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Jason, it wasn't like this in Nansen's day - too much f*ing ice back then:
The first voyage of Fram proved that the Arctic Ice pack rolls on a conveyor belt of ocean currents and is renewed every 3 to 4 years? So when I hear folks talking about irreversible loss of Arctic Sea ice I really gotta laugh out loud. Do you think the IPCC are aware of this?
Climatecodered does reference the fact that ocean currents have warmed the water the Arctic ice pack sits on. So this comes back to the critical question:
Is our climate controlled to a large extent by ocean currents or is it vice versa? Off course there is a bit of both - but I always learned the former to be dominant.
Any physical scientist who has been out in Alpine snow conditions in Spring is aware of the power of albedo in melting snow - as a patch of soil expands exponentially in spring sunshine - at the expense of snow pack. If the IPCC and Hansen et al have failed to model this correctly it leaves me with a feeling of dismay.
So what exactly is the evidence that anrthopogenic climate forcing is the cause of the current decline in Arctic Sea Ice summer minima?
http://www.fram.museum.no/en/
Trends in perennial sea ice extent:
Source: Nghiem et al., Rapid reduction of Arctic perennial sea ice
And the pattern of arctic ice circulation:
Note gyre in center. Source: NSIDC.
Yes, NSIDC shows it best.
http://www.nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html
Animated table 4 on the above link is showing constantly moving, thickening and thinning sea ice. It was once in color, now in less informative B/W. Can someone follow up on this to change it back to what it was?
Just now it displayed in color for me. It did seem like a slow server but worth the wait. Thanks.
Thanks for the charts Stuart - I learn something every day. The general idea of water flowing in through the Bering straights and out through Baffin straights and E Greenland holds though. And the water coming in the top is warm.
The main point I wanted to make here is that the Arctic Sea Ice is on average very young - a handful of years old - and is renewed on an "annual" basis. Its not like the Greenland and E Antarctic ice sheets which have taken hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years to form. If we lose these then I'm prepared to accept that they are lost "forever" to all intents and purposes for Homo Sapiens. All we need is one (or a series of 2 or 3) really cold Arctic winter to restore the Arctic Sea Ice to its former glory in terms of volume. Whether or not that happens soon is another issue.
Your first chart showing perennial sea ice extent is extremely interesting. Would you agree that the 1957 to 1971 we have some form plateau and that the current trend of accelerating loss began in 1972? 1972 looks like a really dramatic year in the Arctic. What happened?
To my eye what we are experiencing now, started then. So is this anthropogenic GW or is it something else? My chart up the thread has 126,053 million tonnes oil equivalent (mmtoe) burned 1900 to 1972 and 251,166 mmtoe burned 1973 to 2007. So we have burned more than twice as much in the last 34 years than in the preceding 72 years.
If the onset of Arctic Sea ice loss in 1972 was due to human activity then we are well and truly screwed. The thermal and kinetic inertia of the ocean atmosphere system will ensure on-going highly unpredictable climate change for decades - and there is absolutely nothing man kind will be able to do to prevent this. At best we can mitigate effects by building coastal defenses and prepare to cultivate Greenland - like the Vikings did 1000 years ago!!
If on the other hand the onset of sea ice loss in 1972 is due to a natural cycle then is it not the case that what we are experiencing now is a continuation of that same cycle that has presumably happened many times before? And Planet Earth and all its species survived.
Where my position differs I believe from your own and certainly from the GW advocates is that I am uncertain which of these options is true. I actually lean quite strongly towards the latter - that is perhaps down to denial - but also down to the fact that we know The Vikings cultivated Greenland as I already mentioned. I would see some danger that anthropogenic GW may amplify the natural cycle - unquantifiable and unstopable.
If it is the case that we have jumped off a GW cliff then we had best prepare our parachute. Flapping around hysterically trying to regain the cliff edge just ain't going to get us anywhere. If we have jumped we can't go back.
Euan,
it's all a matter of rate of change (as is so often the case!).
