#SaveSalla is a campaign launched by a Finnish community in partnership with the youth climate movement Fridays for Future. www.savesalla.org
By Jessica Corbett
With temperatures across the globe — and particularly in the Arctic — rising due to lackluster efforts to address the human-caused climate crisis, one of the coldest towns on Earth is throwing its hat in the ring to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.
<p>Salla is located in Finland's Lapland region and <a href="https://www.visitsalla.fi/en/" target="_blank">touts</a> the tagline, "in the middle of nowhere." The average temperature is <a href="https://en.climate-data.org/europe/finland/salla/salla-9790/" target="_blank">below freezing</a> and the area boasts a ski resort, reindeer park, Arctic Circle safaris, and even a snow and ice hotel.</p><p>With support from Fridays for Future — the youth-led movement launched by Swedish teenager <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/25/enough-blah-blah-blah-global-elites-greta-thunberg-declares-digital-davos" target="_blank">Greta Thunberg</a> — Salla announced its Olympic bid to build awareness about "the consequences of global warming and the need for urgent action."</p><p>"Our intention here is clear: we want to keep Salla as it is, and our winters cold and full of snow," said Salla Mayor Erkki Parkkinen. "So, there was this crazy idea: to host the Summer Games in one of the coldest towns on the planet."</p><p>"If we stand back and do nothing, letting global warming prevail," Parkkinen warned, "we will lose our identity, and the town we love — as well as many others around the world — will cease to exist as we know it."</p><p>The campaign, detailed at <a href="https://www.savesalla.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.savesalla.com</a>, includes a short video.</p><p>Watch:</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bcd9564786e4ebb966622be75b5d9fe8"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sSZSrjmmSIo?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>"Despite the obviousness of the global warming, the ideology of climate change denial is gaining traction all over the world and increasing every year," the campaign website says. "So, we've created this bid to raise attention about the climate emergency. Salla is changing. The whole planet is changing. Not in a good way."</p><p>As Common Dreams has reported, while <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/13/dire-assessment-scientists-warn-humanity-denial-looming-collapse-civilization-we" target="_blank">projections</a> for the entire planet are dire if policymakers don't urgently <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/25/un-climate-report-oceans-frozen-regions-warns-unprecedented-transitions-all-aspects" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">work to</a> "effect unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society, including energy, land and ecosystems, urban and infrastructure as well as industry," the Arctic is <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/11/deep-trouble-arctic-and-beyond-noaa-climate-report-warns-feedback-loop-may-already" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">particularly at risk</a>.</p><p>"We have only one planet to live in and an immense responsibility to future generations. We can all make a difference. What we cannot do under any circumstances is deny the problem and omit ourselves. The risks will be severe and unavoidable," said Joe Hobbs, a Fridays For Future activist and operations director for Climate Cardinals. "Global warming does not have to be a self-fulfilling prophecy and everyone can make a significant and decisive contribution to stop this process."</p>
<p>Hobbs joined Parkkinen and multiple experts for a <a href="https://videos.netshow.me/v/2R3fyFdLMN8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">press conference</a> about the campaign on Tuesday.</p><p>The event came a day after a new study that showed ice loss worldwide is increasing at a record rate. Lead author Thomas Slater of Leeds' Centre for Polar Observation and Modeling <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-01-global-ice-loss.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said</a> that "although every region we studied lost ice, losses from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have accelerated the most."</p><p>"The ice sheets are now following the worst-case climate warming scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," Slater added. "Sea-level rise on this scale will have very serious impacts on coastal communities this century."</p><p>Also on Monday, Thunberg <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/25/enough-blah-blah-blah-global-elites-greta-thunberg-declares-digital-davos" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">delivered</a> an address to the World Economic Forum's annual meeting — held digitally rather than in Davos, Switzerland this year because of the raging coronavirus pandemic. She told political and business leaders that "when it comes to facing the climate emergency, the world is still in a state of complete denial."</p><p>"Safeguarding the future living conditions and preserving life on Earth as we know it is voluntary. The choice is yours to make," the 18-year-old Swede said. "But I can assure you this: You can't negotiate with physics. And your children and grandchildren will hold you accountable for the choices that you make."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/26/planet-cooks-one-worlds-coldest-towns-bids-host-2032-summer-olympics?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Icebergs near Ilulissat, Greenland on Oct. 13, 2020. Climate change is having a profound effect with glaciers and the Greenland ice cap retreating. Ulrik Pedersen / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Earth's ice is melting 57 percent faster than in the 1990s and the world has lost more than 28 trillion tons of ice since 1994, research published Monday in The Cryosphere shows.
