'Unprecedented,' 'Amazing,' 'Goliath': Scientists Describe Arctic Sea Ice Melt

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/07-3

The rate of Arctic Sea ice melt has caught scientists by surprise, leaving them to describe the current record low levels as "amazing," "a Goliath" and "unprecedented." While a record low was recorded on Aug. 26, the ice level continues to fall, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that there is still a week left in the melting season.

The speed of the Arctic ice melt is astounding, scientists say. "It is a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago," Dr. Kim Holmen, international director of the Norwegian Polar Institute told the BBC. "And it has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us."

"This year's melting season is a Goliath," also notes geophysicist Marco Tedesco, director of the Cryospheric Processes Laboratory at City University of New York, the Wall Street Journal reports. "The ice is being lost at a very strong pace."

[pscot]

1. I guess I'm surprised they're surprised

Seems like a failure of imagination.

[xchrom]

3. It's 1 thing to read about it and another to see it. Nt

[CRH]

2. The graphs had better flatten soon, ...

or even the main stream media will have to cover this.

Today - September 8.

At the pole:
16 more days of twenty four hour sun, until two days after equinox, the 24th September.

At Mid Artic: 16 hours and 11 minutes.

At the Artic Circle: 13 hours and 59 minutes.

http://www.athropolis.com/sun-fr.htm

If the graphs don't move significantly flatter, and the satellite pics continue to show less purple at the equinox, we might not find old artic ice after this decade, possibly sooner.

[Speck Tater]

4. Having played around with the mathematics of dynamical systems...

I can tell you how many times I've seen the behavior of a system suddenly, and unpredictably flip to an entirely different mode of operation. the behavior of the arctic will change drastically when the ice is gone, and we have NO idea what those changes will look like.

As a dramatic visual example I once witnessed in the real world, I was driving behind a pickup truck on the freeway one afternoon when I noticed that the back left wheel of the truck had begun to wobble slightly. This was pretty scary to see since I was right behind him. So I slowed down and gave him more space. The freeway was nearly empty at the time (Halfway between the towns of Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon) So we were the only two vehicles in sight.

The wobble seemed to be getting a little worse, but it was a gradual change so a person could possibly justify saying it was nothing to worry about. Then, suddenly, and without any warning whatsoever, the back wheel and a piece of broken axle came flying off the truck. The back of the truck fell to the pavement and starting throwing sparks and the wheel and piece of axle careened across the freeway and through a chain link fence at the plywood mill and came to rest among the stacks of veneer awaiting conversion into plywood.

How long is it before the wheels come off in the arctic? And when the wheels come off in the arctic we could face some extremely radical changes to our temperate zone weather. Very suddenly. As in one summer sudden. And when that happens the chain link fence we call the jet stream won't protect us from the consequences.

[hatrack]

5. Indeed! We've seen what one summer with an anomalous jet stream can do to food production . . .

What if the next two summers are similar, or three of the next five summers?

No "Day After Tomorrow" bullshit necessary - just the slow and remorseless tightening of the noose.

[AverageJoe90]

6. No "Day After Tomorrow" bullshit, is RIGHT.

We don't need to go to extremes to point out that climate change is happening.

[joshcryer]

7. Yep, a slow burn that takes a generation.

But it will be one rapid generation.