Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
- The Rise of the New Economy Movement
- Preying on Poverty: How Government and Corporations Use the Poor as Piggy Banks
- The Organic Watergate: Alarming Report Reveals USDA's Cozy Relationship with Corporate Agribusinesses in 'Organics'
- Updated: Under Pressure, TED Releases 'Income Inequality' Talk
- Are JPMorgan's Losses a Canary in a Coal Mine?
Popular content
Today's Top News
North Pole Ice Cap Melting Faster Than Ever
WASHINGTON - The Arctic ice cap keeps melting under the effects of global warming and in August saw its second largest summer shrinkage since satellite observations began 30 years ago, US scientists said.
File NASA satellite image of the Arctic region. The Arctic ice cap keeps melting under the effects of global warming and in August saw its second largest summer shrinkage since satellite observations began 30 years ago, US scientists said.
(AFP/Nasa/Amsre-e/File) Measurements on August 26 showed an ice cap of
5.26 million square kilometers (2.03 million square miles), just below
the 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles) observed
on 21 September 2005, making it the second biggest summer Arctic
ice-cap melt in history, said the National Snow and Ice Data Center
(NSIDC).
Since the start of August, the Boulder, Colorado-based center said, the Arctic polar cap shrank by 2.06 million square kilometers (0.8 million square miles).
The melting is so fast and extensive it could shrink the ice cap to below the 4.25 million square kilometers (1.64 million square miles) reached in the summer of 2007, the smallest it has ever been observed by satellites, the center said.
Since the end of the Arctic summer and the start of the freezing autumn is several weeks away, it said, the ice cap could dwindle even more than it did in 2007.
At the end of northern hemisphere summer 2007, the Arctic ice cap was 40 percent smaller than the average 7.23 million square kilometers (2.8 million square miles) observed in 1979-2000, the NSIDC said.
The North Pole melting season begins in mid-June. The ice cap shrinks to its smallest area by mid-September and grows the most in winter by mid-March.
"The bottom line, however, is that the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent characterizing the past decade continues," the Center said in a report.
The North Pole itself could even become free of ice by September for the first time in modern history, setting a new milestone in the effects of global warming on the Arctic ice shelf, NSIDC glaciologist Mark Serreze told AFP in late June.
"We could have no ice at the North Pole at the end of this summer. And the reason here is that the North Pole area right now is covered with very thin ice, and this ice we call 'first-year ice,' the ice that tends to melt out in the summer," he explained.
Serrreze said the possibility the ice cap could vanish stood at 50 percent.
If it does happen in September, he added, "it's possible that ships could sail from Alaska right to the North Pole".
The Arctic has been free of ice in the geologic history of the Earth, but never in modern history, Serreze said.
"Clearly, if you look over what we have seen in the past three years and where we were headed, we are in ... this long-term decline and we may have no ice at all in the Arctic Ocean in summer by 2030 or so," he added.
Not long ago, he said, the summer disappearance of the Arctic ice was predicted to happen between 2050 and 2100.
The NSIDC said the receding North Pole ice sheet was chiefly caused by the melting of ice in the Chukchi Sea, off the Alaskan coast, and the East Siberian Seas, off the coast of eastern Russia.
The Chukchi ice sheet is one of the natural habitats of the polar bear, where it hunts for seals, and its disappearance is a direct threat to the animal's survival.
The vanishing summer polar ice cap, however, also opens up the fabled Northwest Passage that winds through the northern Canadian islands and links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Shipping routes using the Northwest Passage would spare very long detours through the Panama Canal and around South America's Cape Horn.
An ice-free North Pole would also expose untold wealth of natural resources, including oil and natural gas, locked up beneath the Arctic Ocean waters, which Canada and Russia are already eagerly preparing to exploit.
- Posted in
78 Comments so far
Show AllShould anyone be around to record or read it, history will scratch it's head and wonder how such greed, selfishness and arrogance overwhelmed solid and honest science, in the process condemning hundreds of millions to hardship, deprivation, dislocation and death.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2008/08/200882715531928157.html
In a warmer world more water is evaporated from the surface, more water vapor enters the atmosphere and more water vapor condenses to form clouds. Since the latent heat of condensation of waters vapor provides the main energy source for the atmosphere's local circulations, the hydrological cycle will become more intense. It is not surprising therefore that heavy precipitation will tend to become heavier.
