Glaciers disappearing - Arctic at Tipping Point

Just read about this over the weekend

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2008/mar/17/glaciers.climatechange?picture=333139661

Whether this is man-made climate change or man-assisted natural climate change - the implications of this are staggering.

With this in mind why are the Chinese and the Indians so stubborn over climate change and in such a rush to embrace yesterdays technology re energy production?

If the himalayan Glaciers run down - all this area has left is the Monsoon and that might not be up to much - is it going to take the potential starvation of a third of the worlds population for us to cop on?

Are the Chinese and Indians taking the Irish approach to things - tear on there boy and only when the shit hits the fan will we consider doing anything and regret at leisure our own stupidity for our lack of foresight.

This will put the polar bears and the Artic ice in the cheap seats big time.

"Glaciers disappearing"

Probably hacked.....

Edo wrote:

With this in mind why are the Chinese and the Indians so stubborn over climate change and in such a rush to embrace yesterdays technology re energy production?

The industrial giant TATA in India, I was reading in the Irish Times last week, is producing the air car after all. It's going to cost €4000 to buy. Apart from that they are going to produce a small car which will cost €1700.

Now, I think they are embracing western technology in the correct way using the fag-ends of the old to inaugurate the new... First producing a cheap, small revolutionary 'new-mini' unit for 1700 in order to create the market there (and boost jobs in different sectors thus generating more wealth) while almost simultaneously unleashing an incredibly different kind of car - an air car which runs on compressed air.

We can talk about the implications for the envirnoment of producing that compressed air later but it seems that they are very quickly putting in place some style of infrastructure that will be sustainable. I'll dig up the article later if I haven't burned I mean composted it - the founder of TATA sounds like an amazing man.

The Andes glaciers provide the water for food for millions too.

The London Indo has a report today on the state of an ice-shelf in Antarctica which is known to have been intact for the past century but in February the cracks started to appear...

London Indo Article




Watch it live-ish on Google earth ...

This is all poppycock. I am from near Ballinasloe. At this latitude in Ireland there is a line of hills called the Esker Riada. It marks the edge of where the glacier covered Ireland in the last ice age. I doubt if stone age man caused global warming at the time to melt it. The Norse lived on Greenland for 500 years until the ice returned and froze them. If anyone is worried about the polar bear sweating to excess they should put him out in my back yard for the winter. He would have frozen out there for the last 3 months and the good news is there is a bit of snow promised for the weekend so he will feel right at home. I promise I will through him a fish every now and then from the safety of a reinforced igloo.

London Indo reports that for the first time in history

Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole


that's bad isn't it

Oh dear, oh dear. We seem to be facing into cooking or freezing, depending on whether the Gulf Stream goes into reverse or not.

Sure we're all grand - Young Dan will put us all up in his backyard which apparently will become some Garden of Eden which is totally unaffected by Global warming or any kind of rational scientific thought in conflict with his own beliefs

Edo wrote:

Sure we're all grand - Young Dan will put us all up in his backyard which apparently will become some Garden of Eden which is totally unaffected by Global warming or any kind of rational scientific thought in conflict with his own beliefs

"Gooooo toooooo sleeeep my weary provo friend........"

Edo wrote:

Sure we're all grand - Young Dan will put us all up in his backyard which apparently will become some Garden of Eden which is totally unaffected by Global warming or any kind of rational scientific thought in conflict with his own beliefs

Like hell he will. He'll be waiting armed to the teeth to keep us out

The peak oil production was may 2005. We are on a plateau, we may soon fall off it.... never fear, emissions will be going down, they have no choice but to go down. In 10 years time, we will be burning 25-50% less oil than we are today, and I have no doubt we'll meet the target of 80% reductions by 2050.... at current rates of burn, the remaining 1 trn barrels of oil will be gone in 30 years.

Many of the studies that predict doom and gloom on the global warming front project increasing emissions per annum, built on data from increasing rates of consumption 2000-2005

I'd be interested to see the figures rejigged incorporating a 2.5% per annum decline. Because that is what will happen, whether we like it or not.

Whether that will be enough to save most of the glaciers is the big question. But I suspect the amount of CO2 pumped by us into the air 2004-2008 will be the largest recorded amount ever.

According to politics.ie, it's all OK.

youngdan wrote:

This is all poppycock. I am from near Ballinasloe. At this latitude in Ireland there is a line of hills called the Esker Riada. It marks the edge of where the glacier covered Ireland in the last ice age.

I was under the impression that eskers were caused by rivers under the ice, which suggests that Ballinasloe was well under cover rather than at the edge of the glacier.

Arctic ice 'is at tipping point'

Quote :

Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second smallest extent since satellite records began, US scientists have revealed.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) says that the ice-covered area has fallen below its 2005 level, which was the second lowest on record.

Melting has occurred earlier in the year than usual, meaning that the iced area could become even smaller than last September, the lowest recorded.

Researchers say the Arctic is now at a climatic "tipping point".

"We could very well be in that quick slide downwards in terms of passing a tipping point," said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the Colorado-based NSIDC.

"It's tipping now. We're seeing it happen now," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Under covered

The area covered by ice on 26 August measured 5.26 million sq km (2.03 million sq miles), just below the 2005 low of 5.32 million sq km (2.05 million sq).

But the 2005 low came in late September; and with the 2008 graph pointing downwards, the NSIDC team believes last year's record could still be broken even though air temperatures, both in the Arctic and globally, have been lower than last year.

