Arctic ice melt 'already affecting weather patterns where you live right now'

Global warming has driven the loss of about
three-quarters of the northern ice cap so far.

The dramatic melting of Arctic ice is already driving extreme weather that affects hundreds of millions of people across North America, Europe and Asia, leading climate scientists have told the Guardian.

Severe “snowmageddon” winters are now strongly linked to soaring polar temperatures, say researchers, with deadly summer heatwaves and torrential floods also probably linked. The scientists now fear the Arctic meltdown has kickstarted abrupt changes in the planet’s swirling atmosphere, bringing extreme weather in heavily populated areas to the boil.

The northern ice cap has been shrinking since the 1970s, with global warming driving the loss of about three-quarters of its volume so far. But the recent heat in the Arctic has shocked scientists, with temperatures 33C above average in parts of the Russian Arctic and 20C higher in some other places.

In November, ice levels hit a record low, and we are now in “uncharted territory”, said Prof Jennifer Francis, an Arctic climate expert at Rutgers University in the US, who first became interested in the region when she sailed through it on a round-the-world trip in the 1980s.

Read The Guardian story - “Arctic ice melt 'already affecting weather patterns where you live right now'.”

The time is here for 'the punters' to take note

The Arctic ice sheet is
clearly melting.

A friend with influence over machinations in Shepparton has argued that “the punters” will take notice of climate change when they realise the Arctic ice sheet it truly melting, well, that time is here.

The ABC has reported that NASA has released maps showing sea ice coverage of the Artic in 1984 and 2012, after researched revealed that sea ice melted to its lowest level on record this year.

A story headed: “Before and after: Arctic sea ice in 1984 and 2012” points out that the minimum ice extent in 2012 was about half the average.

A graphic with the story shows the clear difference between what the ice was like in 1984 and how it appears today.

It is time “the punters” sat up, took notice, accepted the science that illustrates the globe is warming, and the ice, one of the key “reflectors” of sunshine, is melting.

Climate change in a 'new and dangerous' phase

Climate change has moved into a new and dangerous phase, according to the Canberra Times.



The future of an earth suitable
for human habitation is in our hands.

The Arctic ice is melting faster than ever anticipated and the story suggests the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2015 and completely ice-free all year round by 2030.

In its story of September 22 headed: “Four-degree rise demands 90-degree rethink”, the Canberra Times said  events now unfolding in the Arctic were not anticipate to arrive until the end of the century.

The Canberra Times story is loaded with information that could be described at best as “alarming”, but these three paragraphs are particularly unsettling –

“The polar icecaps are one of the vital regulators of global climate; if the ice disappears, the absorption of more solar radiation accelerates ocean warming, with increasing risk of large-scale release of carbon dioxide and methane from melting permafrost. This may initiate irreversible runaway warming.

Global energy, food and water security are also poised on a knife edge. These changes are occurring at the 0.8 degrees increase, relative to pre-industrial conditions already experienced, let alone the extra 1.2 degrees that probably will result from our historic emissions.

The "official" target of limiting temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees is way too high. Current policies, such as our Clean Energy Future package, are far worse and would result in a 4 degrees-plus temperature rise. Official panaceas, such as carbon capture and storage, are not working.”

The ice melts and like Nero we fiddle

by Robert McLean

 



Gustave Flaubert who said: “To
be stupid, selfish and have
good health are the
three requirements for
happiness. Though if stupidity
 is lacking, all is lost”.

Several Beneath the Wisteria supporters have read one of the latest pieces from George Monbiot and one asked “What are we doing about it?”

Sadly and pessimistically, I would suggest “very little” even though many corporations, organizations, companies and individuals claim they are “green”, the melting of the Arctic ice and a the warming of the world suggests we are doing nought.

Although individual efforts are honourable and warrant applause and even though pressure from the bottom is critical and essential to the achievement of a lasting change, what the world needs, urgently, is a top down driven change to our way of life.

The true realities of our changing climate will settle upon humanity this century and what are mostly hollow claims of being green will play no role in enabling us to cope with the emerging difficulties.

The world needs, right now, courageous and charismatic leaders able to illustrate to the business as usual boosters that our present way of life is not only unsustainable, but seriously worsening the state of the world.

Some argue the technology will provide the answers and while that may be a comforting thought and within that be a wonderful endorsement of science; the same science the climate change skeptics not only question, but mostly disbelieve.

The question is not really simply about an agreement or otherwise with science for it seems to be for deeper, stretching to be an ideological battle; a polarization that has a religious-like energy in which there is only right or wrong and seemingly no neutral ground on which people can gather, an isthmus from which they can reach down to save the world, from its own stupidity.

Sitting here writing, I look up at a Gustave Flaubert quote I have on the wall that says: “To be stupid, selfish and have good health are the three requirements for happiness. Though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost”.  

Humanity seems to put hedonistic happiness ahead of all else and in doing so allow its stupidity to bolt free, selfishly disabling the acclaimed good sense of humans and so risking the near ideal atmospheric conditions that have allowed humans for flourish.

Monbiot’s article, The Heat of the Moment, is frightening reading, but something we must contemplate and act on, quickly.