If warming comes too quickly, we are toast.
If it comes slowly, we can adapt. We human beings could possibly adapt even to quicker climate change, but nature can't. In former times, when there was climate change, it usually took hundreds to thousands of years to manifest itself.
This time, the exploding CO2 emissions could do it really fast - too fast for slugs, bugs and cheetas.
Cheers,
Davidyson
Davidyson - I should know more about past mass extinctions, but don't, other than they probably were not instantaneous.
Are there any examples to date of species lost to global warming? This is a straight question - I don't know the answer.
I am aware that we are losing vast numbers of species from rain forests and other habitats - and this is a true and avoidable tragedy. It brings us back to what I believe we need to focus on which is population reduction some how - and that of course will ultimately lead to lower CO2 emissions.
I'm also aware that fish stocks are moving around as are birds and insects in response to the rapid warming we have experienced this past 20 years or so. The structure of food webs and ecosystems are changing - as they always have done so. But are species getting wiped out?
Indonesia provides a very interesting case history where vast tracts of rain forest have been burned to grow bio fuels - and this has been in response to declining oil production in Indonesia.
Euan
The American Pika is thought to be headed for extinction. They live at altitude and can die if the temperature goes over 23o C for an hour. The species extinction rate is about 50,000/yr. Presumably some of these lost their last members as a result of climate change but many other human activities, particularly related to land use and fishing lead to this high rate. The normal rate is about 50 to 500/yr. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/01/31_olsond_biodive...
Other species considered affected by climate change are the Polar Bear, Moose, Florida Panther, Canada Lynx, Brook Trout, Salmon, Mallard Duck, American Gold Finch, Sage Grouse and Coral.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2006-05-30-critters-warming_x.ht...
Chris
"The main point I wanted to make here is that the Arctic Sea Ice is on average very young - a handful of years old - and is renewed on an "annual" basis. Its not like the Greenland and E Antarctic ice sheets which have taken hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years to form".
Oh, certainly. But still, there is a distinction between the stuff that's five or ten years old, and thinner ice. Once the perrenial ice is gone, it's harder to recreate it because the thin stuff melts faster every summer and lets more heat into the ocean.
The reason why it's probably irreversible are heat stored in the ocean, and basic physics suggesting that global temperature can only go up from here (bumpily but basically up). The reason people think this is almost certainly due to anthropogenic GW is because climate models pretty much all predict a much warmer Arctic, and lo and behold we have a much warmer Arctic (albeit that the sea ice melt is going much faster than they predicted). The climate models are fairly well able to explain the 20th century temperature history by now, and able to distinguish natural variability from forcing in general. However, it's certainly possible that some kind of natural fluctuation is accelerating the anthropogenic trend here. I suggest reading something like this GISS E paper (PDF) on the model data fit. Incidentally, I think you'll regret criticizing Hansen in public like this - he really is first rate, and I don't think you've done the spadework yet to understand the issues, let alone be criticizing leading thinkers on it.
Here's a speculation: it almost appears that climatologists are much better at modeling the atmosphere than they are at modeling the ocean, and better at the ocean than the cryosphere. Would that seem accurate to others?
Stuart said:
Which seems a shame considering the oceans are so important, and is one of the reasons why it seems to me to be premature to be too certain of the future course of events, although the probabilities are clear.
The Navy has been running subs under the Arctic for decades. Turns out Arctic sea ice loss is about 80% so far when thickness and not just extent is calculated.
Hansen has also proposed was to geoengineer a refreezing of the Arctic using injected atmospheric sulfates. The ice cover can be rebuilt quickly, which is important because if the Arctic opens up then Greenland could go quickly, which would then mean the loss of W. Antarctica and a runaway greenhouse effect from permafrost melt, etc. This could quickly lead to Lovelock's nightmare scenario, which I dismissed when it initially came out but the more I learn the more I am afraid he looks right.
While the Arctic is being artificially kept cold to buy us time the global economy needs to decarbonize over a 10-20 year period and carbon needs to be sequestered in soils and vegetation regrowth to bring us down to 300-320 ppm.
