No Ice at the North Pole
June 27, 2008, 9:19 am
Posted by Eduardo Peñalver
From the Independent:
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
Eduardo, do you think anybody really cares?
Not asking this to be dismissive. But I hear people in Michigan say global warming will be great because we won’t have such hard winters.
If this season’s early heat, tornadoes, floods and and power outages haven’t given them a foretaste of what Michigan’s climate will be like as the world heats up, I don’t know how the lack of ice at the pole is going to make them give a rip.
Jean, when Santa has to close his workshop — THEN they’ll feel the pinch!
Rita,
I just loved your reply to Jean but there is a sort of serious side to it too. There are many both libertarian economists and social conservatives who don’t believe in fairies, leprechauns and yes Santa Clause or …..Global warming.
hmmm…interesting!
Hi, Rita and John,
Santy Claus shipped his workshop to China years ago. High fuel bills to tote the raw materials to the Pole, worldwide shipping costs, those damn elves constantly talking to AFL-CIO reps, and the PETA people spray-painting the reindeer orange–it just got so he couldn’t pay his stockholders, and with his property about to be liquidated (sorry), he cut his losses and moved to International Falls, where he retails ice-fishing lures on a seasonal basis.
Jean, indeed; I wonder if the folks in Fort Frances get a cut of his action. And while I’m at it, has anyone ever actually seen any falls in International Falls. For those who haven’t a clue about what we are talking, I.F. is actually the closet border crossing to where I live.
I’m sure Santy Claus would be happy to have the folks in Fort Frances come over and spend their Canadian dollars on his Swedish Pimples and spinners.
Anyone watch Bill Moyer’s interview with Barbara Boxer re: the carbon emission cap and trade bill last night?
Cap and trade worked to bring down acid rain levels in the Northeast, and many legislators supported it.
But people living in areas affected by acid rain could see the before-and-after results. When people hear the polar ice cap has melted, it means virtually nothing to them. And they don’t want to give up short-term job opportunities to fix something they can’t see (except in pictures) and a lot of politicians are telling them doesn’t even exist.
The idea of the polar ice cap melting is really very frightening. It’s a release of tension to make jokes about it, but it’s something being taken out of the landscape of the imagination as well as the natural landscape, and yes, John, there is a serious side to it which cuts to deep places, and the things that one believes.
When we think about the words “stewardship of creation” most of us are thinking about recylcing trash or not letting the water run, eco-friendly things we can do. When I think of the polar ice cap melting, I instead feel the force of evil magnified by social sin and it’s far more daunting.
Sorry if my jokes were in poor taste.
I simply wonder if human beings are simply hard-wired not to be able to think long-term when it comes to short-term comforts.
I frankly don’t think most Americans are united enough or have the will to want to do anything about global warming. Certainly those who are concerned are made out to be alarmist tree-hugging anti-capitalists. That came through loud and clear on Moyer’s report.
What’s likely to happen, in my view, is that nature will take its course, large segments of the world’s population will suffer and die, and those who are left may survive to run things better At least for awhile.
Here’s information from NOAA for the 1998-2008 decade. Bottom line, temperature decreased by 1.81 degree F. Does this have something to do with the the apathy?
NOAA NCDC / Climate At A Glance / Climate Monitoring / Search / Help page delimiter
NOAA Homepage
Climate At A Glance
NOAA Homepage
January Temperature United States
Some of the following data are preliminary and have not been quality controlled.
For official data, please contact the NCDC customer services branch at ncdc.info@noaa.gov.
January 1998 – 2008 Data Values:
January 1901 – 2000 Average = 34.67 degF
January 1998 – 2008 Trend = -1.81 degF / Decade
Output Graph
NOAA NCDC / Climate At A Glance / Climate Monitoring / Search / Help
This graph was dynamically generated 06 /29 /2008 at 00:19:29
via http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
Please send questions to Karin.L.Gleason@noaa.gov
Please see the NCDC Contact Page if you have questions or comments.