<p>"It was a surprise to see such a large increase in just 30 years," said Thomas Slater, a study co-author. There have been huge efforts to study ice loss research in individual regions of the world, allowing the researchers to combine data to assess ice loss worldwide. Their findings show that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic">Arctic</a> ice is disappearing the fastest, with 7.6 trillion tons melting between 1994 to 2017. The report also found land ice melt alone contributed to a global average <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise">sea level rise</a> of 3.5 centimeters. However, land ice is only a small portion of the world's ice. Sea ice shelves, which float on water, are disappearing quickly. If they collapse, the land ice (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers">glaciers</a>) some sea ice shelves hold in place would be released and could accelerate sea level rise for centuries.</p>
<p>As reported by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/25/global-ice-loss-accelerating-at-record-rate-study-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>:</p><blockquote>The greatest quantities of ice were lost from floating ice in the polar regions, raising the risk of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jan/05/climate-change-feedback-loops" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feedback mechanism</a> known as albedo loss. White ice reflects solar radiation back into space – the albedo effect – but when floating sea ice melts it uncovers dark water which absorbs more heat, speeding up the warming further in a feedback loop.</blockquote><blockquote><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/apr/18/glacier-loss-is-accelerating-because-of-global-warming" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Glaciers</a> showed the next biggest loss of ice volume, with more than 6tn tonnes lost between 1994 and 2017, about a quarter of global ice loss over the period. The shrinking of glaciers threatens to cause both flooding and water shortages in some regions, because as large volumes melt they can overwhelm downstream areas, then shrunken glaciers produce less of the steady water flow needed for agriculture.</blockquote><blockquote>Inès Otosaka, report co-author and a PhD researcher at the University of Leeds centre for polar observation and modelling, said: "As well as contributing to global mean sea level rise, mountain glaciers are also critical as a freshwater resource for local communities. The retreat of glaciers around the world is therefore of crucial importance, at both local and global scales."</blockquote>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong><br/></p><p><a href="https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2021/01/25/stories/1063723345?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=108160364&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--7OMtsTb9kCpSwUWAfK-1w4RfBTHXWMU81abwwTutRgGEIJA3fSnlDesdadRkMvsgcpBBP04YAuYMZxhOduTr8NZHJ5A&utm_content=108160364&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">E&E</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN29U0U0?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=108160364&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9-8UucsT6TVmReejromCcMzNZqdAHqhU0B_PfrC2LXLf3iFna_bB5Zyjhp46KfWOHrYKj2hvMQ-sx6iCBcLqTYW5jn9Q&utm_content=108160364&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Reuters</a>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25012021/global-ice-loss-sea-level-rise/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=108160364&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8k4dWFukZ_uwRfUUP32KwYlGvv30xk3sWoDBNuhdJbEBtrvEHaHcOeinehxKiPujeo3oJYCG_YeixY1dHOrgGo4RYMCg&utm_content=108160364&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">InsideClimate News</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/25/global-ice-loss-accelerating-at-record-rate-study-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-giant-ice-cube-represents-how-much-ice-were-losing-1846126447?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=108160364&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9k27-8HgLyeoO1YU5MVcUYsTclhB5hwreKiT2nJUY1C4E-smt8qDe23bOsQXJgCPu0MxGAKYKVx1ghM7zbJlT_7hlyDQ&utm_content=108160364&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Earther</a>, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/535670-the-worlds-ice-is-melting-57-percent-faster-than-in-the-1990s-study?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=108160364&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--MxyfdilgAnC-YLxaXsuWSUFAwCW93LFuLHL6TMrk7n5wDszpKfs9rBhv0PWJDJh03keVFojaBGVfqegQNpKhYnDY4mQ&utm_content=108160364&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Hill</a></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="https://www.linktrack.live/hot-news-sign-up" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
