NOAA: Arctic Likely Free Of Summer Ice By 2050 — Possibly Much Sooner 335
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have published research into the shrinking levels of sea ice in the Arctic. They wanted to figure out how long it would take before summer sea ice disappeared entirely. Since there's no perfect model for predicting ice levels, they used three different methods. All three predicted the Arctic would be nearly free of summer sea ice by the middle of the century, and one indicated it could happen as early as 2020. Two of the methods were based on observed sea ice trends. If ice loss proceeds as it has in the past decade, we get the 2020 timeframe. If ice loss events are large, like the 2007 and 2012 events, but happen at random some years, the estimate is pushed back to 2030. The third method uses global climate models to 'predict atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea ice conditions over time.' This model pushes the timeframe back to 2040 at the earliest, and around 2060 as the median (abstract). One of the study's authors, James Overland, said, "Rapid Arctic sea ice loss is probably the most visible indicator of global climate change; it leads to shifts in ecosystems and economic access, and potentially impacts weather throughout the northern hemisphere. Increased physical understanding of rapid Arctic climate shifts and improved models are needed that give a more detailed picture and timing of what to expect so we can better prepare and adapt to such changes. Early loss of Arctic sea ice gives immediacy to the issue of climate change."
maundering along to the future... (Score:2, Interesting)
Too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Climatology isn't a dart board, you don't make a ton of predictions and then claim you are right when one of them hits. You go back and do further research to understand the climate better.
Re:Or not... (Score:5, Interesting)
hey, give them some credit - at least it's a testable prediction that can falsify their model. That's progress.
A test problem from my applied probability class (Score:4, Interesting)
We took a look at past average temperatures and plotted the standard deviation and where the last 10 years of temperatures lie. The odds of this being a natural trend basically exceeded the age of the universe.
Re:Do what? It's already done. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hardly liberal. If you think that most conservatives like Mr. Limbaugh you live in an especially special place.
No, frakking isn't going to help much of anything except give us a few years before fossil fuel costs really go through the roof. It's not going to help unload the excess carbon from the environment. Natural gas is only marginally 'greener' than coal. Not enough to matter.
Nuclear power is another subject. IF we could do it correctly (better siting, upgrading, monitoring and decomissioning of plants as well as some sort of half reasonable way to deal with waste) it would be fine. Since we seem to be doing none of those things and since even solar and wind are cost comparable to nucs, it's not much of an answer, IMHO.
Kyoto was a bad political joke and had little to do with slowing global warming. It was simply a test of political will and as such, failed.
And yes, if humans, especially those in a 'leadership' position did something other than try to outrace the next guy in terms of carbon consumption it might help. However, the real problem is the several billion people trying to work their way up from dismal poverty to something better and scooping up all sorts of resources in the process. Can't say I blame them, but it is causing enormous, intractable problems.
All in all, Homo Industrialis won't deal with this problem very well. But it will get dealt with. It's just going to be ugly, protracted and scary.
Re:I thought this was over and done already? (Score:0, Interesting)
The remarkably strong anti-gun sentiment that dominates nearly every thread that involves anything firearm related doesn't support that slashdot is remarkably conservative.
Re:I predict... (Score:3, Interesting)
You do understand climate change is being used by politicians as argument for even greater government command-and-control of the economy, don't you? Even though there are plenty of solutions which do not require such; those are ignored because they don't fit with the agenda of politicians.
In this, the scientists are fulfilling their role as "useful idiots".
Secondly, moving inward from the seas over 100-300 years, when few modern buildings last that long anyway, is not the major trouble people think it is. Compare it to slowing the economy such that we lose 10 or 20 years' worth of tech every 100 years.
So after 300 years, we'd be at 2250-ish tech, compared to 2313 tech. Have we saved lives?
Imagine people in the 1713 thinking, thanks to an oracle, that they should do something about climate change. So they did, and the increased command-and-control caused lag. Now you're sitting here in 2013 with 1950-level tech.
Have you saved lives? Something on the order of several hundred million needless dead would suggest a foolish path was followed.
Similarly people in 2300 will think us idiots, us ape-like ignorant slobs with year 2013 level tech, who thought it wise to retard growth.
When wasn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
- Washington Post, 1922
( based on this original: http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-11-0589a.pdf [noaa.gov] )