And yet, and yet …
If you return to NOAA’s home page, Bob, you’ll see a link to this report filed earlier this month that outlines what we can expect in the way of weather changes in our area of the globe:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080619_climatereport.html
Whether the scary stuff has already started or whether we’re seeing freaks of nature with two 100-year flood in just a few years is debatable. But for NOAA, global warming’s no longer a theory, and it will contribute to changes we see in our own back yards.
In any case, I think the broader issue, which Rita alludes to is that it’s a sin not to protect the natural resources we’ve been given from excessive abuse. And I don’t think that means we have to give up quality of life and prosperity.
I’m truly stymied about what part of the American Dream the naysayers about efforts to curb global warming feel they’ll have to give up if cap-and-trade or some of these other measures are passed. Perhaps Bob could give us some examples.
Jean:
If what Gore et al have asserted about the man-made global warming situation is true, nothing less than a U.N administered police state could possibly save us, and even that is debatable. I do not, and will not live under such a regime. I prefer the catastrophe.
“Here’s information from NOAA for the 1998-2008 decade. Bottom line, temperature decreased by 1.81 degree F.”
Mr. Schwarz ==
I’ve read more than once, though I haven’t kept the references, that the changes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres have gone in opposite directions with the Northern one becoming hotter and the Southern one becoming colder, at least in the South Pole region. This might account for the overa-all decrease in temperature.
Here are a few of the sites compiled by a saintly friend who has decided to research the subject for the sake of humanity:
National Academcy of Science: Enormous and wonderful ‘booklet’ online, with pictures and graphs explaining global warming. CORE DOCUMENT No. 1
http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc./intro01
(Paleo Perspective on Global Warming. CORE DOCUMENT No. 2
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/index.html
Global Warming 101 by Union of Concerned Scientists ** good
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/hokeystic...
Climate Change – EPA – good
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentac.html
also
http://www.epa.gov/highgwp/scientific.html
The Discovery of Global Warming**** excellent – hugh site
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html‘
Bob, interesting take. And I thought the melting of the polar ice cap was scary.
Actually, the article refers to the possibility of melting this summer of the ice which happens to be at the exact location of the North Pole. The polar ice cap, although doomed, won’t melt entirely for another few summers.
See realclimate.org for details.
Whenever we drive or fly, we contribute to global warming. But also when we beget children: overpopulation is a very important factor in global warming, and would remain so even if we were all very frugal with the earth’s resources and shared them equally. How can we reconcile the sanctity of each individual human life with the evil consequences of billions of human lives using up finite resources? I don’t know, and it’s a vexing question for me.
Whenever we drive or fly, we contribute to global warming. But also when we beget children: overpopulation is a very important factor in global warming, and would remain so even if we were all very frugal with the earth’s resources and shared them equally. How can we reconcile the sanctity of each individual human life with the evil consequences of billions of human lives using up finite resources? I don’t know, and it’s a vexing question for me.
All of the above may or may not be true. If it is, then I reiterate: Only a U.N.-administered police state could possibly save us. I prefer catastrophe. But I am vexed: why do the facts of global cooling for the past decade (as NOAA reports) contradict the theory of global warming?
Bob: You have been misled by some dishonest journalist who cherry-picked facts and distorted them to draw incorrect conclusions. The information you saw is for temperature in January only and in the United States only. Globally the earth is warming, but it is not happening uniformly. Some regions of the world are becoming warmer and others are becoming cooler.
The information you cite is from the NOAA: the NOAA has a page with questions and answers on global warming (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html):
“-Is the climate warming?
-Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.74°C (plus or minus 0.18°C) since the late-19th century, and the linear trend for the past 50 years of 0.13°C (plus or minus 0.03°C) per decade is nearly twice that for the past 100 years. ” They also have a link to graphs of year-round global averages (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globtemp.html)
Here is the opening sentence of the climate change booklet prepared by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/climate_change_2008_final.pdf):
“There is a global concern about global warming and the impact it will have on people and the ecosystems on which they depend.”