<p>Here you can learn about the importance of organic hemp oil, why it's better for the environment, and which CBD companies actually make trustworthy products with sustainable farming processes. origins which weigh heavily on many consumers who want to buy a product that's produced in the best way possible for not only themselves to ingest, but for the environment as well through sustainable farming methods. </p><h2>What Is CBD Oil?</h2><p>First things first, CBD stands for cannabidiol, and it's a cannabinoid found within cannabis sativa plants. This plant compound is believed to have many potential benefits, and it is primarily derived from hemp plants via a CO2 extraction process. </p><p>Since CBD is extracted from industrial hemp, which contains only trace amounts of THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis plants), this means that CBD won't make you feel high like marijuana, which has much higher levels of THC that causes psychoactive effects. Instead, the effects of CBD are much more subtle and promote a general sense of calm and relaxation in most users.</p><h2>What Makes a CBD Oil Organic?</h2><p>In terms of organic labels, perhaps the most important (and prominent) certification comes from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This government organization has been labeling foods as "organic" for many years, but what exactly does this certification entail? Essentially, a label indicating that a product is "USDA Organic" or "Certified Organic" means that at least 95% of the ingredients are obtained from organic sources.</p><p>For a crop to be considered organic by the USDA, it must be grown without the use of industrial solvents, irradiation, genetic engineering (GMOs), synthetic pesticides, or chemical fertilizer. Instead, farmers rely on natural substances and <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mechanical, physical, or biologically based farming</a> techniques to cultivate healthy and organic crops.</p><p>Before the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, no hemp-derived products could be dubbed as "certified organic" since the hemp plant and its extracts were still categorized as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. However, it's still difficult for CBD companies to obtain a USDA certified organic label for their products due to the legal grey area that still surrounds CBD extracts. </p><p>Because of these challenges, and due to the fact that industrial hemp has only recently become an agricultural crop, very few CBD oils are USDA certified organic. Rather, many CBD products contain hemp extracts from plants that were grown in organic conditions but may not be federally certified.</p><h2>What are the Best Organic CBD Oil Brands?</h2><p><em>Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.</em></p><em><br></em>
<h2>Why Organic Hemp Oil Matters</h2><p>Hemp is a unique plant, not only for its rich cannabinoid content, but also for its ability to absorb a wide variety of components in soil. But this trait poses great risks when it comes to the creation of CBD products derived from hemp.</p><p>Because hemp has a high capacity for compound uptake, this means that the plants can retain <a href="https://www.remedyreview.com/industry/lab-test-results/" target="_blank">harmful chemicals like pesticides</a>, heavy metals, and other residual solvents. This is especially true when it comes to synthetic chemicals that are more toxic to humans, and difficult to remove once they have been absorbed by the hemp plant.</p><p>Organic farming practices help reduce the risk of hemp crops absorbing harsh chemicals that may later end up in CBD oil after extraction. When you're taking CBD as a wellness supplement to help alleviate your symptoms or improve your overall well-being, the last thing you want is to ingest compounds that might negatively outweigh the benefits of CBD. This is an important reason to look for third party lab test results when shopping for CBD products since these certificates of analysis can show the full cannabinoid and terpene profile of a hemp extract, as well as test results that search for the presence of any residual solvents.</p><p>In addition to creating a better end product, organic farming practices are also better for the environment. Sustainable and organic farming methods may <a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/organic-foods.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reduce pollution, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and use less energy</a>. The use of natural pest deterrents as opposed to chemical pesticides is also better for nearby animal populations and ecosystems.</p><h3>Organic vs. Natural</h3><p>While there are only a select few companies offering certified organic ingredients in their products, almost every brand in the CBD market creates "natural" products. The term "all-natural" or "plant-based" does not mean that a product is organic, and since hemp oil is a natural derivative of hemp plants, these products are often referred to as all-natural. However, there are some synthetic CBD oils that should be avoided because they are chemically constructed and may produce unwanted side effects that are not caused by naturally derived CBD extracts.