Big call: Cambridge prof. predicts Arctic summer sea ice “all gone by 2015”

By David Spratt  Published in ReNewEconomy on 30 August 2012

Cambridge Professor and Arctic expert Peter Wadhams

This is one of those moments when the pace of climate change and its consequences become simply extraordinary.
      In the last two weeks, I’ve spent some time trying to unravel the Arctic’s big melt of 2012 and what is means for future global warming and the world we will live in.
      It’s not territory for the faint-heartened, and one of the world’s foremost Arctic experts has stepped up to make a big call, a really big call.

Arctic melt demands another look at Australia's climate policy

First published in New Matilda, 28 August 2012

There's half as much sea-ice as there was 30 years ago and the annual summer melt keeps smashing records. David Spratt on why Australian policy-makers should be paying attention.

In the last few days something so dramatic has happened in the Arctic that it demands another look at Australia's climate policies.
     On Friday 24 August, annual summer melting of the floating sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean smashed the previous record, with another three weeks of the melt season still to to go. Scientists are calling it "stunning" and "astounding". This breaks the record set in 2007. Back then there were scientific gasps that the sea ice was melting “100 years ahead of schedule”.
     Thirty years ago, the summer sea-ice extent was around 7.5 million square kilometres (similar to area of Australia), but this year it will end up at half that figure.  And the ice is becoming thinner, due to melting from below by warmer seas, and the relentless loss of thicker, multi-year ice. So the volume of the summer ice will in 2012 be only around one quarter of what it was three decades ago.  Now it looks like the sea-ice  will be gone in summer within a decade or so, maybe sooner.  That's what many of the cryopshere scientists and models are saying.

Arctic sea-ice melt record more than broken, it’s being smashed

by David Spratt, first posted 25 August 2012

UPDATE 27 AUGUST: Sunday's data confirms that the previous sea-ice extent minimum of 24 September 2007 was broken last Friday, 24 August 2012. What is also stunning are sea-ice daily extent figures averaging ice loss of more than 100,000 square kilometres per day for the last four days. This suggest melt is accelerating very late in the melt season in a pattern that has never before been observed. The Arctic this year is heading into new territory and it looks like 2012 may in retrospect be seen as the year when a new melt regime took hold.
      The ice extent is about to drop below 4 million square kilometres for the first time in the satellite record, and the Arctic has shed almost half a million square kilometres of sea-ice in last five days! With three weeks of the melt season still to go, it's not hard to see extent dropping another half a million square kilometres (or more!) to 3.5 million square kilometres. (In previous big melt years of 2007 and 2011, around half a million square kilometres was lost after 26 August.)
    This is starting to make the second graph (below) looking reasonable, and those scientists and models which have been suggesting an sea-ice-free summer Arctic within a decade to be on the money.
     The commentary by Climate Commissioner Prof. Will Steffen in today's newspapers that ''We can expect to see an ice-free Arctic at about the middle of this century'' looks out of touch with the most recent data, and exhibits IMHO a scientific reticence which does a disservice to the urgent public debate we need on implications of the Arctic melt for Australian climate policy (and sea-level rises from Greenland!). Positive feedbacks now have a grip on Arctic sea-ice and the descent appears to be exponential, not linear. Looking at the PIOMASS date on sae ice volume (fifth chart here), its hard to know what Prof. Steffen  has based his assertion upon.
      Perhaps the enormity of the present situation is best summed up by sea-ice blogger Neven: "Basically, I'm at a loss for words, and not just because my jaw has dropped and won't go back up as long as I'm looking at the graphs. I'm also at a loss - and I have already said it a couple of times this year - because I just don't know what to expect any longer. I had a very steep learning curve in the past two years. We all did. But it feels as if everything I've learned has become obsolete. "

Climate change impacts are frequently happening more quickly and at lower levels of global warming than scientists expected, even a decade or two ago. And this week the Arctic has provided a dramatic and deeply disturbing example.
     According to IARC/JAXA satellite data at Arctic Sea-ice Monitor from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the sea-ice extent of 24 August 2012 of 4,209,219 square kilometres broke the previous record in the satellite era of 4,254,531 square kilometres set on 24 August 2007. Back then the were scientific gasps that the sea ice was melting “100 years ahead of schedule”.

