who haven't been following closely? Thanks

the arctic then there is also enough heat to warm up the permafrost: releasing a lot of methane. Releasing a lot of methan will be very bad since it will contribute to a runaway effect of greenhouse gasses. That happens and things get warmer still causing untold problems.

I've heard about the methane gas release, sounds like a major event

...as the dark ocean absorbs rather than reflects the sun's energy, increasing the warming effect. Not that we could do much if we are past (or even anywhere close to) a tipping point, but the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis points out what to look for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

but it looks like our time is up. Goes to show it's best not to procrastinate on the big things..

We have geological records of this sort of thing.

We call it the Paleocene; the period between the K-T event and the rise of "modern" placental mammals, from 65mya to 56mya, give or take.

How different was it?

Well, let me put it this way. the Paleocene fossil beds of North Dakota are described as "tropical swampland." Wyoming had evergreen broadleaf flora and cycads, similar to the upper Amazon. At the time, North Dakota was about where modern Yukon is. Greenland's coast was patrolled by crocodiles. Titanoboa lived in modern Colombia, which was then smack on the equator.



It's not that we don't know what to expect from the planet. It's just that we don't know how the fuck humanity will cope with it. Maybe we'll be the last of the ice age megafauna to go tits-up.

And we won't be going back to the Paleocene, that's also for sure.

But, then again, we're still in trouble. Just not in the apocalyptic sense. World War III breaking out tomorrow, or even in our lifetimes, would be infinitely more likely, and this scenario itself, is implausible.

Arctic sea ice has been steadily declining for several decades, and in the last decade, much faster than models predicted.
2007 was a huge decline, followed by some bouncing around , then more decline.
The number that people look at is the low that comes in September. This year we have already smashed thru the 2007 record, with a week, or even two, left in the melt season. The Ice is in free fall.
A big part of the drop has come due to some large cyclone systems that have hit in recent weeks- breaking up the thin ice and accelerating the melt. Some scientists wonder if the cyclones are an emergent negative feedback due to the large areas of water uncovered and pumping heat into the system.
The website mentioned in the op is a great resource. Also the national snow and ice data center.
Nsidc.org

Summary of last years melt here,still useful

and you described the concerns well.

I'm going to start researching this, have been avoiding knowing too much because it's too depressing frankly

while the red areas are 60% sea ice and 40% water.

The caveat here is that areas can be red due to disintegration of the ice or due to surface melt.

Here are the low in 1981 and the low in 2007:



In 1981 there were some red areas that I think were mostly surface melt on a solid ice cap. In 2007, the fact that it's all purple indicates that the ice cap was still solid.

Both these two pictures and the picture in the OP are not "real" photos so you can't really tell what's happening.

This is a real photo taken yesterday that lets you see the condition of the pack:

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2012238.terra.4km

You can click to zoom into different areas.

This is immediately off the north coast of the Canadian Archipelago (which is on the left) you can see that some of the ice is solid but some is just slush floating in open water:

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r04c03.2012238.terra

So what's the context?

As you can see by this chart, in 2007 the ice dropped precipitously, and this year it's going even lower.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

All that I've mentioned so far is area. Volume is the real killer.

Here's a chart with volume trend lines:



This is just a prediction, but I seriously believe that we're seeing the end game for the arctic ice.

It's just one example. And not a very good one considering our military carbon footprint is FUCKING ENORMOUS. And I'd rather have Olympics than a killing machine.

But, what do we stop doing first? Because anything less than stopping something is just not going to be enough. All of the fractional improvements in efficiency don't amount to shit. And population is still growing. Growing enough to negate any improvements we make.

Long ago I said the problem was taking effect faster than people realized. And what we're seeing is not the immediate effect of actions. The worst is yet to come.

shit from Pat Robertson!

They've already planned for mass extinction and migration and northern trade routes.

I believe she promotes the idea of depopulation, however she complicates her theories with conspiracies about the Queen and other weirdness

This is weird too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones