Sniffing around CNN and MSNBC tonight I saw this headline: "Arctic Is Screaming".
"Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
More below...
Did everyone else on DailyKos know this, or is it new information?
This might sound hyperbolic here but I am stunned by this figure. Stunned. No summer ice across the Arctic -- within the next decade?
I admire Al Gore and understand what he has been saying about "five years to act if we act NOW" -- trying to portray the situation as solvable if we act fast.
But with news like this, it seems more honest to say it's too late... the reason to act fast is to prepare for what we have set in motion, rather than to attempt to stop it, much less reverse it.
I recalled seeing a graphic in the New York Times, showing how 2007 had broken records for Arctic ice melt. But somehow I didn't grasp that we were talking about the total disappearance of polar ice in summertime, as soon as 5 to 10 years from now.
Granted, there are always a few scientists who exaggerate things and end up getting headlines in the short term, and shot credibility in the longer term. But I keep coming back to Al Gore's point in An Inconvenient Truth -- about how melt begets more melt begets more melt, as the liquid water absorbs more sunlight and grows warmer -- sunlight that the water would have reflected if the water were still ice. It seems the Arctic is now picking up the pace toward that feedback loop.
More from the article:
2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways:
* 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record.
* A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 10 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.
* The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation.
* Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004's total.
* Alaska's frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, "it's very significant," said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.
Update: Several of you have commented that I present a false dichotomy above when I write "it seems more honest to say it's too late... the reason to act fast is to prepare for what we have set in motion, rather than to attempt to stop it, much less reverse it."
You're right. We have an obligation to act fast for two reasons and on two fronts: (1) To do what we can to prevent the changes from being even more drastic in future, and (2) To prepare for the drastic changes that have already been cued up to unfold based on current circumstances. Thanks.