</p><h2>What are the Benefits of Organic CBD Oil?</h2><p>There's a long list of potential CBD oil health benefits, and some of the most common wellness advantages include:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2503660/" target="_blank">Chronic pain relief</a></li><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604171/" target="_blank">Anti-anxiety effects</a></li><li>Better sleep</li><li><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inner-source/201901/cbd-oil-mental-health-should-you-take-it-too" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Improvements in mood</a></li><li>Internal balance and regulation</li></ul><p>When dealing with pain, inflammation, sleep issues, and mental health struggles, it can be hard to find sufficient treatment options. The use of certain prescriptions can cause unwanted side effects, yet they are often the only solution for patients with these medical conditions. In search of other therapies, people have started to flock towards CBD oil as an alternative remedy for a variety of conditions. However, it should be noted that CBD products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and you should seek your doctor's advice before using CBD if you have a serious medical condition.</p><h2>Look at the Labels Before You Buy CBD Oil</h2><p>When you go online to buy CBD oil, you'll quickly realize there is an overwhelming number of brands that are saturating the market. It can be difficult to determine which products are truly as good as they make themselves out to be. Always look for up-to-date third-party lab tests so you know you are getting a great product, and don't hesitate to contact the brand if you have any additional questions. And if you're intent on purchasing 100% organic CBD oil, it's best to look for certified products or brands that are held to strict regulatory standards.</p><p><strong>Melena Gurganus </strong>is the Reviews Editor at EcoWatch. She is passionate health and wellness and her writing aims to help others find products they can trust. Her work has been featured in publications such as Health, Shape, Huffington Post, Cannabis Business Times, and Bustle.<br></p>
Spruce
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjI3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTM2NzgzOX0.axY0HjeqRctJsR_KmDLctzDpUBLBN-oNIdqaXDb4caQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="774be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8379f35b1ca8a86d0e61b7d4bfc8b46e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="spruce organic cbd oil" data-width="710" data-height="959" /><p>As one of the best brands in the business, Spruce CBD is well-known for its potent CBD oils that feature many additional beneficial phytocannabinoids. This brand works with two family-owned, sustainably focused farms in the USA (one located in Kentucky and one in North Carolina) to create its organic, small product batches. The max potency Spruce CBD oil contains 2400mg of full-spectrum CBD extract, but the brand also offers a lower strength tincture with 750mg of CBD in total.</p>
$89
CBDistillery
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjkzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTU4OTM4Nn0.ypRdeDSBcE87slYrFfVrRwtJ2qGIK6FD5jBB4pndTMo/img.jpg?width=980" id="b473b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9930b53c9d58cb49774640a61c3e3e75" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="cbdistillery cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>All of the products from CBDistillery are <a href="https://ushempauthority.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">U.S. Hemp Authority Certified</a>, and for good reason. The company only uses non-GMO and pesticide-free industrial hemp that's grown organically on Colorado farms. Its hemp oils are some of the most affordable CBD products on the market, yet they still maintain a high standard of quality. CBDistillery has a wide variety of CBD potencies across its product line (ranging from 500mg to 5000mg per bottle) and offers both full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD oils to give customers a completely thc-free option.</p>
$35
FAB CBD
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDIwOTEyMn0.MlTjz096FJ0ev_-soK7_Z-FeQeJczWoeh9Qi9SSkHsY/img.jpg?width=980" id="04b26" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76aa4862f44603242e318982acea6646" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="fab cbd oil" data-width="800" data-height="800" /><p>For an organic CBD oil that has it all, FAB CBD offers plenty of variety for any type of consumer. All of its products are made with zero pesticides and extracted from organically grown Colorado industrial hemp. FAB CBD oil comes in five all-natural flavors (mint, vanilla, berry, citrus, and natural) and is also available in four strengths (300, 600, 1200, and 2400mg per bottle).</p>
$39
NuLeaf Naturals
