Rate of Arctic summer sea ice loss is 50% higher than predicted

I did a search and found nothing on this subject , so apologies if already reported.

Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing at a far greater rate than previously expected, according to data from the first purpose-built satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth's polar caps.

The consequences of losing the Arctic's ice coverage, even for only part of the year, could be profound. Without the cap's white brilliance to reflect sunlight back into space, the region will heat up even more than at present. As a result, ocean temperatures will rise and methane deposits on the ocean floor could melt, evaporate and bubble into the atmosphere.

Full atricle here .
www.guardian.co.uk...

This is quite unnerving to read and I wonder at the long term consequences.

I read an article posted stating that they had ideas this was going to occure do to the summer cyclone that hung around for five days. They said such storms bring consdierable warming and feared that the ice lose was going to be dramatic due to it.

guess they were right!!

SaneThinking

reply to post by SaneThinking



I was ready to agree until I read this .

However, the summer figures provide the real shock. In 2004 there was about 13,000 cubic kilometres of sea ice in the Arctic. In 2012, there is 7,000 cubic kilometres, almost half the figure eight years ago

It seems as if there has been a steady decline for years and the rate of decline is speeding up .

reply to post by tpg47


ca.news.yahoo.com...

This was the article I was refering too I guess it wasen't so much the warming but pushing excess amounts of ice into warmer waters thus melting it faster should have read the article again before refering to it.

SaneThinking

All these climate movements that we watch and study over time are all natural earth changes / cycles but I do concede that a very negligible amount could be attributed by human added contamination.

The earth will continue to change as it always has, we as a species cannot stop this and if we are to survive the next major change / shift we should be building domes over ecological self-sustaining cities.

Mickierocksman

I found this rather worrying.

If large amounts of unaccounted-for methane begin emanating from ocean sources during the current warming period, the effects could be catastrophic, says Arlene Fiore, a physical scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, New Jersey. "Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, so the climatic implications of adding more of it to the atmosphere are grave," .

As far as I am aware , no clean up strategy has been developed.

Typically, pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide are neutralized when they bind to hydroxyl (OH) molecules that occur naturally in the lower atmosphere, Fiore says. But if too much methane were released within a short period of time, it could bond with many of those molecules, leaving fewer to mitigate the effects of other emissions.

reply to post by Mickierocksman


We don't know for sure that these are " natural " changes , because we have not experienced them before . It is all completely new to us .

We were warned of this over 40 years ago and the warnings were scoffed at and went unheeded.
The time will come in the very near future ( 10 - 20 years at the present rate ) when no ice at all will exist in the arctic during the summer and by then it will be too late.

Originally posted by tpg47
reply to post by Mickierocksman

 

We don't know for sure that these are " natural " changes , because we have not experienced them before . It is all completely new to us .

We were warned of this over 40 years ago and the warnings were scoffed at and went unheeded.
The time will come in the very near future ( 10 - 20 years at the present rate ) when no ice at all will exist in the arctic during the summer and by then it will be too late.

Natural earth changes like this have been proven by science and these changes have been going on for many millions of years without us & they are natural….

Do you think us as a species is really responsible for this or can we even stop it?

I don’t think so.

www.windows2universe.org...

www.scotese.com...

www.theresilientearth.com.../grand-view-4-billion-years-climate-change

My statement still stands...... The earth will continue to change as it always has, we as a species cannot stop this and if we are to survive the next major change / shift we should be building domes over ecological self-sustaining cities.

Mickierocksman

reply to post by Mickierocksman

Do you think us as a species is really responsible for this

Yes actually I do think we are responsible . 100 years of high industry is responsible.
We are literally going to choke ourselves to death and for what ?

Originally posted by tpg47
reply to post by Mickierocksman

 

Do you think us as a species is really responsible for this

Yes actually I do think we are responsible . 100 years of high industry is responsible.
We are literally going to choke ourselves to death and for what ?

That’s only 100 years of our polution, how do you explain the dramatic earth changes and cycles over the past 100 million years?

Like I said, our contribution to this earth’s latest change is negligible and there is nothing we can do to stop the natural events from occurring.

If you want to stop global warming (if you think that is the problem) then please stop all the volcano’s around the world from spewing out more Co2 in a year than we have in the past 100 combined and when you’re finished doing that – perhaps put a stop to the earth’s flatulence as it emits millions of tons of methane a year as well.