Last September, the ice covered just 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles), the smallest extent seen since satellite imaging began 30 years ago. The 1980 figure was 7.8 million sq km (3 million sq miles).

Auditor #9 wrote:

Arctic ice 'is at tipping point'

Quote :

Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second smallest extent since satellite records began, US scientists have revealed.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) says that the ice-covered area has fallen below its 2005 level, which was the second lowest on record.

Melting has occurred earlier in the year than usual, meaning that the iced area could become even smaller than last September, the lowest recorded.

Researchers say the Arctic is now at a climatic "tipping point".

"We could very well be in that quick slide downwards in terms of passing a tipping point," said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the Colorado-based NSIDC.

"It's tipping now. We're seeing it happen now," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Under covered

The area covered by ice on 26 August measured 5.26 million sq km (2.03 million sq miles), just below the 2005 low of 5.32 million sq km (2.05 million sq).

But the 2005 low came in late September; and with the 2008 graph pointing downwards, the NSIDC team believes last year's record could still be broken even though air temperatures, both in the Arctic and globally, have been lower than last year.

Last September, the ice covered just 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles), the smallest extent seen since satellite imaging began 30 years ago. The 1980 figure was 7.8 million sq km (3 million sq miles).

Polar bears are swimming many miles this summer looking for ice - these were 65 miles off the coast. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080825210415.htm
This one was shot after swimming 200 miles. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/05/animalwelfare.animalbehaviour

Jesus that's an awful story about the polar bear. They could have sedated it the article said - they would have had to have pinned him down for an hour though.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Jesus that's an awful story about the polar bear. They could have sedated it the article said - they would have had to have pinned him down for an hour though.

It is awful. He was running at the crowd and I would say he was ravenous after that swim. They said it was a stupid mistake not to close the road and keep people away.

http://www.impactlab.com/2008/09/04/manhattan-sized-ice-cap-breaks/

More of the same - a Canadian arctic ice shelf breaks off.

The rain that caused the flooding in Bihar was 500 % the norm for August.

Maybe the Arctic is beyond repair but a german scientist thinks the Anarctic could be saved by seeding it with particles of iron - iron filings. Hmm. The iron boosts the rate at which phytoplankton photosynthesize thereby making the ocean take up more CO2. But isn't the CO2 problem everywhere else and not just in the Antarctic?

A commentator says

Quote :

However, it would take only five to 10 ocean-going ships, possibly tankers or ore carriers, to fertilize the oceans each year with iron sulphate, a waste product from smelting titanium and iron, he said.

The ships would drift with wind and current. They might accommodate tourists, maybe summer students, who would underwrite part of the cost. They might even lend their labour to shovel the stuff overboard.

The project would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than the billions or trillions it would costs for other geo-engineering proposals - such as seeding the upper atmosphere with particles to reflect sunlight back into space, Smetacek said. It could save hundrds of millions of people from being displaced, he said.

This is terraforming - planet-wide actions that could have horrible consequence. Messing with the fauna of Australia has strained the ecosystem there creating the need for measures like the 'rabbit-proof fence' which stretches across the country and tries to contain the rabbit menace.

Quote :

His plan certainly won't please the many environmentalists and scientists who are (understandably) wary of tinkering with the planet on such a grand scale. (As someone who's heard/learned a lot about iron biogeochemistry and oceanography over the last year and a half, I have to say that I'm still not fully convinced of OIF's merits.)

The other ways are capture of CO2 - very costly and means piping CO2 into caverns underneath the seabed ...

Quote :

Some also argue that using geoengineering -- other techniques include carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere -- will give big industries carte blanche to keep on polluting, reducing the effectiveness of GHG mitigation and energy conservation efforts.

But the scientist is determined:

Quote :

Recognizing this, Smetacek acknowledges that any large-scale iron fertilization demonstration will need to be paired with stringent emission caps and mitigation efforts to have a sustained impact on climate change. Also, he doesn't believe that companies should be allowed to engage in iron fertilization, because he argues that all aspects of fertilization need be tightly controlled and overseen by trained scientists.

He envisages a long-term fertilization program that would remove 100 to 1,000 megatons of carbon every year. It remains to be seen whether his lofty scenario will square with reality, however, since there isn't yet any empirical evidence to back up his projections.

Tampering with the unknown ... wonderful. All this nonsense when tons of CO2 could be neutralised by producing fuel with algae ..

Treehugger

There is a talk by Dr Wilfried Haeberli, Director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the Mansion House on October 21st (free!)

Details are here:


http://www.epa.ie/news/events/name,25195,en.html

Forthright editorial about the environment in today's Irish Examiner - says the immanent environmental catastrophe puts the financial one in the ha'penny place:

http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=opinion-qqqm=opinion-qqqa=general-qqqid=74522-qqqx=1.asp

Yep, the BBC has this on their website-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7662565.stm

Fast-melting glaciers to impact on sea levels
http://www.examiner.ie/World/idojeyauid/rss2/

ANTARCTIC glaciers are melting faster across a much wider area than previously thought, scientists said yesterday — a development that could lead to an unprecedented rise in sea levels.

"The warming we see in the peninsula also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," Summerhayes said. "That’s unusual and unexpected."

....

Antarctica’s average annual temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957, but is still 50 degrees Fahrenheit below zero (-10C), according to a recent study by Eric Steig of the University of Washington.

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