Forget about 450 ppm and peak fossil fuels saving us. I was giving talks while at UC Davis about peak fossil fuels making the SRES reports grossly wrong about emissions potentials, but at the same time the slow feedbacks of the climate system could take a 1-2 C initial warming into a positive feedback loop that gets out of hand. I never imagined it would happen so soon.
Jason - I gotta say I can at least respect your position on this. It is unequivocal. 300 - 320 ppm takes us almost back to pre-industrial concentrations and this tallies with my observation that the current cycle of sea ice loss (area) appears to have begun in 1970 when concentrations were about 325 ppm. I dare say volume losses will have started many decades before
And so what your saying is the time for 1/10th measures let alone half measures is over and we need to try and refreeze the Arctic, virtually shut down combustion of FF and take drastic measures to reduce atmospheric CO2 form its current levels.
And so if your are right in your analysis of our situation I can respect this point of view. I must add that I sincerely hope that you are very wrong because you are aware that none of this is going to happen and proposing it will be seen as bat shit crazy by 90% of people on Earth - until they are gasping their last gasp in a parched (or drowned) land scape.
What I cannot respect then are those who hope half or 1/10th measures might work. If you lack total commitment then you are as well doing nothing at all.
So I conclude by repeating I hope you are wrong and I hope Hansen is wrong. I certainly lack the commitment to do what you would ask - if for no other reason that I find it very difficult to believe that 30 to 40 ppm above the historic baseline will be lethal for our climate - and the target for reductions seems to be shifting on a daily basis. And there seems to be so much of the climate - ocean - ice system that is still very poorly understood.
Euan,
Where I grew up, the only war memorial was a civil war memorial. Names from other wars have been added to it but a single statue of a soldier surrounded by four green cannons is the marker.
In 1783, a petition was brought to parlimement to abolish slavery in England. Quakers were also organizing in Philadelphia in 1775. Between 1861 and 1865 12% of the US population was freed from slavery and much of its real and paper wealth evaporated. That is about 90 years between conception that there was a problem and putting an end to the problem.
In 1903, Teddy Roosevelt established the first National Bird Preserve and in 1970 we had the first Earth Day. Slavery was abolished in England 50 years after the first petition. Environmentalism is a little slower. In 2006, the USGP called for an 80% cut in CO2 emissions within a decade (your bat shit crazy kind of thing). The GOP was established in 1854, seven years before the start of the Civil War. What is a little different is that no one running for president now thinks global warming is not a problem.
The US seems to go through spasms of about four years durations from time to time to fulfill a commitment to freedom that has built up over a period of 90 or so years. The transformation of industry in the 1940's, the emancipation of the slaves in the 1860's, Civil Rights in the 1960's, the Great Awakening of the 1730's or the Revolutionary War of the 1770's were all culminations of themes of freedom that had been brewing for generations. I think that global warming, or giving due consideration to the ecosystem, can be seen as a freedom issue. In deep ecology, it is a matter of respect for all life while in human terms it can be seen as securing the blessings of liberty to our posterity. This was one of four reasons given for establishing the Constitution so you could kind of say that it is part of our mission statement.
I would thus not be too surprised to see about four years of enourmous activity starting within a decade that leaves the US and the world quite transformed with global warming looking like it is well on the way to solution. That the challenge appears to be growing greater as we learn more about the situation is probably not something to worry about. It will only spur us to greater effort I think. Interesting times....
Chris
Chris - thanks for all your input here. But I remain skeptical. I accept that GHGs will lead to warming and climate change superimposed upon the natural cycle of the Earth. Warming superimposed a cooling phase may lead to stability and warming superimposed upon a warming phase may lead us into new and worrying territory.
I just read the link on Arctic Ocean currents posted by Matt:
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/May032006_Dr.WieslawMaslows...