Here is the opening sentence of NASA’s web page on global warming (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/): “Over the last five years, 600 scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sifted through thousands of studies about global warming published in forums ranging from scientific journals to industry publications and distilled the world’s accumulated knowledge into this conclusion: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” “
Claire — Clearly you don’t understand. NOAA is only an authoritative source when cherry-picked data can be made to fit Bob’s preordained conclusions.
“If what Gore et al have asserted about the man-made global warming situation is true, nothing less than a U.N administered police state could possibly save us, and even that is debatable. I do not, and will not live under such a regime. I prefer the catastrophe.”
Bob, how about giving us some evidence that only a police state could possibly save us.
Why would it have to be a police state? Seems like a big jump from supporting cap-and-trade, a strategy that has worked for other environmental problems in the past.
Moreover, I think the price of gas will create more consumer demand, and toot sweet, for cars that are more fuel efficient, thus reducing some emissions. So good ol’ capitalistic supply-and-demand may work for us there.
Finally, you might rather die than live with changes that may be asked of us to slow global warming, but I don’t think that’s a sacrifice you can expect some of the rest of us to buy into.
Jean:
Population: Government will have to restrict the number of children per family (resources allocation, e.g., food, housing materials, water, etc.)
Travel: Government will have to restrict travel (fuel consumption).
Housing size and Location: Materials, envo-impact, distance of travel impact, etc.)
Communications Media: This is more controversial, but I predict the government will restrict global warming (GW) dissent.
Education: The government will severely restrict and control enviro-education in private and home-schooled curriculum.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Finally, you might rather die than live with changes that may be asked of us to slow global warming, but I don’t think that’s a sacrifice you can expect some of the rest of us to buy into.
I’m not asking anyone to buy into anything; I’m stating my position and putting it out there for consideration. You needn’t feel threatened.
Bob, my understanding of the time-frame for global warming is that I’ll be dead before the really bad stuff happens, if it all happens according to the computer models, which can be wrong.
Moreover, I’d say the high cost of living, largely driven by our own capitalistic system, already curtails some of the things you mention above, such as family size and travel. It’s certainly affecting the cost of education and home size as well.
So I don’t share your level of concern about worldwide cooperation–which I see as quite different from one-world government–to face a global crisis.
Moreover, if you look at what’s been proposed to curb greenhouse emissions, they don’t add up to curtailment of the freedoms you mention, at least not as far as I can see. Cap-and-trade has wide bipartisan support, and would have passed but for the filibustering.
Of course, however, we certainly we should all be alert to the potential for unnecessary curtailment of freedoms in the face of international crises. It does sometimes happen.
For instance, the current administration has asked us to give up certain rights to privacy, and search and seizure in the interests of national defense against worldwide terror. The Patriot Act allows the FBI to seize library and other communications records without much explanation. If you go to the airport, you are prevented from carrying on certain types of objects, or objects in certain quantities. If you have a certain name or appearance, you may get pulled over more by security personnel in public places.
Jean:
I went back to http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html and looked at the same data as in my first post (by the way, as a tangential interjection, this is a nifty website!) and looked at 1895 through 2007 (2008 still in progress) and the trend again was -.58 degrees F for the U.S.
What am I missing?
“my understanding of the time-frame for global warming is that I’ll be dead before the really bad stuff happens, if it all happens according to the computer models, which can be wrong.”
Jean ==
The intensity of hurricane Katrina is generally attributed to global warming — heat, including the heat in the atmosphere in the ocean , is what fuels hurricanes.
The catastrophes have already begun. As the atmosphere heats up more, the hurricanes can only get worse.
Jean:
Here’s a possibility. Australia has been suffering from a severe drought: the Indian ocean is warmer than usual, this changes the climate in the region, and the result seems to be that previously fertile parts of Australia now receive much less rain. Less rain means less grain. In a few years, when the arctic pole ice cap melts completely in the summer, it will have a major impact on the climate in North America; we are not sure, the forecast is probable increased dry spells in some parts of the US. Again, less grain. Less food, higher prices globally, famines in third world countries, demonstrations, political unrest, conflicts for water resources, tens of millions of refugees and immigrants spilling over from devastated countries to relatively preserved countries.
