The North Pole ice cap is melting, and it's melting fast. It is melting much faster than what climate models predicted just a decade ago. The longer we play the, Yes Global Warming is happening, No it isn't, yes it is, no it isn't, game with the Republican moron puppets of the fossil fuel industry, the more your children are at risk of experiencing a collapse of civilization.
The news of the North Pole sea ice extend below the fold.
First a couple of diaries about the sea Ice extent from Boatsie and jamess, rec them both.
From Yahoo News
In a critical climate indicator showing an ever warming world, the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank to an all-time low this year, obliterating old records.
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"On top of that, we're smashing a record that smashed a record," said data center scientist Walt Meier. Sea ice shrank in 2007 to levels 22 percent below the previous record of 2005.
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"On top of that, we're smashing a record that smashed a record," said data center scientist Walt Meier. Sea ice shrank in 2007 to levels 22 percent below the previous record of 2005.
And from the
National Snow and Ice Data Center
On September 16, Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its minimum extent for the year of 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles). This is the lowest seasonal minimum extent in the satellite record since 1979 and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent.
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This year’s minimum was 760,000 square kilometers (293,000 square miles) below the previous record minimum extent in the satellite record, which occurred on September 18, 2007. This is an area about the size of the state of Texas. The September 2012 minimum was in turn 3.29 million square kilometers (1.27 million square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum, representing an area nearly twice the size of the state of Alaska. This year’s minimum is 18% below 2007 and 49% below the 1979 to 2000 average.
This is serious shit folks and we've got to stop messing around. We've seen the extreme craziness of our weather, and the civilization we've built around a stable climate won't stand if we don't start doing something to stop this, now!
James Hansen likes to use the analogy of loaded dice to demonstrate how the chances of having an extreme weather event caused by global warming are increasing rapidly.
We've seen the Wall Street casino and what it can do to the worlds economy, but that is absolutely nothing compared to what will happen if we continue to turn our climate into a giant Casino.
President Obama has stepped forward on a couple of politically difficult issues this year. It's time for him to bring this up in the debates and in his campaign speeches. It's vital to our survival as a nation, and it's a winnable political issue to hammer the Republicans with.