JAXA Arctic sea ice extent to 24 August 2012. Updates: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

Climate News

Week ending 26 August 2012

Projected sea-level rise to 2100 (inches). Source City of Boston

PICKS OF THE WEEK

Arctic sea-ice melt record more than broken, it’s being smashed
http://www.climatecodered.org/2012/08/arctic-sea-ice-melt-record-more-than.html
David Spratt, ClimateCodeRed, 25 August 2012
Climate change impacts are frequently happening more quickly and at lower levels of global warming than scientists expected, even a decade or two ago. And this week the Arctic has provided a dramatic and deeply disturbing example.

Arctic heads for record melt, but do we want to know?

Update to: Dramatic lessons from the Arctic big melt of 2012: It's already too hot, as Greenland melt record is smashed
Related post: US Media Turn A Blind Eye To Record Greenland Ice Melt

by David Spratt, first published at RenewEconomy, 21 August 2012

Two extraordinary events at the end of last week say a lot about the state of the climate change conversation in Australia.
     The first was data from US Arctic researcher Prof. Marco Tedesco showing that melting over the Greenland ice sheet had shattered the seasonal record on 8 August, a full four weeks before the close of the melting season (following image). The melting season lasts until the second week of September each northern summer, so this result is stunning: "With more yet to come in August, this year's overall melting will fall way above the old records. That's a goliath year -- the greatest melt since satellite recording began in 1979," said Tedesco.

Dramatic lessons from the Arctic big melt of 2012: It's already too hot, as Greenland melt record is smashed

Related post: Arctic heads for record melt, but do we want to know?

UPDATE 21 August: RECORD SEA-ICE MELT: The Arctic big melt is charging along and a number of data sets today show that 2012 has broken the 2007/2011 record for minimum sea-ice extent / area. These include data sets from Arctic ROOS and Cryosphere Today. This closeup from Neven of the Cryosphere Today data is very clear:

Cryosphere Today sea ice area August 2005-2012

Cryosphere Today data set shows:

• 2012, day 230, 2.87743 million square kilometers
• 2011, day 253, 2.90474 million square kilometers (previous record low)

So it looks like the record has been smashed with another 3 weeks to go in the melt season.  This is almost as extraordinary as the Greenland record melt story below. 

Climate News

Week ending 19 August 2012

Arctic sea-ice extent decade by decade: the rate of loss is increasing. Source: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent.png

PICKS OF THE WEEK

Australians lead in fitting solar panels on homes
www.smh.com.au/environment/australians-lead-in-fitting-solar-panels-on-homes-20120817-24dxd.html
Ben Cubby, SMH, 18 August 2012
Australians put more household solar panel systems on their roofs than anyone else in the world last year, new data from the Clean Energy Regulator and the International Energy Agency show.

Climate News

 Week ending 12 August 2012

Extensive melt over the Greenland Ice Sheet. This figure shows the daily, cumulative area of the Greenland ice sheet showing surface melt for 2012, 2011, 2010 and for the 1980 to 1999 mean. While melt was unusually extensive through May and June of 2012, the melt area increased rapidly in early July in response to an unusually warm weather event. Source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/08/a-most-interesting-arctic-summer/figure6-2/

PICKS OF THE WEEK

Rate of Arctic summer sea ice loss is 50% higher than predicted
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/11/arctic-sea-ice-vanishing
Robin McKie, Guardian, 11 August 2012
New satellite images show polar ice coverage dwindling in extent and thickness
AND
Sea Ice Decimated, Huge Storm May Have Broken Arctic Ocean Stratification
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/10/1118634/-Sea-Ice-Decimated-Huge-Storm-May-Have-Broken-Arctic-Ocean-Stratification

Beyond Coal and Gas Forum

by Ellie Smith, Mackay Conservation Group

Over the weekend of 28-29 July, over 80 people from all over Queensland, along with some visitors from NSW and Victoria, gathered just south of Mackay to learn about and discuss the impacts of the Central Queensland coal and CSG boom on our environment, communities and economy at the Beyond Coal and Gas Forum.

