Arctic Summer Could Be Ice-Free By 2040

[rockthecasbah]

According to new computer models used with the imput of current greenhouse gas rates of the world as they are today, the Arctic could be iceless by 2040. They say that this is partially the product of a speeding warmth rate due to the more melted ice resulting in less of an ability to cool the water back down as it absorbs more heat from the sun.


This is a much grimmer outlook as noted by the article, since previous reports have given the ice levels times of 2060 or even 2105 before ice fully melted. The outlook gave us much longer if there were reductions in greenhouse gas expulsion:

"However, the future of the Arctic doesn't have to be so grim: running simulations with less greenhouse gases, the researchers found that the summer sea ice melted at a much slower rate."

Things with the environment always get me a bit ancy because of the uncertainty in their conduct but the looming possibility of it being a reality, so i'm not sure what to think of this. The lack of real change made is i think what scares me the most, we as one unit of mankind need to enact more progressive measures that substantially decrease our impact on the environment before it's too late.


Link.

 

[Keebler]

it's all interesting and no pun intended, but only time will tell.
i was deer hunting in mid-november and commented to one of older hunters, how crazy warm it's been.

he said, "people forget that the 1950s were really warm too. Then it got really cold in the 60s and 70s".

we've definitely hurt this planet, but i often wonder how much of it a cycle and how much of it is damage. i think the biggest human blunder is the inability to run environmental vehicles. there were a few in the 80s, but big oil squashed those down quickly.

but the biggest, is the devastation of the amazon rain forest. it is responsible for some highly ridiculous amount of the world's air moisture, which of course, turns into rain, snow etc..etc.. but hey, the 'developed world' wants their fancy wood chairs...wood only found in the amazon i guess.

i sound like such an environmentalist, but i'm far from it. i only started to see the light when i had kids and said, "uh oh...what is the world going to be like for them?????"

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

he said, "people forget that the 1950s were really warm too. Then it got really cold in the 60s and 70s".

we've definitely hurt this planet, but i often wonder how much of it a cycle and how much of it is damage.

No one claims that CO2 is the ONLY factor driving the climate, only that in the past 100 years, through human influence, CO2 has become the primary driver of warming.

CO2 has become the primary driver because humans have disrupted the natural carbon cycle. We all learn about the water cycle as school children (water evaporating and forming clouds and then falling back down to earth as rain), but we don't usually learn about the carbon cycle unless we pursue higher education (a shame really). Just like in the water cycle, carbon (the main element used in life) is cycled from the air into living things into water or soil and then back into the air. The absorption of C02 from the air into various reservoirs (soil, water, plants, etc) and the release back into the atmosphere has been measured and is roughly equal all around.

Humans have taken carbon that has been trapped in oil for many millions of years (and thus not part of the carbon cycle for a very long time) and have begun releasing it into the atmosphere. Never in the past million years (how far back our ice cores have gone so far) have carbon dioxide levels been as high as they are now. This has upset the balance in the natural carbon cycle and lead to a net gain of atmospheric carbon dioxide where previously there was none.

But as I said previously carbon dioxide is not the only factor involved in regulating the climate, so, while this release of carbon dioxide has lead to a warming of the planet, the warming has not been perfectly smooth and steady. In years like the early 90s we saw a slight dip caused by release of S02 gas from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. This doesn't mean that C02 stopped influencing climate that year, it just means that an opposing force momentarily overwhelmed the force of C02.

During the 40s and 50s (a time when C02 influenced warming was a much more modest influence) pollution emissions caused a global dimming, but changes in pollution regulations in the 60s and 70s saw a reversal of this effect.

Rather than disproving climate change, the events of the mid century and early 90s confirm our ability to properly model the climate.

i sound like such an environmentalist, but i'm far from it. i only started to see the light when i had kids and said, "uh oh...what is the world going to be like for them?????"

Since you have seen the light you should continue to educate yourself so that when your next friend says something silly suggesting this is all part of a natural cycle, you can respond with some facts to perhaps make your friend see the light too.

 

[Queso]

I feel really sorry for the polar bears, Arctic foxes etc. They will all die out thanks to stupid greedy self-aware apes who can't regulate their own numbers.

 

[Abstract]

So what this article says that no mattery what we do, all these models predict that the Arctic will be ice free within the next 60 years, probably within my lifetime.

So really, it's an inevitability, but whether you prefer to see this happen now or later is really the question.

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

So really, it's an inevitability, but whether you prefer to see this happen now or later is really the question.

um... no. These models say "unless carbon dioxide emissions are seriously curtailed." The take home message is that action is needed, not that there is no hope.

 

[dextertangocci]

Global warming doesnt exist. Its a lie. A conspiracy!!!

This whole CO2 and greenhouse gas emmision thing is just political hype