Arctic Climate Changing Faster Than Predicted

[enginekid]

At this point it seems there is little the World can do to stop this. I have the feeling the estimates are being too kind. I wonder if my own city, Vancouver, BC. Would be underwater in 2100 if these estimates are true.

I sold my car two years ago, so I have done my part. I doubt the melting would stop even if everyone on Earth parked their cars, I think we have reached a point of no return.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
at 6:30 on September 2, 2009, EDT.
Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS

A new report says Arctic climate change is happening faster than anyone anticipated and may soon be forcing more rapid warming on the rest of the planet.

"It is a tipping point," said Craig Stewart of the World Wildlife Fund, which was to release the report Wednesday in London.

The report is an attempt to update the work of scientists involved in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as world leaders prepare to gather in Copenhagen next December to discuss how to deal with the issue. The conclusion of many of those same top researchers is that changes are occurring much more quickly - especially in the Arctic - than was believed even two years ago.

"We thought by 2050, multi-year (sea) ice would be cut in half," said Stewart from Ottawa. "Well, it happened in 2007."

But the biggest worry is the so-called methane hydrates - a strange, slushy form of methane frozen in ice molecules that exists in vast volumes in permafrost and continental shelves around the circumpolar globe. Cold and high pressure have so far kept that methane - a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide - out of the atmosphere.

Underground methane, however, has recently been observed bubbling up in Arctic Russia.

"There is so much methane under the permafrost and under ocean floor sediments that the carbon in that methane is the equivalent of all the coal, oil and gas combined worldwide," said Stewart.

"If that methane gets released, that will become the single greatest driver of climate change anywhere in the world."

Sea levels are also being increasingly affected by Arctic climate change.
In 2007, scientists were unsure if the Greenland ice cap was diminishing and thought Antarctic ice might actually be increasing in volume.

They now know Greenland is losing enough ice every year to supply 280 cities the size of Los Angeles with water, and the rate is increasing. Antarctica loses almost as much.

That has led researchers to sextuple their estimates of sea level rise, to 1.2 metres by 2100. About one-quarter of the earth's population lives in low-lying coastal regions.

The North also has the power to change weather patterns around the globe. Major weather patterns such as the North Atlantic Ocillation, which affect both storms and precipitation throughout Asia, Europe and North American, are strongly influenced by what happens in the Arctic.

"Evidence for responses of atmospheric circulation to declining sea ice extent is just beginning to emerge," the report says.

Sea water once covered by ice becomes warmed by the sun, changing ocean currents that begin in the Arctic. Those currents are also affected by meltwater flooding into the oceans, altering its salinity.

Ocean currents - major climate determinants in coastal regions - have yet to show significant climate-change impacts, but scientists are growing more concerned about the possibility.

"The Arctic does have a huge influence on global circulation patterns," said Stewart. "The ability for the Arctic to essentially serve as a refrigerator for the planet is key to our existing climate."

Stewart said it's sometimes tough to get people to connect the dots between a collapsing ice shelf at the other end of the planet and their morning weather forecast. But the Arctic's influence on the south is both real and only imperfectly understood, he says.

"It's not all about warming, it's all about change - weather change. It will make life more unpredictable and more expensive."

Stewart said the report, peer-reviewed and written by some of the world's top climate resaerchers, is intended to inform the debate leading up to the Copenhagen meeting. Members of the world's 20 leading economies meet later this month to try to hammer out financial commitments to deal with climate change.

"The meetings begin now," said Stewart. "We want to make sure the latest information is in their hands."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[WUchi]

You know what Im gonna do
Im gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado convertible
Hot pink, with whale skin hubcaps
And all leather cow interior
And make brown baby seal eyes for head lights (yeah)
And Im gonna drive in that baby at 115 miles per hour
Gettin' 1 mile per gallon,
Sucking down Quarter Pounder cheeseburgers from McDonalds
In the old fashioned non-biodegradable styrofoam containers
And when Im done sucking down those greeseball burgers
Im gonna wipe my mouth with the American flag
And then Im gonna toss the styrofoam containers right out the side
And there aint a goddamn thing anybody can do about it

[MusterX]

I don't claim to know alot about global warming but aren't there also scientists that claim the entire global warming issue is a fraud?