     The weekend was an extremely energising event. Participants went home feeling more powerful and optimistic about their chances of protecting their communities and their livelihoods from the impacts of the massive boom in coal and CSG that is planned for Central and North Queensland.

Climate News

Week ending 5 August 2012

Arctic sea-ice volume (red line is 2012) from
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas

Arctic Death Spiral Continues: Record Low Sea Ice Volume Appears Likely
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/04/634901/arctic-death-spiral-continues-new-record-low-sea-ice-volume-appears-likely
Neven, Climate Progress, 4 August 2012
I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re going to have a new record volume low, although the difference with 2010 and 2011 has become smaller. Right now it’s 1249 and 730 km3 respectively. 

More Arctic charts
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas

Are we experiencing more extreme hot weather due to climate change? The evidence is in.

By James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy (available at PDF here)

The greatest barrier to public recognition of human-made climate change is probably the natural variability of local climate. How can a person discern long-term climate change, given the notorious variability of local weather and climate from day to day and year to year?

Figure 1: Fire fighters battle the Taylor Creek blaze, one of several fires which have burned over 75,000 acres in southeastern Montana in summer 2012. Image credit: USFWS/Gerald Vickers via InciWeb.org.

Climate News

Week ending 29 July 2012

Global Drought Monitor July 2012   Source: http://drought.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/drought.html

Erratic Weather Across Globe Fueling Impending Food Crisis
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/23-0
Common Dreams, July 23, 2012
In addition to the ongoing drought in the United States, experts warn that the potential for a worldwide food crisis is heightened by extreme and erratic weather across the globe.

Extreme Drought Areas in US Nearly Triple in One Week
http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/extreme-drought-areas-u-s-triple.html
Mat McDermott, Treehugger, 27 July 2012
The drought gets worse: The US Drought Monitor reports that areas on the nation under extreme drought conditions in key agricultural states has tripled in the past week. Furthermore, the amount of land experiencing drought conditions more broadly has increased to nearly two-thirds of the nation, up from 56% just a week ago.

When National Climate Disasters Go Global: On Drought, Food, And Global Insecurity
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/18/535661/when-national-climate-disasters-go-global-on-drought-food-and-global-insecurity

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic

By Joe Romm, a Climate Progress cross-post

“The decadal land-surface average temperature using a 10-year moving average of surface temperatures over land. Anomalies are relative to the Jan 1950 – December 1979 mean. The grey band indicates 95% statistical and spatial uncertainty interval.” A Koch-funded reanalysis of 1.6 billion temperature reports finds that “essentially all of this increase is due to the human emission of greenhouse gases.”

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST) is poised to release its findings next week on the cause of recent global warming.

A sober assessment of our situation (3)

by David Spratt

[Final of a 3-part series]

The first part in this series described some characteristics of the climate debate and the climate action advocacy movement in Australia. Part two explored some of the forces which have moulded the shape of climate politics in Australia today.

• Read Part 1: Where we are
• Read Part 2: How we got to here
• Related post: As Tony Abbott launches all-out war on climate action, what's the plan? (2 Feb 2014)

3. Challenges  

3.1 The “possible” and the necessary

Our goal is to achieve a desirable future, not to just reduce the misery, because the alternative is really awful, and failure is not an option. Current global greenhouse gas mitigation commitments will result in global warming of  4 degrees Celsius plus by 2100. Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency says that “with the current policies in place, the world is perfectly on track to six degrees Celsius increasing the temperature, which is very bad news. And everybody, even school children, know this will have catastrophic implications for all of us.”

Climate News

Week ending 22 July 2012

Carbon dioxide emission per head of population - see first story

PICKS OF THE WEEK

As emissions rise, China loses moral high ground
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/07/as-emissions-rise-china-loses-moral-high-ground.html
Jeff Tollefson, Nature News Blog, 18 July 202
For years China has dismissed concerns about its rising carbon emissions by pointing out that, on a per-capita basis, Chinese citizens still emit far less than their counterparts in the industrialized world. But now that China’s per-capita emissions are on par with those of the European Union, that argument will be much harder to make.
AND
A da xiang in the room: new emissions data
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/07/20/theres-a-da-xiang-in-the-room-new-greenhouse-emission-data/
Cathy Alexander, Crikey, 20 July 2012
There’s a dà xiàng in the room when it comes to addressing climate change. Dà xiàng is mandarin for elephant. And if you want to get your head around the latest data on greenhouse gas emissions, you’ll need to look to China.