My point STILL remains…. If we are to survive as a species, weather we look at it as a human problem or a natural one - we need to live through the massive environmental earth changes if we are to survive as a species, so how are we going to do that? By throwing money at energy alternatives (which will never work) or try to guarantee our survival by building places that our species can last through any environmental change or catastrophe?

Mickierocksman

The % of humanity's contribution to global warming is so small it can be even considered neglegible in the past 100 years. For some unknown reason our planet has entered a phase of global warming.

Don't forget Antartica hasn't always been covered by ice. They did discover recently there had been palm trees there and that the tempature was quite enjoyable during that period.

The funny part is that the poster above mentioned that volcanos constribution to CO2 emissions is much higher than human made contribution. But if we would have a VEI 8 it would plunge us in a volcanic winter and trigggers, in a very brutal way, a new ice age.

Although,
Above the CO2 emissions caused by us we are actually responsible for making our planet a big garbage belt and we are causing some serrious ecological imbalances with some of our practices. Above that we ARE the ones acceleratiing the next global extinction that started quite some time ago. Nature takes its time for a global extinction, we are accelerating it at a scary rate.
But who cares about diversity as long as we have just enough to live well.

Nidiwn

reply to post by Mickierocksman


I think at the end of the day it doesnt matter if we are responsible for it or not, the only thing we can do is clean up our part and we do know we atleast contribute to it.

Originally posted by tpg47
reply to post by Mickierocksman

 

We don't know for sure that these are " natural " changes , because we have not experienced them before . It is all completely new to us .

We were warned of this over 40 years ago and the warnings were scoffed at and went unheeded.
The time will come in the very near future ( 10 - 20 years at the present rate ) when no ice at all will exist in the arctic during the summer and by then it will be too late.

So the same argument could also be made that we do not know for sure that these are not natural changes
because we have not experienced them before.

It is an ussumption that no ice in the arctic during summer will be too late based on what history?
You already mentioned that We don't know for sure that these are " natural " changes

Originally posted by Mickierocksman

That’s only 100 years of our polution, how do you explain the dramatic earth changes and cycles over the past 100 million years?

Like I said, our contribution to this earth’s latest change is negligible and there is nothing we can do to stop the natural events from occurring.

If you want to stop global warming (if you think that is the problem) then please stop all the volcano’s around the world from spewing out more Co2 in a year than we have in the past 100 combined and when you’re finished doing that – perhaps put a stop to the earth’s flatulence as it emits millions of tons of methane a year as well.

My point STILL remains…. If we are to survive as a species, weather we look at it as a human problem or a natural one - we need to live through the massive environmental earth changes if we are to survive as a species, so how are we going to do that? By throwing money at energy alternatives (which will never work) or try to guarantee our survival by building places that our species can last through any environmental change or catastrophe?

Mickierocksman

The Earth does go through regular changes but even the quickest changes in history take place over thousands of years. We are seeing ever increasing changes over decades now.

As for your volcano theory, it is bunk. We actually produce 135 times as much Co2 in year than volcanoes discovery.com.

Methane is worse than Co2 and there is no doubt that agriculture plays a large part but so do man made sources: epa.gov

In the United States, the largest methane emissions come from the decomposition of wastes in landfills, ruminant digestion and manure management associated with domestic livestock, natural gas and oil systems, and coal mining.

If the arctic does warm enough it will escalate the release of methane from the permafrost.

I do believe we are past the tipping point and there is nothing we can do now but prepare for the changes coming. It would certainly help if we stopped making things worse but nature will solve that problem eventually.

We need to stop thinking of the environment as a separate entity from us. We are part of it and it is part of us. Whatever we do to damage the world around us will eventually come right back on us.

Interresting article and it seems I was misinformed.

Of course the measurement here is with recently very low global volcanic activity we are having since decades if not centuries.

A big VEI 6 or two would put up different numbers. Not talking about a VEI 7 and certainly not a VEI 8.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here too but
The big danger, for us, isn't the CO2 emissions but the SO3 from volcanic eruptions that would cut us, or some part of our planter for X time from sunlight triggering a global cooling.

As for climate changes taking thousand of years.
Volcanic winters are immediate after VEI 8 eruptions and seems to be triggers for Ice ages and immediate global cooling. Would be nice to know what kind of impact the big Taupo erruption had, global wise.

Originally posted by Nidwin
As for climate changes taking thousand of years.
Volcanic winters are immediate after VEI 8 eruptions and seems to be triggers for Ice ages and immediate global cooling. Would be nice to know what kind of impact the big Taupo erruption had, global wise.

