Arctic Ice At 2nd-Lowest Level On Record

Experts Say Last Year's Record Low Sea Ice Was Not An Anomaly

(AP)  Arctic Ocean sea ice has melted to the second lowest minimum since satellite observations began, according to scientists at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Sea ice melt recorded on Monday exceeded the low recorded in 2005, which had held second place.

With several weeks left in the melt season, ice in summer 2008 has a chance to diminish below the record low set last year, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Environmental groups said the ice melt was another alarm bell warning of global warming.

"It's an unfortunate sign that climate change is coming rapidly to the Arctic and that we really need to address the issue of global warming on a national level," said Christopher Krenz, Arctic project manager for Oceana.

"This is not surprising but it is alarming," said Deborah Williams, a former Interior Department special assistant for Alaska. "This was a relatively cool summer, and to have ice decrease to the second lowest minimum on record demonstrates that global warming's ongoing impact is profound."

The National Snow and Ice Data Center, based at the University of Colorado, reported the ice Monday melted below the 2005 minimum of 2.05 million square miles set on Sept. 21 that year. Exact figures will be released Wednesday.

Through the beginning of the melt season in May until early August, daily ice extent for 2008 closely tracked the values for 2005, the center said.

In early August 2005, the decline began to slow. In August 2008, however, the decline has remained steadily downward at a brisk pace.

The most recent ice retreat primarily reflects melt in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast and the East Siberian Seas off the coast of eastern Russia, according to the center.

The Chukchi Sea is home to one of two populations of Alaska polar bears.

Federal observers flying for a whale survey on Aug. 16 spotted nine polar bears swimming in open ocean in the Chukchi Sea. The bears were 15 to 65 miles off the Alaska shore. Some were swimming north, apparently trying to reach the polar ice edge, which on that day was 400 miles away.

Polar bears are powerful swimmers and have been recorded on swims of 100 miles but the ordeal can leave them exhausted and susceptible to drowning in high seas.

(Left: A polar bear swims near ice floes along the ice flow in Baffin Bay above the Arctic Circle as seen from the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent, July 10, 2008.

Sea ice is the primary habitat of polar bears. They depend on it to hunt their primary prey, ringed seals, which create lairs on ice for breeding maintain breathing holes with powerful claws.

Summer sea ice last year shrunk to about 1.65 million square miles, nearly 40 percent less than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000. Most climate modelers predict a continued downward spiral, possibly with an Arctic Ocean that's ice free during summer months by 2030 or sooner.

Krenz said the announcement Tuesday showed that last year's record low sea ice was not an anomaly. As ice covers fewer square miles of ocean, he said, warming will accelerate.

"It's going to accelerate climate change through changes in the reflectance of the Arctic," he said. "It's going from bright ice to a much darker ocean."

More square miles of dark ocean will absorb more heat. More warmth will accelerate melting of Arctic permafrost, allowing organic matter now frozen to melt and add to the greenhouse gas problem, he said.

"That allows for the breakdown of that by bacteria and other organisms that release CO2 or methane, depending on how the breakdown occurs," he said.

The effects faced by people in the Arctic eventually will reach the rest of the nation and the world, he warned.

[m_moonshine]

Doomsday prophets? Hold on a second here. Doomsday prophets are evangelicals, like Marshall Applewhite and the Heaven''s Gate folks. ("He died with his sneakers on.")

People who worry about global warming aren''t doomsday prophets, they''re just worried about preserving our heritage and protecting their children''s future.

For example, if the earth warms significantly, temperate zones might move northwards. Great news for Canada and Siberia. Not so good when the Dust Bowl arrives in Nebraska and the Sahara shows up in France.

For example, if the earth warms significantly, polar regions might melt and ocean levels would rise. The Norwegians aren''t too unhappy about it; in fact they have a shipbuilding company that''s already designing cargo ships for the new Northwest Passage sea route from Europe to the Orient. But half of Florida, and much of New York, Boston, Washington, etc. will be accessible only to scuba divers.

We could reduce the risk of this happening, by doing something smart, like developing alternative energy sources. Why not? It seems that we''ve already hit Paek Oil, and things will only get bumpier going down that road. We could. But we won''t. Because that would take honesty, courage, and national leadership.

And those, like the polar bears, are heading for extinction.

[whofhearted0]

Hmmmmmm... Where were all these doomsday prophets when the glaciers were retreating from the northern plains and great lakes area millions of years ago?

Something should have been done about it then...

I wonder what the sea level was then...

And I wonder how the polar bears were doing then...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

[lloydbest1]

Another county heard from.....