Post-Carbon Postcard #2: New York City

by John Wiseman, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne

a Post Carbon Pathways crosspost

Over the last few months I’ve had the privilege of listening to a range of leading climate change policy advocates in Australia, the US, Canada and Europe reflect on priority actions for reducing the risk of runaway climate change.
     This has included interviews with many of the lead authors of the strategies reviewed in the Post Carbon Pathways report. In this Post Carbon Postcard #2, written from New York City, I’d like to highlight a few of their responses to two of the most common questions in the minds of people who have been working on climate change and environmental issues for many years: Is it too late? And...So what should we do now?

A sober assessment of our situation (2)

by David Spratt

The first part in this series described some characteristics of the climate debate and the climate action advocacy movement in Australia.

• Read Part 1: Where we are
• Read Part 3: Challenges
• Related post: As Tony Abbott launches all-out war on climate action, what's the plan? (2 Feb 2014) 

2. How we got to here  [Part 2 in a series of 3]

2.1 Climate in the media

In the USA (and Australia too), concern about climate change (as measured by the climate change threat index - see chart below) peaked around 2007.  Research studies find that media coverage of climate change directly affects public concern levels, and that the actions of political elites turn out to be the most powerful driver of public concern. Concern in the USA was at its heightat the time of media focus on the IPCC’s 2007 fourth assessment reports and Al Gore’s “The Inconvenient Truth”.

The Climate Change Threat Index aggregates data from 6 different polling organizations gauging how much people worry about global warming

The wet side of Greenland

An Arctic Sea Ice blog crosspost

When writing The dark side of Greenland, a recent blog post on decreasing reflectivity of the Greenland ice sheet, with images comparing the southwest of Greenland with satellite images from previous years, I of course realized that when that ice sheet becomes less reflective, it will soak up more solar energy and thus melt faster. But the practical aspect of this theory never really dawned on me, until I saw this video:


More videos here and here.

Climate News

Week ending 15 July 2012

PICKS OF THE WEEK

The bush is dying, yet still we deny it
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/editorial/the-bush-is-dying-yet-still-we-deny-it-20120712-21z1p.html
Canberra Times Editorial, July 13, 2012
Australian politicos' focus on Whyalla earlier this month - will or won't the carbon tax wipe it ''off the map''? - summed up just how low the national climate change debate has sunk

Must-See Videos: ABC Interviews Climatologist Michael Mann
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/12/513131/must-see-videos-abc-interviews-climatologist-michael-mann/
Joe Romm, Climate Progress, July 12, 2012
ABC’s Bill Blakemore has a 5-part interview of the most vindicated climate scientist in America, Michael Mann. All 5 videos are posted below with links to their transcripts.

A sober assessment of our situation (1)

by David Spratt 

Where we are   [Part 1 in a series]

• Read Part 2: How we got to here
• Read Part 3: Challenges 
• Related post: As Tony Abbott launches all-out war on climate action, what's the plan? (2 Feb 2014) 

1.1 Introduction

In the last five years, Australia has signed the Kyoto Protocol, legislated a price on greenhouse gas emissions, established a Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), and more than doubled the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to 20 per cent of electricity production by 2020. The Contracts for Closure of around 2GW of dirty coal power is due to be resolved soon. Household electricity demand is falling and the wholesale price has dropped substantially. Energy efficiency measures, installed household solar PV and higher prices have already reduced demand by the equivalent of Hazelwood power station’s full capacity.
     The Greens’ vote and influence has increased, the Transition Towns and sustainability movements are growing, and a formidable community campaign against coal seam gas is gaining significant political power. The coal industry in Queensland is a hot topic. The cost of renewable energy, especially PV solar, is falling quickly and household rooftop solar is already grid competitive. Community support for replacing dirty fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy is strong.