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzExNTgyMX0.D6qMGYllKTsVhEkQ-L_GzpDHVu60a-tJKcio7M1Ssmc/img.jpg?width=980" id="94e4a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3609a52479675730893a45a82a03c71d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="nuleaf naturals organic cbd oil" data-width="600" data-height="600" /><p>As an industry-leading brand, it comes as no surprise that NuLeaf Naturals sources its CBD extract from organic hemp plants grown on licensed farms in Colorado. The comany's CBD oils only contain two ingredients: USDA certified organic hemp seed oil and full spectrum hemp extract.</p><p>NuLeaf Naturals uses one proprietary CBD oil formula for all of its products, so you will get the same CBD potency in each tincture (60mg per mL), but can purchase different bottle sizes depending on how much you intend to use.</p>
$38.50
Charlotte's Web
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjk3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzQ0NjM4N30.SaQ85SK10-MWjN3PwHo2RqpiUBdjhD0IRnHKTqKaU7Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="84700" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2174067dcc0c4094be25b3472ce08c8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="charlottes web cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>Perhaps one of the most well-known brands in the CBD landscape, Charlotte's Web has been growing sustainable hemp plants for several years. The company is currently in the process of achieving official USDA Organic Certification, but it already practices organic and sustainable cultivation techniques to enhance the overall health of the soil and the hemp plants themselves, which creates some of the highest quality CBD extracts. Charlotte's Web offers CBD oils in a range of different concentration options, and some even come in a few flavor options such as chocolate mint, orange blossom, and lemon twist.</p>
$60
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Melting ice forms a lake on free-floating ice jammed into the Ilulissat Icefjord during unseasonably warm weather on July 30, 2019 near Ilulissat, Greenland. Sean Gallup / Getty Images
A first-of-its-kind study has examined the satellite record to see how the climate crisis is impacting all of the planet's ice.
<p>The answer? Quite a lot. The rate of worldwide ice loss has increased by more than 60 percent in the past three decades, a study published in <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/233/2021/" target="_blank">The Cryosphere</a> on Monday found.</p><p>"The ice sheets are now following the worst-case climate warming scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," Dr. Thomas Slater, study lead author and research fellow at Leeds' <a href="https://cpom.org.uk/" target="_blank">Center for Polar Observation and Modeling</a>, said in a <a href="http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4756/global_ice_loss_increases_at_record_rate" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of Leeds press release</a>. "<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">Sea-level rise</a> on this scale will have very serious impacts on coastal communities this century."</p><p>Previous studies have used satellite data to assess ice loss from individual sources, such as polar ice caps, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/25/global-ice-loss-accelerating-at-record-rate-study-finds" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian explained</a>. However, this is the first one to consider all sources of ice loss. The study found that the world lost around 31 trillion U.S. tons between 1994 and 2017. During that time, the rate of ice loss also increased 65 percent, from 0.9 trillion U.S. tons a year to 1.4 trillion U.S. tons a year. Ice loss from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ice-sheets" target="_self">ice sheets</a> in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctica</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenland" target="_self">Greenland</a> largely contributed to that number, the press release stated.</p>
<p>The paper also broke down which sources had lost the most ice in total terms between 1994 and 2017. Amounts are approximate and in U.S. tons:</p><ol><li><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a>: 8.4 trillion</li><li>Antarctic ice shelves: 7.2 trillion</li><li>Mountain <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" target="_self">glaciers</a>: 6.7 trillion</li><li>Greenland ice sheet: 4.2 trillion</li><li>Antarctic ice sheet: 2.8 trillion</li><li>Southern Ocean sea ice: one trillion</li></ol><p>The study also examined the leading cause of ice melt for each source, according to the press release. For Arctic sea ice and mountain glaciers, rising atmospheric temperatures have driven melting. For the Antarctic ice sheet, rising <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> temperatures have been the main cause. And for the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic ice shelves, melting has been increased by a combination of the two.</p><p>All told, melting from Antarctica, Greenland and mountain glaciers have increased sea levels by around 34.6 millimeters, the study found. While this might not sound like a lot, every centimeter of sea level rise puts around a million people in low-lying areas at risk of being flooded out of their homes, the press release said. Moreover, sea level rise isn't the only threat from melting ice.</p><p>"As well as contributing to global mean sea level rise, mountain glaciers are also critical as a freshwater resource for local communities," Inès Otosaka, report co-author and Leeds PhD researcher, said in the press release. "The retreat of glaciers around the world is therefore of crucial importance at both local and global scales."</p>