This is the future as the ice cap melt continues to change the feedbacks in the hydrologic cycle and the effect on the North Atlantic current. It's happening, it's real, wake up. This is going to take on MAJOR implications.
thanks for that link civil b............i'm getting tired of reading about these events and seeing nothing been 'radically' done to solve/help/alleviate the problem. the time is NOW, we need to act NOW, not in 5 or 10 years time as most governments advocate..............
Agreed, coco.
Unfortunately, not even the dire predictions of global climate change and its destructive impacts can change the hardened minds of those in the Younger Culture. Just witness the "discussion" regarding Ralph Nader right here on Common Dreams. They argue over insignificant scraps while they themselves continue to push the climate toward the red zone. As one poster there put it, unbelievable!
There is an organization that Al Gore is part of (maybe created) called "we", short for We Can Solve It. http://www.wecansolveit.org/ Don't know how much it will help - I guess, like anything else, it depends on us. And that's really the crux of the problem. We can no longer wait for the feuding political structures to solve the problem, we have to force them to do it. While doing that, we have to do the thousands of individual things we can to help. Sounds like spitting in the ocean to raise the tide, but it does make a difference if many do it.
Reading the article I was thinking of the cop who orders people to 'move along, nothing to see here' Seeing nothing in the arctic is not a happy prospect. I'd like to see some confirmation about what north pole the article was talking about, magnetic north or the actual most northerly part of the planet. I still find it hard to believe that the only ice left up there is first year ice.
Article refers to actual most northerly part of the planet (90 degrees north latitude).
here's a nice comparison showing the amount of ice lost so far this month:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=08&fd=01&fy=2008&sm=08&sd=27&sy=2008
and over the last week:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=08&fd=20&fy=2008&sm=08&sd=27&sy=2008
source: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
I'm sure the deny-crowd will say that nothing is happening since it was cold this moring when they woke up...
GO GREEN and clean up the planet NOW. Eliminate toxins and poisons to stop the polution of the PLANET and THE BODIES of all species!!!
President Bush say not to worry...he has the secret recipe for how to make ice safely stored away...so no need to worry about a critical Margareta shortage.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Well, we have Gustav and Hanna both heading for the US and their tracks look set to converge in a one-two punch to the Gulf region. There are then two tropical waves, one very large, just emerging into the Atlantic that could provide additional follow-up. Not noted yet by the National Hurricane Center, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ are several additional waves now transiting the middle of Africa, which will likely provide follow-up to the follow-up. I really hate to say this, but the best thing that could happen is for the US to be pummeled by a string of 5-6, or more, hurricanes, with Gaia showing no mercy. Yes, a lot of unfortunates on Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, and elsewhere that are innocent of provoking global warming will also get hurt in the process. But until some sort of global warming induced ferocity is introduced to the US in large measure, the US masses and their politicos are unlikely to alter their behavior/culture and understand the messages being sent by events like the rapidly shrinking Arctic Ocean ice extent this article announces.
The words you wrote say it all COCO and the other posts are right on, but I'll add a few more words anyway.
I am going to post a link here which some may have previously read. If you have not read it, I would urge you to do so, for there are few if any other issues of such importance to you and yours. It takes about three minutes to absorb the contents. The author is a most highly resected geologist who knows exactly what he is talking about and he references other distinguished scientists and is backed by the international geological society with his opinions and findings. Here is the link please do take the time to read it and think it over.
http://www.energybulletin.net/3647html
(It seems I've read posts just like this before; the points you are making you were making then, but I can't remember where or when. eg - are you KEM? If so, nice to see you here.)
By the way, how is the most highly resected geologist doing? Sounds serious.
Joe
OOPS---OOPS---- I missed a dot there, it won't open. SORRY, Here it is again.
http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html
Canada doesn't exploit squat. Foreign multinational corporations do all the exploiting chiefly for the benefit of American gas-guzzling consumers.
Arctic ice melt is updated daily at:
http://www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
The site also has comparisons with average melt, 2005, and the record 2007 melt.
All that governments seem to do is to argue over who gets rights to oil, gas, and minerals.
Good link. The graph certainly seems to indicate that this year will surpass the 2007 melt. The 2008 graph line has not yet started to flatten out and has almost intersected 2007. The infant ice dissapearing act of 2008 continues. I suspect the melt season will be prolonged as well, but that's only a hunch.
