The vanishing north (The Economist)

[There Is No Spoon]

...

Between now and early September, when the polar pack ice shrivels to its summer minimum, they will pore over the daily sea ice reports of America’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre. Its satellite data will show that the ice has shrunk far below the long-term average. This is no anomaly: since the 1970s the sea ice has retreated by around 12% each decade. Last year the summer minimum was 4.33m square km (1.67m square miles)—almost half the average for the 1960s.

The Arctic’s glaciers, including those of Greenland’s vast ice cap, are retreating. The land is thawing: the area covered by snow in June is roughly a fifth less than in the 1960s. The permafrost is shrinking. Alien plants, birds, fish and animals are creeping north: Atlantic mackerel, haddock and cod are coming up in Arctic nets. Some Arctic species will probably die out.

...

Less feedback, please

As our special report shows in detail, the Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Since the 1950s the lower atmosphere has warmed by a global average of 0.7 degrees Celsius; Greenland’s air has warmed by 1.5 degrees. The main reason appears to be a catalytic warming effect, triggered by global warming. When snow or ice melt, they are replaced by darker melt-water pools, land or sea. As a result, the Arctic surface absorbs more solar heat. This causes local warming, therefore more melting, which causes more warming, and so on. This positive feedback shows how even a small change to the Earth’s systems can trigger much greater ones.

Some scientists also see a tipping-point—another feared term in the climatology lexicon—in the accelerating diminution of the sea ice. The term describes the moment at which the planet shifts from one environmental state to another: in this case, from an Arctic with summer sea ice to one without it. By the end of this century—perhaps much sooner—there will probably be frequent summers with no sea ice at all.

... http://www.economist.com/node/21556921?f...hing_north

[jaxx]

There is no climate change. NC, or was it SC, said so and don't use the words either.

Sad to see the polar ice pack dwindle away.

[Willinois]

Quote:The impact of the melting Arctic may have a calamitous effect on the planet. It is likely to disrupt oceanic circulation—the mixing of warm tropical and cold polar waters, of which the Gulf Stream is a part—and thawing permafrost will lead to the emission of masses of carbon dioxide and methane, and thus further warming. It is also raising sea levels. The Greenland ice sheet has recently shed around 200 gigatonnes of ice a year, a fourfold increase on a decade ago. If the warming continues, it could eventually disintegrate, raising the sea level by seven metres. Many of the world’s biggest cities would be inundated long before that happened.

Remember that scene in An Inconvenient Truth where Greenland melts, it disrupts the atmospheric currents and much of Europe freezes?

[azmouse]

When people here in AZ try to claim there is no climate change all I do is point to the record number of days with temps over 110 degrees. And that record number gets greater each summer.
Next week, temps are predicted to be about 112... all week. Average temps this time of year should be 104. Hot by any measure but believe me, you can tell the difference when it's over 110. These temps take a toll on plants, electricity demand soars as we try to stay cool, and the homeless and poor suffer and die from lack of a/c.