There is no doubt that large volcanic eruptions can cause immediate changes in global climate for at least a few years. So if it is true that we produce 100 times more pollution than volcanoes every year, why is it so hard to believe that we are affecting our climate?

Originally posted by munkey66

Originally posted by tpg47
reply to post by Mickierocksman

 

We don't know for sure that these are " natural " changes , because we have not experienced them before . It is all completely new to us .

We were warned of this over 40 years ago and the warnings were scoffed at and went unheeded.
The time will come in the very near future ( 10 - 20 years at the present rate ) when no ice at all will exist in the arctic during the summer and by then it will be too late.

So the same argument could also be made that we do not know for sure that these are not natural changes
because we have not experienced them before.

It is an ussumption that no ice in the arctic during summer will be too late based on what history?
You already mentioned that We don't know for sure that these are " natural " changes

That was not my post you quoted on....

Mickierocksman

Well we can all stand here arguing about what is causing the changes until the cows DON”T come home, millions of people are at loggerheads each day about this.

Sure, we need to clean up our mess and even if we are responsible for the ‘speeding up’ of the next earth change / cycle, we are only quickening the change – it will happen anyway.

We may certainly have massive eruptions that change everything quickly as well and the methane escaping from the artic may be the tipping point for the earth.....

My point STILL remains, everyone needs to push forward and demand that governments start building what our species needs to survive the next change wether that be global warming or a catastrophe.

Our species is not prepared to survive unless we use technology to build domes over self-contained ecological cities or something simpler, everything from the creation of oxygen, water, food, waste management & power needs to be sustainable for a century or 2 – we can wait it out, or we can put money into getting off this rock and populate other planets.

It will take the next 100 years to build cities like this, it needs to start now, because no matter what way you look at it - it will happen, we need to be ready to survive if we can at all.

Mickierocksman

reply to post by tpg47

Co2 didn't ever scare me that much. Of course, I didn't want us pumping it out and making this grand experiment worse. What really scared me were the methane hydrates. If they melted...

Bad, real bad. Seriously. Don't want it to happen.

My second scare was reading a study that concluded Co2 reaching 800 ppm by 2100 is likely. And then learning that Co2 in that range and beyond is really for a whole different earth. I mean, it was that high in the past, but it was a completely different environment. Acidic oceans are going to be tough on aquatic animals. Everything is changing so fast. This is a grand experiment.

This is a sixth massive extinction event. I don't think it will mean the end of humans. What I think is earth is becoming a spaceship and most of the larger lifeforms are going to die out.

We only live about 77 years so we forget things too easily to know what it means. Inevitably the truth of this gets swept under the rug so people don't despair. We tell half truths.

We're changing the face of the earth. Everything is changing. Nothing is immune. We ourselves will change. And this will happen in ways we wouldn't approve of at present.

It's hard to explain how I feel about it. I'm already disgusted with nature. All of the killing and suffering. But I realize we're the product of that same system. And it's inside us.

I think aliens have been here. But they're like us and just come and go. Take what they want. They got bigger things to aim for. But they can shake things up just like we do. But we all learned this from the big daddy. Nature is the big daddy. It taught us everything we know and can't be destroyed. You can make lifeforms extinct or wipe clean the surface of a planet, but you can't stop the ever beating heart of life and the processes of the universe. We can only vainly strike out at it. Can't kill it.

You know how it's easier to kill a lower lifeform? It can't talk to you. It's difficult to empathize with something that's too dumb to communicate with. Ultimately, we're not cannibals; if we have a choice. Most life is like that. It doesn't want to eat its own kind. And sometimes when we eat something lower on the pyramid of life it will impact the whole pyramid. Just imagine a parasitic bacterium that eats the gut of a human and threatens the mortality of the whole being. That can in turn kill the bacterium, no? So our actions can foreseeably have implications far greater than ourselves. But it makes me wonder if higher minded aliens ever eat us? Or maybe we're like the cells in a body and the body gets eaten by something else and yet we cannot see what or whom the eater is.

What I'm trying to say is that these experiment we do on earth, however mighty and crazy they appear to us, these things are worms compared to what aliens do. We're the minor leagues.

But we have an inner desire to think we're special. The aliens do too. Everything does. But in truth we're just part of a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs and everything reflects everything else. The patterns run up from the bottom to the top. We look different, but we're all spaghetti.