If you look closely at that graph, you'll see that the date for its bottoming-out, thus noting the onset of the freeze cycle, has indeed moved to the right, towards October. http://www.nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20080827_Figure2.png
The Bush crime family will not care about global warming unless their compound in Kennebunkport, Maine is about to be overwhelmed by an Atlantic Ocean swelled by Arctic ice. When that does happen, ironic justice would have them wander the United States, turned away at every possible shelter the same way the resident of Metaire, LA. turned away the desperate citizens of New Orleans' 9th ward at gun point. Or perhaps that is their fate in Hell for those who believe in that.
On a similar thread here two days ago, some people wrote comments denying global warming is an issue, saying it is nothing more than Mother nature at work. They are confused and mis-informed about the issue. Nature does not, nor never has caused the Arctic to thaw within a few short years time. It took million of years time the last times that occurred.
Three very important phrases are: ___"The greenhouse effect" ___"Global warming" and "Climate change" Three seperate issues, but all are closely related.
A fella named ~SMOWWOLF~ stated yesterday that it's been the coolist summer he has ever expereinced and therefore it is obvious to him hthat the Earth is now cooling down. Not exactly scientific type thinking. I can say the same thing about our local weather and I live in the southwestern desert area, it's the coolest summer I have ever seen. That Mr. ~SNOWWOLF~is "climate change", not "global warming". The "greenhouise effect" from mankind's burning fossil fuels for only near the past 200 year time frame has inddeed caused the ""Greenhouse effect" in our atmosphere and the reault is global warming and nature cannot handle that excess amount of Co2 and methane any longer. We have to act to attempt to reverse the damage. ___Can we? ___I dunno, but in my unscientific opinion, we should give it a shot. ___We'd better.
lizard How do you know how long it took for the ice cap to melt the last time it did? I don't believe you know this, you just think it is so. You speak as if you were 100% sure. I don't know how you can be that certain. No doubts at all, even without proof? BTW, where are the powerful hurricanes we were supposed to get? Didn't the computer models predict this? How many predictions are wrong? Yes, I know, first denier up to bat. When the models begin to accurately predict I will get worried. The earth is warming up ON SCHEDULE. Look up the graphs. We are overdue for a warming. Of course we are adding to the warming with our pollution. But, as usual, I see too many facts being ignored. Still not on board.
That's the Bush way, Javier - let's all just wait and see. The models haven't predicted what you want to believe, so they must be wrong. You want to list your "ignored facts"? - I'll wager they're denier propaganda. Even if this warming is on schedule, the earth changes massively when climate changes abruptly, and species don't have time to react evolutionarily. Species include humanity. Keep on not worryin' until you fry.
If the weatherman said that there was a chance a tornado could hit, and then it didn't would you not believe it possible for a tornado to occur?
Models are models for a reason, they are a simulation of what could happen. Some are worse case scenario, some aren't, but is it really that big of a deal to stop polluting our atmosphere on the off chance that the worse could happen? There's other things released from smokestacks along with the CO2. Smog isn't too fun either.
Plus, having abundant, sustainable access to clean energy and no dependence on oil from dictatorships would be nice, yes?
The bottom line is if we are right and you are wrong but we do nothing we are fucked, but if you are right and we are wrong and we do something, the world gets better anyway.
So, are you willing to roll the dice.
Next time the weatherman predicts a storm, are you going to run around outside holding up a metal rod because last time he was wrong?
Coco:
Most governments "advocate" 5-10 years, and keep setting it back another 5-10 years every year. Europe's Kyoto signers are planning 70-80 new coal fired plants, and somehow Mary Poppins is going to come along and retrofit them with CCS. The US "Movers and Shakers" only concern is Obama will "screw up the economy" - aka take away tax cuts for millionaires and enforce the tax code for Fortune 500 companies.
I Kare's got it right. We're headed for disaster. Karloff's (Boris?) got it right. A disaster is what it will take. BTW. its been a nice cool August here in PA. Calm before the storm?
BBR
that's what i mean by 'i'm tired' of reading these articles. it's the same every week and now everyone (in the u.s. anyway) is focused on the elections. who cares who wins? it will still be the same old, same old at the end of the day. drastic action needs to be implemented and we who know this are frustrated by our 'little' efforts to help when the majority are still treating mother earth as though she was a shopping mall................but we will have a huge price to pay eventually.
