Arctic sea ice hits lowest extent ever

[art-in-the-making]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/08/29/arctic-sea-ice-record-low-nsidc.html

It started looking like this was coming sometime in July.

The story is attracting massive commenting on CBC, running about 10-1 in favour of recognizing the role we humans play in global warming.

Very interesting info at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Now they're saying in some circles that the hope of holding global temperature increase to two degrees (over what timeframe I forget) is basically slim to none.

Just the fact that the six last years are the six lowest Arctic ice years by a long shot is mind-blowing. For such an occurrence to be a random accident it would be like the same person winning the lottery six years in a row. For it to be something like "the end of the ice age" (or a "cycle") as some numbskulls propose, it would be like a mile-long freight train stopping on a dime and zipping into reverse as fast as the engineer could say "roger".

The alternative explanations are becoming downright farcical. Scarcely a snowflake of plausibility in the deniers' playbook now.

Article in the latest National Geographic going in depth into extreme weather phenomena.

Quite possibly before all is said and done, oil company execs and lobbiests may be held to account over all their lies, disinformation and misinformation, just as the tobacco industry has had to face a number of billion-dollar suits and payouts because of their lies.

I'm just afraid it will be too late.

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

Here lays the problem. He says he hunts….but he can’t tell a duck from a seagull (specifically a herring gull).

Also that photo has been circulating the net along with other photos of how hot it is…. including melted mailboxes, horses in water troughs, a cat in front of an air conditioner etc etc etc. The photo is not from Southern Ontario….it’s from California.

[pigdog47]

Art-in-the-making!  I do believe ole Pope Gregory XIII way back in 1582 was somewhat responsible for the calendar hanging on your wall beside your cherished portraits of Davey Suzuki and Albert Gore.  I seem to recollect that the Artic ice was at a lower extent back on that date  (September 16th, 1582)  than our current date. Perhaps it was September 16th, 1382.  The years certainly do fly by.

Likely with cooler temperatures forecast during the winter, the water will freeze to become ice.  No worries, lad.  Be happy.

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

I wonder where he got his degree in environmental science? Probably at the Falwell Institute.

[zoomrr69]

"Close the door"....geez...

"Ya think I'm heating the outside or something"....kids

No rain here...flooding over there.......

Time to lauch the subs and patrol the Artic waterways...

Still Canadian eh....

Heck maybe some new planes eh?

em hellies still on order...

Who pays for the gas...

Why do I gotta pay more fer gas again..

Wanna buy some Canadian Bottled water...?

It's in the plan....

[my_igloo_is_melting]

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=1932

The Northwest passage may have been open multiple years in a row for ice-free navigation at some period during the Medieval Warm Period, between 1000 and 1300 AD.

A better candidate was the period 6,000 - 8,500 years ago, when the Earth's orbital variations brought more sunlight to the Arctic in summer than at present. Funder and Kjaer (2007) found extensive systems of wave generated beach ridges along the North Greenland coast that suggested the Arctic Ocean was ice-free in the summer for over 1,000 years during that period. Prior to that, the next likely time was during the last inter-glacial period, 120,000 years ago. Arctic temperatures then were 2 - 3°C higher than present-day temperatures, and sea levels were 4-6 meters higher.

Let me say this again. We are still in a cool period. The planet, on it's own, heats and cools. Are we helping it along? I think we are. Was it going to happen anyway. It sure was.

Can we stop what is happening? Mother Nature says no. I used to believe, blindly, in global warming. That this has happened, many times, without human intervention has caused me to step back.

Consider that one thousand years ago it was warmer than today.

[pigdog47]

Consider that one thousand years ago it was warmer than today.

Consider that 1000 years is but a very minute fraction of time in the grand scheme of things.  Environuts make doom and gloom prognostications on what is happening / gonna happen based on climate statistics from the last 10 or 100 or 1000 years. 

And then nutbar politicians like Ontario's McGuinty mandate horribly expensive solar energy initiatives "cause it's the right thing to do"  Yecccch. 

[my_igloo_is_melting]

36-54 million years ago, the very far north, pretty much the northern tip of Greenland was a swamp with 35 metre tall trees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Heiberg_Island

There would have been no ice anywhere on the planet. Sea levels would have been 50 metres higher than today.

[valve37]

"Consider that one thousand years ago it was warmer than today."

Them's fighting words with Art!

This planet earth is evolving as is the whole universe. We humans are but an infintesimal miniscule of time in it's evolution. We may  adapt to these evolving changes over millions of the upcoming years or maybe we won't. Maybe we'll look like Martians someday? Consider that dinosaurs roamed the Artic 230 million years ago and I bet they weren't walking on ice. Didn't they thrive on warm climate? Could happen again.

CO² the elements of life, carbon and oxygen and some want to suppress it!.   

[art-in-the-making]

yes, igloo, we are *supposed* to be in a cool period - yet we are headed towards an ice-free Arctic at high speed, like an elephant doing ballet.

Could we slow the trend or turn it around? The natural equilibrium of CO2 in the atmosphere is something that is delicately balanced, so the amount added by humans is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Logically it might be reversed. It would be a matter of choice.

It would be a matter of educating people.