It basically shows what I was trying to say - that warm water flowing in through the Bearing straights may account for 50+% of the recent sea ice loss. Now it is predictable that the GW crowd will jump up and down claiming this is further evidence of GW. I'd tend to want to know more about longer term ocean circulation cycles. You just need to look at a map of ice loss - and you see it is concentrated around the Bearing entry point.
Incidentally, the Maslowski presentation has charts of ice area, thickness and volume that present a totally different picture to that presented by Stuart with a sudden onset of change in 1997.
Looking at the moving target for CO2:
Kyoto about 350 ppm
Hansen initial target 350 ppm - but aiming at 300 to 350 ppm
Jason Bradford - 300 to 320 ppm
I'm afraid i just don't think there is a chance of meeting any of those. In fact I think the most likely out come is that CO2 marches up towards 450 ppm and will only start to decline when FF peaks - around 2020.
The difficulty in turning around the atmosphere is best illustrated by looking at the CFCs - hailed as a great success. Much easier to tackle - and yet stabalisation / small reduction is all that has been achieved to date. A major triumph yes. The methane chart here is interesting - not much sign of runaway melting of clathrates here. I wonder if this is pipeline repairs in Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Major_greenhouse_gas_trends.png
I remain concerned that a significant portion of what we see in the Arctic today has nothing to do with Man. We can sit back and hope that there is a corrective mechanism that is currently unknown - one of very many unknowns. If there is not, and Greenland begins to melt in earnest then we may well see a panic set in among global leaders - but then it will likely be too late.
You mentioned investment and IPCC scenarios down the thread. The big stumbling block here is the need to spend a fortune now to maybe prevent a catastrophe that might happen, as opposed to waiting to see if the catastrophe happens and then spending the money to mitigate the consequences when you know for sure what and where the problem lies.
Euan
Maybe relevant research paper linked at climate ark on historical flows of water into Arctic (15 million years):
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/186402,german-scientists-warn-of...
Galactic - curiously i spent the greater part of my professional career analysing sediments for Nd isotopes (oil reservoir rocks). We also just had a long email exchange about looking at Arctic ocean floor sediments - I'b be particularly interested in paleo ecology indicators that might indicate the presence or absence of sea ice for the last 10,000 to 1,000,000 years. This I believe will become one of the biggest questions this decade.
The paper you reference i fear may have the cart before the horse - concluding that the disappearance of sea ice has caused ocean currents to change and not vice versa!
Euan,
I think you need to separate the emissions reductions from the response of the atmosphere which takes longer. The CFC emissions have been cut dramatically and the effect is now showing in the atmospheric abundance in your chart. The residence time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is longer than for CFCs so emission cuts lead to stabilization rather than the reduction you see in the chart. In order to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide, we need to remove it from the atmosphere. It turns out that this is fairly easy to do in the sense that removing carbon dioxide can multiply loaves and, possibly, fishes. Cutting emissions also looks as though it can be done in a way that makes energy less expensive.
In each of the American upheavals over freedom, prosperity has increased as a result. This was not the intention of those movements. My working hypothesis is that moves to increase freedom tend to broaden the pool of creative inputs. Buckminster Fuller points out that when the war to end fascism came to a close, automation had grown so much in four years that there wasn't any work for the demobilized soldiers. So, everyone when to college and this resulted in a huge rise in prosperity. Perhaps doing the right thing puts people in the mood to do more of it.
It is worth remembering that in the lead up to that war there were leading Americans like Senator Bush who greatly admired Germany and sought to assist its efforts. There are many now who feel that fossil fuels are worth fighting over. Perhaps oil depletion helps get past this kind of thinking since it is becoming clearer that we are going to have to make do without fossil fuels sometime while global warming sends us in a particularly productive direction. Regardless, it does feel as though things are coming to a head.
So, seeing the result of cuts in CFC emissions in the atmosphere is encouraging. It shows that we know what we are talking about. But, we also know that to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will require efforts to remove it. This is an enormous challenge in scale and perhaps just the thing to cure the ennui that leads to such products of idleness as mortgage backed securities.
Chris