An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer—a sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point.
One scientist even speculated that summer sea ice could be gone in five years.
Greenland’s ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer’s end was half what it was just four years ago, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by the Associated Press (AP).
“The Arctic is screaming,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government’s snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colorado.
2012
Just last year two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.”
Extra-thick ice freezes early operations in Arctic
There’s a rite of passage that plays out in the Arctic each year as the daylong summer sun warms and weakens the thick polar ice pack, eventually clearing the frigid waters to make way for ships, hunters and sea life.
This year, the seasonal changes in north Alaska are being closely monitored by an eclectic group of onlookers — the U.S. Coast Guard, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Greenpeace — all of whom are eager to sail into the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
Ever since 2007, when the Arctic ice cap melted to the smallest size ever recorded, conditions in the north have been consistently warmer and the northern waters have remained open for longer periods each summer. Scientists refer to the recent weather pattern as the “new normal.”
But this year, a cold winter along the North Slope produced sea ice conditions that were reminiscent of earlier times. In mid-May, Chris Polashenski, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Cold Regions Research Lab, traveled a mile out onto the frozen Chukchi Sea and gauged the ice thickness at 5.9 feet, more than a foot deeper than in recent years.
Although it is quickly melting, the thick ice across the American Arctic has clogged the ocean waters longer than expected, explained Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “We had a lot of ice fairly late in the Bering Sea, and that’s slowed down the melt of ice north into the Chukchi,” he said.
Predictions made from hypotheses are often nothing but educated guesses, and often do not predict reality. However, these false predictions do not necessarily falsify the hypothesis, but possibly only the method used to derive them
@Liberal1 (objectivity):
Let’s assume, for a minute, that your statement here has merit. Then how, and why, do you and the rest of the AGW zealots defend not only the hypothesis made, but also the method, when the predictions are so far off the mark?
Of course, this doesn’t even begin to touch on the actual method itself, which is, and has been, subject to willful manipulation by the AGW zealots to even derive an acceptable (to them) hypothesis.
Science? The AGW crowd involves itself in everything BUT science in order to push it’s idea, and then goes on to denounce actual science disproving their idea. Explain that, Lib1.
Be interesting to see how the wachos blame Bush and the Republicans for this one.
And ironically, coal is being burned at a 42% increase worldwide than last year!
Now, Obama has done his best to keep his word to destroy the coal industry HERE.
Over 40 coal-related mines/refineries and power plants has shut their doors because Obama kept his promise to regulate and fine them into insolvency.
The silver lining?
After obama is gone America’s coal can bounce back.
Coal doesn’t go bad or disappear just because it sits unused.
@Nan G: As always, well said Nan G. I actually wonder how many other industries and businesses will set forth on a growth trajectory if America wakes up and sends 0-bama and control of the Senate walking. It’s time to put adults back in charge of America and conclude the social experiment has failed again.