2 Trillion Tons of Ice Melt Since 2003
Scientists studying sea ice will announce that parts of the Arctic north of Alaska were 9 to 10 degrees warmer this past fall, a strong early indication of what researchers call the Arctic amplification effect. That’s when the Arctic warms faster than predicted, and warming there is accelerating faster than elsewhere on the globe.
As sea ice melts, the Arctic waters absorb more heat in the summer, having lost the reflective powers of vast packs of white ice. That absorbed heat is released into the air in the fall. That has led to autumn temperatures in the last several years that are six to 10 degrees warmer than they were in the 1980s, said research scientist Julienne Stroeve at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
That’s a strong and early impact of global warming, she said.
“The pace of change is starting to outstrip our ability to keep up with it, in terms of our understanding of it,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., a coauthor of the Arctic amplification study.
The pace of change outstripped our ability to keep up with it a long, long time ago. I don't think we've had any idea what we're doing for the last 100 years at least - if we ever, as humans, had a concept of our impact on the world. At this point, significant anthropogenic global warming seems like either:
ReplyDelete1. The most elaborate hoax in human history involving international scientific organizations, private groups and national governments working in tandem to destroy capitalism (I call this the Rev. Chris Larimer Theory)
Or
2. Irreversible