It’s all hypothetical — I don’t know anything about agriculture and politics, but it’s pretty scary.
So, there is enough to worry about, just by contemplating the impact of a change in regional climates!
Sorry, Clair and Ann, poor communication on my part to Bob.
Bob told me not to feel threatened. I don’t feel personally threatened because I don’t live in an area that is slated to see catastrophic effects from global warming until I’m about 100, though water levels in the Great Lakes is dwindling, and in order to jumpstart Michigan’s economy, some elements in our Legislature want to sell water to dryer areas.
Neither did I feel threatened by the notion that Bob would rather die than deal with the bureacracy he believes will curtail his freedoms in the process of dealing with global warming–of which he is skeptical to begin with. Though I find his read of global cooperation somewhat over-dramatic given that Hard Times has practically curtailed some of the freedoms he mentions.
I didn’t mean to convey that I wasn’t concerned or insensitive to the problems of global warming.
Interesting aside, I played some public service announcements for my students, including one on hurricane preparedness made before Katrina, which actually woke them up and started a discussion about how lame the advice was. I gather from the discussion that global warming isn’t something that these kids have to be sold on or are apathetic about.
Jean:
Though I find his read of global cooperation somewhat over-dramatic given that Hard Times has practically curtailed some of the freedoms he mentions.
To be quite candid, I am aware of no curtailment, practical or otherwise, of any of my freedoms.
Bob, I think you have to look at how NOAA interprets the data rather than at the numbers themselves. It may be that there is a vast conspiracy to construe the numbers incorrectly, but generally that doesn’t happen where so many scientists are studying the same phenomenon. Usually, they’re out to prove somebody else is wrong, and that so many scientists come to the same conclusion is at least worrisome.
Meantime, I’m happy that you are not curtailed in the rights you note above–the right to have as many kids as you want, drive wherever you want, have the luxury of homeschooling the kids, etc.
You must be truly blessed in your financial situation.
Think about buying a big boat.
Jean:
Although it’s really none of your concern, My wife and I live rather frugally. I have six children (all grown), and earned an electronics engineering degree and MBA at night while working full time. I saved heavily during my working life (I am now retired) and because my wife (a monetarily canny immigrant from Panama) managed our lives so well financially. I don’t like boats (I get seasick) nor do I expect to have to use one.
The planet Earth, in conjunction with the Sun, is the most massively complex system (I am speaking of now known to Man (and Woman :)]), involving physics, biology, climatology, zoology, thermodynamics, gravitation, oceanology, and…you get the idea. Moreover, it is a largely non-linear system with perhaps millions of varibles with time scales ranging from microseconds to millions of years. The computer models currently being utilized do not convince me that they are anywhere close to being correct We’ll see…
Didn’t mean to pry, Bob, and am glad to hear things have worked out well for you financially.
Not that you asked, but we have some things in common!
Both my husband and I put ourselves through advanced degree programs with scholarships and “day jobs” without parental help of any kind, have remained debt-free, but our once sizable nest-egg was pretty much wiped out when my husband’s job discontinued health care insurance and we felt it was important to continue treatment for our son, who has some chronic breathing problems that have been exacerbated by the increasing number of ozone-alert days we’ve had here in Michigan, either as a result of global warming or localized pollution.
Anyhoo, I agree that global warming is a complex situation that may not work out the way the experts foretell.
Perhaps we can leave it at that.
Have a real good day.
“I don’t feel personally threatened because I don’t live in an area that is slated to see catastrophic effects from global warming until I’m about 100,”
Jean,
I hope this is so. However, if the apparent desertification across the whole vast southern area of the U. S (not just the South — it is extending to the Southwest) is in fact occuring, it will result in much less food and millions of people being displaced, as well as severe economic strains in the whole country. This might not be catastrophic, but it will certainly require much lower standards of living generally, and, if history teaches us anything, the ranks of the poor will be greatly expanded. Also, already you are paying higher taxes for Katrina (or your child will be paying for it), plus we’ll be helping the people in the current flooding in the Mid-West, and on and on.