[my_igloo_is_melting]

Looking at historical temp, ice free is more normal than ice.

[art-in-the-making]

Looking at historical temp, ice free is more normal than ice.

Yes, considering that the Earth began as a molten mass, that seems very plausible.

The first ice age seems to have occured roughly half way through the life of the planet.

And for the last number of million years a semi-regular pattern of freeze and thaw at the poles every 100,000 years or so.

What I don't find consistent with natural geology is that we can sit here and watch the "changing of an age" occur right before our eyes.

[pigdog47]

Logically it might be reversed. It would be a matter of choice.

It is illogical to think that this is possible.  It would require global agreement and action from both developed AND emerging industrial juggernauts. Think that that is gonna happen?  Really?

Consider the incompetance / impotence of the United Nations.  Trading or "buying" so called carbon credits accomplishes nothing other than making "doing business" more expensive for major emitters.  Big deal - the costs just eventually get passed on to consumers / taxpayers of those countries. 

[my_igloo_is_melting]

What I don't find consistent with natural geology is that we can sit here and watch the "changing of an age" occur right before our eyes.

I agree that it appears illogical. However, there are no records of how it happened before. The Medival Warm Period was spread out over apporimately 300 years. We are, argueably, 100-150 years into this one depending on how you date the industrial revolution.

Are we helping it along? I believe so. Every period of climate change was "helped along" by something. What we do not know, is whether this warming trend was happening anyway.

I am not a "denier", far from it. I simply do not believe as much as I used to. Is the change happing fast? We don't even know that because we have nothing to compare the rate of change to.

Still, the words of Five Man Electrical Band play over and over in my head.

Well I’m a stranger here in this place called Earth
And I was sent down here to discover the worth
Of your little blue planet third from the sun
Come on and show me what you’ve done

We got the aero plane, we got the automobile
We got sky scraper buildings made of glass and steel
We’ve got synthetic food that nearly tastes real
And a little white pill that makes you feel
Hey, A whole lot better when you get out of bed
You take one in the morning for the lovelier head
We got everything everybody needs to survive
Surely the good life has arrived

I think your atmosphere is hurting my eyes
And your concrete mountains are blacking the skies
Now I don’t say that you’ve been telling me lies
But why do I hear those children’s cries

I’m a stranger here, I’m just looking around

I see the aero planes carrying the bombs
Why, you’ve even found people to drop them on
You know you can’t keep what you take by force
But it’s only my first impression of course.

Well I’m a stranger here on your planet Earth

We got the rivers and the mountains and the valleys and the trees
We got the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea
We got the –
Oh you crazy fools don’t you know you had it made
You were living in paradise
But take it from one who knows
Who knows the gates of Heaven can close
I only pray that you take my advice
Because Paradise won’t come twice.

Well I’m a stranger here in this place called Earth
And I was sent down here to discover the worth
Of your little blue planet third from the sun
I think I’ll go back home where I come from.

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

It would require global agreement and action from both developed AND emerging industrial juggernauts. Think that that is gonna happen? Really?

An........ ‘I’m not going to do better if they’re not going to do better’ attitude. Probably add ‘neener neener’ in there as well.

[pigdog47]

Choosing to have a smaller/larger environmental footprint and leaving this earth a better place at the end of one's life should be an individual's perogative, imo.  Not a magic pill for governments to dispense, or a meaningless unenforceable edict (Kyoto?) to sign on the dotted line.

You wanna drive a Smart car or a Volt or a Prius?  Kudos to you.  Got a composting toilet and live in a yurt?  Totally awesome, dude.  Way cool.

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

individual's perogative

People are too lazy....too complacent. Yet we have rules that people on motorcycles have to wear helmets and people in cars have to wear seat belts and the only person they are hurting if they don't.... is themselves. The effects on the environment hurt Everyone....now....and in the future!

[art-in-the-making]

Coming out today that some scientists believe that the level of Arctic sea ice hasn't been this low for at least a million years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/25/arctic-sea-ice-at-lowest-for-a-million-years_n_1912084.ht...

Meanwhile, NDP MPs Megan Leslie (Halifax) and Dennis Bevington (Arctic) are going to be requesting the Speaker for an emergency debate concerning loss of Arctic sea ice, in the House of Commons today.

[pigdog47]

"Meanwhile, NDP MPs Megan Leslie (Halifax) and Dennis Bevington (Arctic) are going to be requesting the Speaker for an emergency debate concerning loss of Arctic sea ice, in the House of Commons today."

Awesome  The emergency debate will generate a lot of hot air though.  Save the Whales!

[valve37]

"Coming out today that some scientists believe that the level of Arctic sea ice hasn't been this low for at least a million years."

What no photos to back up their belief! If their minds had wandered back further they might even believe that dinosaurs roamed the artic and they weren't walking on ice cap.

Megan and Dennis two radical CO² global warming critics likely to request we send all the air conditioners we can muster to the Artic, shut down the oil sands, quit using all fossil fuels in Canada and then freeze to death. Guess that would eliminate our 2%  contribution to total manmade world CO² emmissions.   

[pigdog47]

Maybe they can just pass legislation to make the ice cap bigger.