glacier ultimately lets go.

[GPV]

20. I haven't checked DC on the flood maps.

[Javaman]

28. I've been tracking thwaites for a while

A huge crack has formed in the ice shelf.

It’s just a matter of time.

Between 3 and 5 years

[twodogsbarking]

31. Jesus Christ, Goddamn, I'm fucked.

Lewis Black

[friend of a friend]

38. The tundra is thawing. I wonder what viruses and bacteria will be released.

[Javaman]

41. It's already releasing methane

Which it worse than CO2

[orthoclad]

51. Methane blowholes in Siberia

Some parts of Siberia above the Arctic Circle have hit 100F recently. The permafrost is thawing and releasing massive amounts of methane. Positive feedback has started.

https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/giant-new-50-metre-deep-crater-opens-up-in-arctic-tundra/

[NickB79]

43. Antarctica is in reality a series of large islands

When the oceanside sea ice melts away, it lets water flow under the ice filling the gaps between those islands.

Eventually the ice sheets break away from the ancient sea floor they currently rest on and ocean water flows under. Then, the sheets themselves flow out to sea and melt.

This is why the Thwaites Glacier is known as the Doomsday Glacier. It's the last plug holding 10 FEET worth of sea level rise from disintegrating. And the Thwaites is just barely hanging on as it is.

It's a horrifying realization that not only will my 12 yr old daughter see catastrophic climate change in her lifetime, but so will I.

[Happy Hoosier]

55. Honestly... at this point....

... I think we have to be assuming the worst. This was BY FAR the warmest "winter" I've ever experienced here in East-Central Indiana. I think the horse is out of the barn.

As usual, we'll spend MUCH more adapting to climate change and trying to fix it after the fact than it would have cost to avoid it to begin with.

And folks left of center are just going to have to come to terms with the idea that we may have to re-embrace nuclear power to avoid even worse damage.

[Elessar Zappa]

58. Nuclear power is the only answer,

at least until we master cold fusion or discover some other kind of clean energy.

[jpak]

59. I spent nearly a year of my life at Palmer Station Antarctica

This really sucks

Cry

[LudwigPastorius]

60. We've already given the planet the disease.

These are just the symptoms appearing.