As the Arctic's Winter Sea Ice Hits a New Record Low - What Happens Next? (msn.com)
- Reference: 0176853795
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0435221/as-the-arctics-winter-sea-ice-hits-a-new-record-low---what-happens-next
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/climate-change/winter-sea-ice-in-the-arctic-just-hit-a-record-low/ar-AA1BRoHc
"Since then, the ice has already begun to melt again."
> "Sea ice is acting like the old canary in the coal mine," Dartmouth University geophysicist Don Perovich said. "It's saying loud and clear that warming is occurring...."
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> In the summer, when the sun's radiation shines down on the Arctic for 24 hours a day, the ice acts as a shield, reflecting more than half of the light that hits it back into space.... With so little sea ice in the Arctic this year, more sunlight will be able to reach the open ocean, which absorbs more than 90 percent of the radiation that hits it. This will further warm the region, accelerating ice melt and exposing even more water to the light. This feedback loop helps explain the rapid warming of the Arctic, and it is expected to lead to a complete lack of summer sea ice in the region within decades, [said explained Melinda Webster, a sea ice scientist at the University of Washington]. The consequences would be dire for seals, [2]polar bears and other wildlife, which depend on a stable sea ice platform to birth their young and hunt for food. It would also expose miles of coastline to pounding ocean waves, accelerating the erosion that threatens to tip [3]some communities into the sea.
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> But the effects will also be felt in places far from the poles, Perovich said. Studies [4]suggest that a complete loss of Arctic sea ice would raise global temperatures as much as adding a trillion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Changes in the Arctic [5]could also affect the jet stream , the river of winds that flows through the upper atmosphere, contributing to more extreme weather around the globe.
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> "What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic," Perovich said.
Earlier this year sea ice also fell 30% below the amount typical in the Antarctic prior to 2010, [6]the researchers report . The total amount of sea ice on earth has now reached an all-time low, declining by more than a million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers) below the pre-2010 average.
"Altogether, Earth is missing an area of sea ice large enough to cover the entire continental United States east of the Mississippi."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/climate-change/winter-sea-ice-in-the-arctic-just-hit-a-record-low/ar-AA1BRoHc
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/10/23/polar-bears-arctic-animals-disease-climate-change/
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/02/24/the-remote-alaskan-village-that-needs-to-be-relocated-due-to-climate-change/
[4] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL082914
[5] https://nsidc.org/learn/ask-scientist/declining-sea-ice-changing-atmosphere
[6] https://www.nasa.gov/earth/arctic-winter-sea-ice-at-record-low/
It rose to a new low, not fell. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ice grows in the Artic in winter.
The fact that it grew to a lower level than it grew to last year does not mean it fell.
Re: It rose to a new low, not fell. (Score:2, Interesting)
If it grows to a lower level year over year for many years like it has been, then yes it is.
Re: It rose to a new low, not fell. (Score:1)
Will the global warming catastrophe crowd be happy when the next ice age starts in 10,000 years?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. Especially if it kills a bunch of people. But they won't live long enough to enjoy it.
Re: It rose to a new low, not fell. (Score:2)
The next ice age was supposed to be in 4000 years, so if it actually takes 10000 years then it is doubtful humans are surviving at that point.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, if you are careful to state facts properly, the public doesn't grasp the point. So the statement gets filtered, the filtered gets popularized, the popularized gets politicized. Pretty soon, you have the twisted mess of what society terms "climate change."
I get sick of seeing these stories on this site (Score:2)
Even IF we concede that climate change/global warming/whatever it's being called this year is real, I'm waiting for some REAL solutions before I buy in on destroying our economy to combat it. Because electric cars, solar/wind energy, and getting rid of plastic bags at the supermarket IS NOT WORKING. And we still aren't building nuclear power plants. Our politicians fly to far off places every year, emitting massive amounts of carbon, to discuss the issue. It's impossible to take seriously under these ci
Drill baby drill (Score:1)
That's what happens. And we all go out and buy SUVs and hope that this whole mess ends up being somebody else's problem. Meanwhile the people who control oil are slowing down the switch to renewables so that they can make sure they're the ones in charge of the solar and wind plants and not somebody else or, perish the thought, the public at large through public utilities.
Re: (Score:2)
we all go out and buy SUVs
I don't. Why do you?
Dill baby dill pickles for everyone! (Score:2)
He was obviously speaking collectively on behalf of our fading species and I would even consider it unlikely that he personally owns an SUV. But how do you [VT] think your cheap snipe contributed to a solution approach for the most generous possible interpretations of "contributed" or "solution"? Or perhaps it was a failed attempt at humor in search of even more generosity?
However I think the fossil fuel industries have lost their leadership edge on exterminating the species homo sapiens. True, their legacy
Re: (Score:2)
He does not, and never has, spoken on behalf of anyone but himself. No matter how much he'd prefer otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
NAK
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't make any sense. Oil companies don't have anywhere near enough control of "renewables" to monopolize them. The only way they could achieve that end would be to expand production and deployment of cheap renewables faster than anyone else which, as you indicate, is something they're actively opposing.