<p>Melting Arctic sea ice is also a problem because it reduces the ice cover that reflects solar energy back into space.</p><p>"As the sea ice shrinks, more solar energy is being absorbed by the oceans and atmosphere, causing the Arctic to warm faster than anywhere else on the planet," Dr. Isobel Lawrence, coauthor and Leeds research fellow, explained in the press release. "Not only is this speeding up sea ice melt, it's also exacerbating the melting of glaciers and ice sheets which causes sea levels to rise."</p><p>Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who was not involved in the study, <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1353682889045667840" target="_blank">called it</a> a "thorough accounting of how ice is disappearing from the Arctic, Antarctic and mountain ranges."</p><p>However, he disagreed with the paper's claim that the melting of floating sea ice does not contribute directly to sea level rise. He pointed to a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/170/1/145/2019346" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2007 paper</a> that found that if all currently floating sea ice were to melt, sea levels would rise around four centimeters. Slater <a href="https://twitter.com/_tslater/status/1353716525170098176" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">agreed</a> that the language should be changed to make it clear that melting floating sea ice does slightly contribute to sea level rise.</p>
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Hurricane Iota is the latest category 5 storm ever recorded in the Atlantic, with the aftermath seen here in Cortes, Honduras on November 19, 2020. Orlando SIERRA / AFP / Getty Images
By Jeff Masters, PhD and Dana Nuccitelli
Calendar year 2020 was an extreme and abnormal year, in so many ways. The global coronavirus pandemic altered people's lives around the world, as did extreme weather and climate events. Let's review the year's top 10 such events.
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f24930d9e63f791dd2d2c80873d1dd77"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gjQS48xT2RA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
1. Hottest Year on Record?
<p>The official rankings will not be released until January 14, but <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1338518056457396226" target="_blank">according to NASA</a>, Earth's average surface temperature in 2020 is likely to tie with 2016 for the hottest year on record, making the last seven years the seven hottest on record.</p><p>Remarkably, the record warmth of 2020 occurred during a minimum in the solar cycle and in a year in which a moderate La Niña event formed. Surface cooling of the tropical Pacific during La Niña events typically causes a slight global cool-down, as does the minimum of the solar cycle, making it difficult to set all-time heat records. The record heat of 2020 in these circumstances is a demonstration of how powerful human causes of global warming have become.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk5MDEyMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjY2ODU3NX0.KU1_aeaWbfXh5ZtQIYIArT1qqOI01KFE-yRXqqgecCs/img.jpg?width=980" id="da971" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4b9e666e12bd344a3db3815c6c63c6bc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2048" data-height="1038" />
Figure 1. The eye of category 5 Hurricane Iota on November 16, the strongest hurricane of the 2020 season, as seen by the Sentinel-2 satellite. Image credit: Pierre Markuse
<h4>2. The Wild 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season</h4><p>The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season produced an extraordinary 30 named storms (highest on record), 13 hurricanes (second-highest on record), and six major hurricanes (tied for second-highest on record): more than double the activity of an average season (12 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes).</p><p>The 2020 season was notable not only for its record number of named storms (after breaking into the Greek alphabet by the ridiculously early date of September 18), but also for its record number of rapidly intensifying storms (10), record number of landfalling U.S. named storms (12), and record number of landfalling U.S. hurricanes (six). Every single mile of the mainland U.S. coast from Texas to Maine was under a watch or warning related to tropical cyclones at some point in 2020. U.S. hurricane damage exceeded $37 billion, according to insurance broker Aon, the eighth-highest annual total on record.