No one in government dares to mention the real causes of global warming:
Overpopulation as the source of cheaper labor, resource depletion, environmental pollution and species extinction
And an insatiable oligarchy that pushes it all to the end, calling for unsustainable growth as a substitute for having to share.
Hi all,
In response to the factor of overpopulation in this situation...You know, there is a rumor going around about the engineering of Avian flu to produce a pandemic that will make a "correction" to the number people on Earth. Perhaps it is one of those "conspiracy theories" or a fear mongering tactic, or...?
Besides just the reduction of numbers, it is designed to get rid of the "useless feeders." If you are NOT a productive member of society, paying taxes, conspicuously overspending, over-consuming and a happy cog in the capitalistic machinery, preferring to remain in your short-sighted fog of Stepford-like existence, you had better get your disaster kit in order and prepare to hunker down for a while. Same goes for those who are infirm or lazy or have rendered themselves ineffectual and who draw on the resources of the state such as the strain on Social Security, health and welfare issues, and the like.
Of course, if the methane burp does get going here pretty soon, it is all mute anyway. (Hi KEM) But, I just don't trust the government and the powers that be behind the scenes to be ethical, intelligent, altruistic, or to even truly care about the "little people" except in how they benefit the hierarchy and their view.
But, I'm gonna vote for Obama and pray and hope for the best anyway....
"...which Canada and Russia are already eagerly preparing to exploit."
canada exploit..heh , now that's a good one!..in the great white north , we have the same politico / religious , socio/economic etc. situation as our friends in the states, merely diluted in the extremes by the "land - to - population ratio".
A lot of canadians as well as others, fail to realize that more people live in greater new york city and the surrounding boroughs, than live in canada.
an other interesting thing forgotten is that more people live in Calgary and area , or in edmonton and area than in all of saskatchewan.
we canadians, are just like the rest of the sheeple around the world, we are so zoned out on reality tv and it's ilk, in our hemisphere, the poorer cousins, in developing nations, dulled to zombie like state, via a vicious hand to mouth exsistance, we don't even bleet when they bend us over and drive it in dry
starve the beast , keep your money
strangle the beast , selective media exposure
hex the beast , ignore the fear mongering
simplify.
WE win.
"starve the beast , keep your money
strangle the beast , selective media exposure
hex the beast , ignore the fear mongering
simplify.
WE win."
Agreed, herb, but these are all acts that individuals can and must do. Most people (including here on CD) want others to do the work - "Just fix it!" Can't and won't happen that way.
So, yeah, I agree completely with this approach and try to live it myself...as an individual.
More and more are finally figuring out that the real problem (issue) is overpopulation. What can we do about it? Quit having so many cute little babies. No mater what your biological imperative tells you. There can be more to life than just reproducing yourselves. Cutting down on birth rates is the ONLY way to solve all of these problems. Its very to late for anything else. PERIOD. How does that make those reading this with one in the chute feel? Those poor babies are going to be living in such a different world than now. Why? Because we cannot stop the runaway train of population. And when everyone gets it the train will have gone over the cliff. To bad, tough luck, the species isn't all that intelligent except in a Borg collective sort of way.
I wonder what Lemmings are thinking when they see the cliff coming and then as they actually go over the cliff…
You refer to some myth created by Walt Disney when he faked a movie about critters. Just like that Mutual of Omaha guy did in his nature videos, but in Walt's case he had people throwing the lemmings off a cliff near Calgary...
We'll find out soon enough.
No government is going to do anything. They all even think this is a good thing if they can get richer by drilling for oil and gas.
Greedy to the very end, they are like men in a burning house fighting over who gets the furniture.
It's not news until some other reporter picks it up.
I've been following the ice retreat at cryosphere today.
Now, what the absence of the ice sheet means is that the sea has been warming all summer. So has the nearby land.
All summer the entire Arctic has been putting out fresh methane, and continues to put out methane, in global warming scale percentages. Maybe that's why August melting in 2008 has accelerated. That's the next story that reporters, and Common Dreams, will catch up to. . . . I'm waiting! . . . Are we there yet?
What do we need to show people that the seas are getting hot? 86 degree water is ahead of Gustav. Hanna's aimed more for the East Coast. Would a hurricane coming toward your back yard during the middle of the Republican National Convention get your attention?
Remember the Manhattan Project? Some of the scientists believed that the bomb could set off a chain reaction that would destroy the earth. These same guys helped set it off anyway.
"Make no mistake, no one is attracted by anything so strongly as by that which he considers his own good"---Epictetus. The problem is that people on this planet have never had an accurate concept of their own good.
Isn't that 'faster than expected'? Of course damage to the climate and the resulting extinction of whatever is always faster than expected. Humans, as a species, have nothing to be proud of.
Fighting the forces of rather dim lighting wherever they may be found!!
"Cutting down on birth rates is the ONLY way to solve all of these problems" No, no, no. It can't be done with enough numbers in enough time. It simply cannot happen. Even if you make it "illegal" to have children, people will still have children anyway. What are you going to do? Put the parents in jail? Take their kids away? To make a dent big enough, the population reduction would have to be massive and immediate. The only way would be genocide. Are you advocating that?
The ONLY way to solve this is through technology that produces energy without release of fossilized carbon. We have that technology NOW. If carbon-based energy had a surcharge that reflected its true cost to the environment (i.e., a carbon tax), renewables would ALREADY be cheaper than fossil fuels. With a broad portfolio of renewables such as wind, solar, geothermal plus energy conservation and carbon sequestration, we can get ourselves out of this.
Technology got us in this mess, it can get us out of it. Population reduction, I'm afraid, is a red herring.
I previously posted this link to a UCTV video presentation titled Global Warming: The Population Connection, http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=14886 I really do suggest you, and everyone else, invest an hour to view it. It takes your "red herring" and turns it into cat food.
I will watch this when I get home and have time. But if it's saying that overpopulation causes global warming, I completely agree. Obviously 6 billion energy consumers are going to have a detrimental effect on the environment. My point is that population reduction as an exclusive strategy to mitigate global warming would be too little, too late. This is what others on this site are advocating, however.
My point is that technological solutions are a more realistic strategy to solve this crisis. Ambitiuous, maybe, but doable.
I await your review of the video, and anyone else's.
I have a model that predicts that the North Pole will be covered with ice in Jan of 09. Now if we could just get the other models to be as accurate about this as mine is.
The Northwest passage has been open before, it will be open again.
Sigi checks in with his usual cluelessness. Yes, Sigi, there may be a cube or two there this January, but what about 2010? 2011? 2050? I keep telling you there is a difference between climate and weather, but you keep botching, bungling, bumbling and spewing more tripe.
Sigurdur_11--It's quite likely that the Arctic Ocean will continue to generate a layer of sea ice during the winter, just as rivers at high latitudes still freeze during same. No responsible scientist I know of is predicting a year-round ice free Arctic Ocean. Maybe in a century or two if Business As Usual is continued the Arctic Ocean will remain ice-free year-round. But the crisis for humans will come long before that, as we are clearly in ecological Overshoot and will soon be forced by Nature through a bottleneck of our own making--something I hope people like yourself are alive to experience.
And it would appear that our climate is cooling. I know that is contrary to GW, but just the way it is. I visit the temp site every day as I am a farmer, and I am not enthralled with how cold the summer has been.
IF it is cooling, it is called climate change. If it is warming it is called GW.
I also have a question for all. What is the proper temp of the earth? Is it the temp that was 300 years ago? 1000 years ago? There was a huge variation in that time frame, so what is the correct??? Temp?
If you had read anything about geophysiology, then you would know there is NO "proper temperature" for the planet, as it has always oscillated. Indeed, we should be moving towards a new Ice Age (which would be even more devastating than anthropogenic global warming) based upon the geological history of past oscillations.
Saturnalia August 28th, 2008 12:11 pm
References to the North Pole are always to the geographic north pole (the magnetic north pole plays no role in the Arctic ice cap behavior).
None of the warming theories are correct.
The melting of the poles is natures way of protecting itself from getting top and bottom heavy, which due to gravity would cause the earth to flip on its side.
Which would due the most harm? The big melt or the big flip.
Say what? You're pulling our leg, right?
He must be auditioning for the new version of Beevis and Butthead.
No no, it's true...I heard it on Art Bell's Coast to Coast! It was on at 2:30 AM, sandwiched between the report on the Intergalactic Highway that will soon pass this way (meaning, Earth is in the way) and the sightings of the Swamp Monster who took one look at humanity and decided to go back to the swamp.
The Earth can't flip, silly, It's flat! We'd all fall off...