Bob –
You say the whole ecological system is non-linear. How do you know this? Why can’t it be linear at some periods and not at others, as gross changes occur intermittently?
The problems for us humans all seem to be related to heat. So lets look at the gross facts. It is fair to say that the laws of thermodynamics are constant, but there have been in at least two of the largeest parts of the globe (the Northern Hemisphere and Southeast Asia and Australia) catastropic changes in the weather (as, perhaps, opposed to the climate). How to account for the gross changes? You can say that there have been huge catastrophes in the past, but the frequency and intensity seems to be greater now. And, even if these catastropes are not greater, we still need to account for them *and* the old ones. All of them have had causes..
Is there some science among the physics which is analogous to macro-economics? I mean that just as there is micro-economics which is concerned with the minutiae of economic changes and a science of macro-economics which tries to explain large changes, is there a science of large changes in heat transfer, such as we are experiencing? Macrothermodynamics?
Surely we can say that the added heat in some areas comes from either outer space (and that doesn’t seem to be the case) or it is caused by changes in and on Earth. Yes, there is heat coming up through the oceans in fissures extending down to the Earth’s hot core. But no scientists seem to be postulating that that is happening. (I’m assuming it has been researched). That leaves the causes in what is happening between the Earth’s surface and changes in the atmosphere. We know that there are major changes in the emission of green-house gases into the atmosphere, which, most scientists are saying, is trapping the heat in the atmosphere, heat which used to escape from Earth and allow a roughly continuous climate. Many scientists are concluding that this trapped heat explains the more violent storms, etc.
So what are the alternate theories that you think could explain these de facto gross changes? Surely there be major causes of these obviously major effects. Surely you’re not saying that the accumulation of relatively intense heat in certain limited areas of the atmosphere have just happened by chance.
An:
Whew! Your excellent questions have overloaded my brain (such as it is). I did qualify my remark about the non-linearity of the Earth-Sun system with the word “largely”. I cannot at this moment prove that statement; it was a (largely) intuitive assessment based on my meager knowledge of physical events on this planet. Think of meteors striking Earth in the remote pas, sun spots, volcano eruptions (which invariably dump unthinkably huge amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere every now and then), the non-linearity of life itself conception, (kind of a big bang, no pun intended), and death are related to life in a non-linear fashion, the killing of animals by other animals for food, etc.
Yuor last question is the best:
So what are the alternate theories that you think could explain these de facto gross changes? Surely there be major causes of these obviously major effects. Surely you’re not saying that the accumulation of relatively intense heat in certain limited areas of the atmosphere have just happened by chance
If massive climate change is not caused by human activity, game over. If it is, we may or may not be in time. I think it is nature taking its course.
Observations, not just of temperature show that our planet’s climate is changing due to our adding “greenhouse” gases to the atmosphere. Present climate models, based on physics are doing a good job of showing how this is happening.
In short, it’s happening and we’re the ones playing with the thermostat.
Bob:
Not to run this thread into the ground, but the earth’s climate is always changing, and always has. There is no stasis to which we may refer as a baseline, because it is a dynamic system, not a static system. The earth has undergone who knows how many warming and cooling cycles since its inception. That there are correlative relationships between man,s activities is one thing; but who has actually proven causal relationships?
Bob,
It’s not correlation, it’s physics. The Earth has had many cycles where orbital changes and other factors start the process and the following increase in CO2 and other “greenhouse” gases take over. We’ve increased the CO2 directly ourselves, and we see the effects with our trending to warmer temperatures and other changes in ice, etc. It’s dynamic, and we are changing the atmosphere and the atmosphere is responding. We should be surprised if it didn’t change in response to our changing the atmosphere’s ability deal with heat.
Bob:
Because something happens right after something else is not a causal relationship. That is a logical fallacy. Example: “Data shows that all of the automobile accidents today took place within eight hours after the drivers drank water.” That data does not prove that drinking water caused the accidents, as I’m sure you know.
