The staggering decline of sea ice at the frontline of climate change
Source: The Guardian
Scientists on board Greenpeace's vessel exploring the minimum extent of the ice cap are shocked at the speed of the melt
We are a few hundred miles from the north pole. The air temperature is -3C, the sea freezing. All around us in these foggy Arctic waters at the top of the world are floes large and small chunks of sea ice that melt and freeze again with the seasons.
Arne Sorensen, our Danish ice pilot, is 60 feet up in the crow's nest of the Arctic Sunrise vessel. Visibility is just 200 yards and he inches the 1,000-tonne Greenpeace ice breaker forward at two knots through narrow passages of clear water. The floes are piled up and compressed in fantastic shapes and shades of grey and blue; they crack, rumble and groan as we nudge them aside or climb over them. Two polar bears on our port side lift their heads but resume hunting.
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The vast polar ice cap, which regulates the Earth's temperature and has been a permanent fixture in our understanding of how the world works, has this year retreated further and faster than anyone expected. The previous record, set in 2007, was officially broken on 27 August when satellite images averaged over five days showed the ice then extended 4.11 million sq km, a reduction of nearly 50% compared to just 40 years ago.
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"It suggests 60% of the observed decline in ice extent in Septembers from 1953-2011 was due to human activity. The decline is linked to the increase in temperatures," she says.
"This year is significant. At the moment the [ice extent] is below what the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show in 2014. We are on the extreme edge of the models, suggesting that ice loss is happening much faster than the models suggested," says Stroeve.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/14/decline-sea-ice-arctic
The scientist John Fletcher from Cambridge University measures the thickness of an ice floe in the Arctic. Photograph: Alex Yallop/Greenpeace
I wish this was bigger news in the US media. Climate Change is the most vital news globally.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)JRLeft
(7,010 posts)kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)JRLeft
(7,010 posts)most part the human race isn't doing enough to stop the amount of CO2 going in the atmosphere.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)Isn't that in the bible somewhere?
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Just as it does every year.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)CrispyQ
(36,470 posts)Their hypocrisy is stunning. So is their willful ignorance.
olddad56
(5,732 posts)or accept that it is their time and pass on respectfully.
Volaris
(10,271 posts)they are absolutely terrified of the God they claim loves them, and so are afraid of that Judgment thingy when they die.
Uncle Joe
(58,364 posts)Thanks for the thread, JRLeft.
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)The right wing God crowd, believes God is causing climate change.