OK, either we are warming up or we are not. If we are not warming up, as some say, then we have nothing to worry about. At least not from rising temperatures. We''ll simply have to deal with an oceanic ecosystem we''ve killed off because dissolved CO2 from man''s activities have acidified it to the point nothing much can live there.
But if we are warming up, as others say, then it is either from natural causes or we''re doing it. Given our present orbital geometry and the looming curse of Milankovitch (google him for the details), any chance of natural warming other than slight and brief is highly unlikely....
....Which means, if we are warming up then it is very likely to be man caused.
So, the way I look at it is there are four scenarios:
1. We''re not warming up and we do nothing.
2. We''re not warming up but we take steps to reduce CO2 and other "greenhouse" gasses anyway. Expensive and money we may not have needed to spend but as a side benefit, we get to keep the pH of our seas at a level that things living in it remain relatively unmolested.
3. We''re warming up and we''re mitigating the causes. Again, expensive but we needed to spend the money.
4. We''re warming up but we do nothing.....

So, how lucky do you feel?

[m_moonshine]

Here''s an interesting link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7585645.stm

It contains a graph of polar ice coverage for this year, and some preceding years. The data comes from satellite photographs.

It doesn''t take a Ph.D. to understand this; it''s just basically looking at pictures. It shows the ice cap getting smaller during warmer weather, from about May to September, and then growing again as winter sets in.

It also shows that the ice cover is smaller now than it was a few years ago, and might still become the smallest ever recorded by the end of this warm season. It shows that the minimal extent of ice might actually bottom out at zero in a few more years - if present trends continue.

Hey, louiville2. What does this look like to you?

[louiville2]

bluecoyote4

%u201C1%u201D Yes I%u2019ve seen that data and agree. That and it has been shown that and increase in temps increase CO2 emitting biological growth (e.g. nematodes, anaerobic/aerobic bacteria%u2026.)

%u201C2%u201D That%u2019s if you round up and since CO2 will only absorb three wavelengths of the IR band or about 8% of the energy, that is if those bands are being emitted makes it a very poor GHG.

%u201C3%u201D I believe the curve is a natural log bounded by the available radiated energy and since H2O accepts much more of the IR band as concentrations of H2O rise make mute the effects of CO2.

%u201C4%u201D Yes I have read that and we have witnessed it in Mann%u2019s and Hanson%u2019s work among others. That the only way they could get their computer models to work was to %u201Cinsert manmade CO2%u201D as they claim so that lead to their assumption the AGW was the driving force. They discounted the effects of the solar forcing and the cosmic ray forcing issues as insignificant among other issues. (%u201C0.1 deg K%u201D) As such ALL of the IPCC models failed to predict the current cooling we are seeing since 2002.

[louiville2]

louiville2 - Given your obvious expertise in the subject, I assume you have a Ph.D. in climatology of some other relevant field. Which school did you attend.


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

Posted by usclimey

Sorry, I''m just a lowly engineer spent a good share of the last several years working in environmental engineering. You know cleaning up the planet.

[louiville2]

jimfinster wrote- "List exactly what parts of the IPCC report are wrong, and your reasoning on why they are wrong. I will be happy to debate actual FACTS with you :)"

The IPCC IV assessment report truncated information to a 2005 deadline, meaning all their collected data is at least four years old. The summary for policy makers was written before the report was completed. So why don''t you tell me what parts are right and I''ll be glad to debate them using fresh information :).

[bluecoyote4]

Louiville2

Would you admit:

1 That the historical data indicates that the temperature rise precedes the CO2 rise by about 800 yrs. virtually all the scientists agree on this. Essentially as the temperature raises the seas warm, more CO2 is released in the atmosphere.

2 Most scientists also agree that CO2 is a relatively minor greenhouse gas that comprises about 0.039% of the atmospheric gas

3 Scientists also agree that with a doubling of the CO2 concentrations, you reach a point of diminishing returns relative to temperature rise. It is essentially logarithmic in nature. If the concentration of the CO2 would reach its spectra saturation point (about 0.50%) the rise in temperature would be about 1.2 C. Beyond that CO2 cannot contribute additionally to the greenhouse effect.

4 The only way that they can postulate and theorize that the rise in temperature can exceed the 1.2C (that saturation point in the Absorption spectra) is by adding multipliers known as positive feedbacks. Virtually all of the empirical data does not support a positive feedback model. So essentially the IPCC scientists had to fit their theory of CO2 warming, which was not well represented by actual measurement data. To do this they had to massage, eliminate, bias and take awful liberties with existing historical data (or proxies) and make if fit the %u201Caccepted theory%u201D.

[usclimey]

louiville2 - Given your obvious expertise in the subject, I assume you have a Ph.D. in climatology of some other relevant field. Which school did you attend.

[jimfinster]

louiville2

I accept the most recent IPCC report as the most current and accurate summary of scientific knowledge on this subject. Please read it and perhaps you will be better able to debate this subject.

List exactly what parts of the IPCC report are wrong, and your reasoning on why they are wrong. I will be happy to debate actual FACTS with you :)