And you’re right: Its a matter of physics; but also of all the other sciences I listed in my July 2nd post. What was your point?
In short, our atmosphere is about 60 degrees warmer than it would be if we had no “greenhouse” gases. If we add more CO2, the planet will warm even more. That’s the physics. We know from past events where the excess CO2 will go.
Some people believe that if we change the amount of greenhouse gases, we can’t tell what would happen when we send the atmosphere out of balance. Since we can’t tell, we shouldn’t do anything about greenhouse gases. I don’t agree with that, but if I did, I don’t think we should play with the thermostat if we don’t know what will happen.
A great place to start is realclimate.org , click on Start Here to get the overall story or use the index to look up a specific concern you have about climate science. They do climate science for a living, so they can describe this better than I can.
bob
Correction on that last post !
Earth is warmer by 15 degrees C than we would be without “greenhouse” gases. That’s 27 degrees F warmer, not 60.
bob
Ok, let me give this to you from the source document, so I can stop mixing everyone up with my brain slipping a gear on changing units:
From the IPCC report on climate change
“….energy that is not reflected back to space is absorbed by
the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. This amount is approximately
240 Watts per square metre (W m–2). To balance the incoming energy,
the Earth itself must radiate, on average, the same amount
of energy back to space. The Earth does this by emitting outgoing
longwave radiation. Everything on Earth emits longwave radiation
continuously. That is the heat energy one feels radiating out
from a fire; the warmer an object, the more heat energy it radiates.
To emit 240 W m–2, a surface would have to have a temperature
of around –19°C. [This is -2.2F] This is much colder than the conditions
that actually exist at the Earth’s surface (the global mean surface
temperature is about 14°C [which is 57.2 F]). Instead, the necessary –19°C is found at an altitude about 5 km above the surface.”
[That makes a difference due to greenhouse gases of 59F, which I said earlier, but I thought my reference had computed the change in temperature wrong]
Continuing from IPCC report….
“The reason the Earth’s surface is this warm is the presence of
greenhouse gases, which act as a partial blanket for the longwave
radiation coming from the surface. This blanketing is known as
the natural greenhouse effect. The most important greenhouse
gases are water vapour and carbon dioxide. The two most abundant
constituents of the atmosphere – nitrogen and oxygen – have
no such effect. Clouds, on the other hand, do exert a blanketing
effect similar to that of the greenhouse gases; however, this effect
is offset by their reflectivity, such that on average, clouds tend to
have a cooling effect on climate (although locally one can feel the
warming effect: cloudy nights tend to remain warmer than clear
nights because the clouds radiate longwave energy back down
to the surface). Human activities intensify the blanketing effect
through the release of greenhouse gases. For instance, the amount
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 35%
in the industrial era, and this increase is known to be due to human
activities, primarily the combustion of fossil fuels and removal
of forests. Thus, humankind has dramatically altered the
chemical composition of the global atmosphere with substantial
implications for climate.”
Final note for completeness, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas. Methane, water vapor are some other gases that have a significant contribution to greenhouse effects. If CO2 were the only greenhouse gas, and we increased it by one-third, it would have a larger effect than we’ve seen already.
bob
Thanks very much for the explanation of the big picture, Bob. Not that I want to think about it. Too frightening. Much courage will be required, I think, in the coming few years. And we’ll have to reach deep in out pockets to change our situation.
You’re welcome, Ann. I’m glad I could provide more facts than in my previous posts. Changing our impact on climate doesn’t look easy, but I think responding as we go along may just postpone the cost. But I like to stick to talking about the science.
Here’s the url for the reports:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
For those who want to read more about the issue of global climate change, the summary for policymakers is a good start. The FYI document has long answers, but if you need an good response to a question, it is helpful.
Thanks, Bob. Those little graphs at the end of the summary are most impressive. I had no idea that Euroope is in worse shape than we are. No wonder they’re cooperating with the rest of the world. I wonder it if is worse there because the population is more dense.
Couldn’t get the little pdf files (gibberish), but I can’t understand them anyway. Thanks again.