[MusterX]

For example. This recent report comes from SPPI, I have no idea who they are. There are plenty of articles all over the place that claim both sides. My point is this. It has become increasingly difficult to determine who is correct and who is incorrect.

UN exaggerated warming 6-fold: the scare is over

SPPI’s authoritative Monthly CO2 Report for July 2009 announces the publication of a major paper by Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, demonstrating by direct measurement that outgoing long-wave radiation is escaping to space far faster than the UN predicts, showing that the UN has exaggerated global warming 6-fold.Report, page 3.

Lindzen’s paper on outgoing long-wave radiation shows the “global warming” scare is over. Thanks to recent peer reviewed papers that have not been mentioned in the mainstream news media, we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate. Page 3.

The IPCC assumes CO2 concentration will reach 836 ppmv by 2100, but, for almost eight years, CO2 concentration has headed straight for only 570 ppmv by 2100. This alone halves all of the IPCC’s temperature projections. Pages 5-6.

Since 1980 temperature has risen at only 2.5 °F (1.5 °C)/century, not the 7 F° (3.9 C°) the IPCC imagines. Pages 7-9.

Sea level rose just 8 inches in the 20th century and has been rising at just 1 ft/century since 1993. Sea level has scarcely risen since 2006. Also, Pacific atolls are not being drowned by the sea, as some have suggested. Pages 10-12.

Arctic sea-ice extent is about the same as it has been at this time of year in the past decade. In the Antarctic, sea ice extent – on a 30-year rising trend – reached a record high in 2007. Global sea ice extent shows little trend for 30 years. Pages 13-15.

Hurricane and tropical-cyclone activity is at its lowest since satellite measurement began. Page 16.

[stik]

I'm glad TS sold his car, it offsets the 1990 Ramcharger with a 440 i bought last weekend for my son.

[Carlinism]

i hope that we as a world, being that it is a world issue can put away our selfishness and fight this global crisis with full power. of course the rest of the idustrialized world is doing their part, it is now time for america to join in this fight as well. of course the biggest obstical is the powerful business interests that will fight tooth and nail to stop any real reform just like they have done about health care even though other countries have univeral health coverage for their citizens.

[J-Fight]

Originally Posted by Carlinism

i hope that we as a world, being that it is a world issue can put away our selfishness and fight this global crisis with full power. of course the rest of the idustrialized world is doing their part, it is now time for america to join in this fight as well. of course the biggest obstical is the powerful business interests that will fight tooth and nail to stop any real reform just like they have done about health care even though other countries have univeral health coverage for their citizens.

Dude... India and China pollute more than the US, for starters. India's counterargument is that they pollute less per capita. I this find to be a fallacious argument - why should they be rewarded for overpopulation? This isn't to say that the US couldn't do more, but what is proposed by Obama and the Democrats is nothing more than a tax to strengthen federal government. We're still in the middle of a recession and House Democrats overwhelmingly support a broad base tax (called cap and trade) which will spike utility costs for every American. Then the funds go to a bunch of stupid "programs" that ultimately result in wasted money.

Secondly, IPCC et al (Al Gore and the Left) have not clearly demonstrated what influence man is having on the impact of warming. We know that the Earth is warming.. it's a natural cycle.. does man play a role? Yes.. but to what to degree is anyone's guess.

The only consensus is that we need to stop deforestation and implement reforestation programs to keep the Earth green. That is something that doesn't require a tax on energy companies. The greener the earth is the more carbon and methane (I think) can be absorbed. If stopping deforestation means harming certain business sectors, I am willing to look at that first, before a broad based tax.

[NoFreeSpeech]

The people who are against fixing this issue are the ones that are at most risk. Once the south is under water we can get shit done.

[NMMMAFan]

It can't be fought. The planet is going to warm up no matter what humans do.
Posted via Mobile Device

[fatandnasty]

Cap and Con won't change the way the planet wants to fuck with us.