</p><p>Two catastrophic category 4 hurricanes hit Central America in November: Hurricane Iota, the latest category 5 storm ever recorded in the Atlantic, and Hurricane Eta, the deadliest tropical cyclone worldwide in 2020, with at least 274 people listed as dead or missing. At least seven hurricanes from 2020 will be worthy of having their names retired: Iota, Eta, Zeta, Delta, Sally, Laura, and Isaias – although there is still <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/17/greek-letter-hurricane-names-retire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">no official mechanism</a> for retiring storm names from the Greek alphabet. The record for most names retired in one Atlantic season was set in 2005, when five hurricanes had their names retired.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk5MDEyNC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDUxODI5N30.XnYLzKRhXOlT6sbQUTUpHbmaobQCc14ApUzPHj99kKg/img.png?width=980" id="21ac3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="00d3b41ac2fa9641bf0f6fcd62c2e730" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="900" data-height="781" />
Figure 2. Global energy-related emissions (top) and annual change (bottom) in gigatons of carbon dioxide, with projected 2020 levels highlighted in red. Other major events are indicated to a give a sense of scale. Image credit: Carbon Brief, using data from the Global Energy Review
3. Record-High Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels Despite Record Emissions Drop
<p>As a result of restrictions taken to curb the coronavirus pandemic, carbon emissions to the atmosphere in 2020 declined by 9 to 10% in the U.S. and 6 to 7% globally, although some of those reductions were offset by carbon released by wildfires. Those are the largest annual carbon emissions declines since World War II and far more than the 1% global and 6% U.S. emissions drops brought about by the 2008 Great Recession.</p><p>Nevertheless, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose by 2.6 parts per million from 2019 to 414 ppm in 2020. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere will not decline until human emissions reach net zero. Moreover, as coronavirus restrictions were lifted during 2020, global carbon pollution nearly rebounded to pre-COVID levels.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk5MDEyOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MDA5NTg4Nn0.ypENT7I4ZfF4LOwG9o9kFXU97xnPicniu65cuchVJRE/img.jpg?width=980" id="e2dec" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b5f508352cc34f6eb10ea76744f7c35" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2047" data-height="1039" />
Figure 3. A wildfire in the Sakha Republic, Arctic Circle, Siberia, Russia creates smoke and pyrocumulus clouds on July 9, 2020. A record heat wave in Siberia during June led to the Arctic's first-ever 38.0°C (100.4°F) temperature and helped drive the Arctic's worst wildfire season on record. Image credit: Copernicus Sentinel data via Pierre Markuse
<h4>4. An Apocalyptic Wildfire Season</h4><p>The year 2020 brought record levels of fire activity to the U.S. and Arctic, but unusually low levels in Canada and tropical Africa, resulting in a below-average year for global fire activity, according to the <a href="https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/wildfires-americas-and-tropical-africa-2020-compared-previous-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service</a>. According to Insurance broker Aon, the global direct cost of wildfires in 2020 was $17 billion, ranking as the fifth-costliest wildfire year, behind 2017, 2018, 2015 (major Indonesian fires), and 2010 (major Russian fires).</p><p>The Australian bushfire season ending in early 2020 (due to seasons in the Southern hemisphere being the reverse of those in the Northern hemisphere) was also <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/01/how-climate-change-influenced-australias-unprecedented-fires/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a record-breaker</a>, having burned more than 46 million acres and destroyed more than 3,500 homes.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Interagency Fire Center</a> reported that U.S. wildfires burned 10.25 million acres as of December 18, 2020, the highest yearly total <a href="https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">since accurate records began in 1983</a>. The previous record was 10.13 million acres in 2015. <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/regional/time-series/109/tavg/3/10/1895-2020?base_prd=true&begbaseyear=1901&endbaseyear=2000&trend=true&trend_base=10&begtrendyear=1895&endtrendyear=2020" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The hottest August through October period</a> in Western U.S. history, combined with severe drought and a once-in-a-generation offshore wind event, conspired to bring about an apocalyptic western U.S. wildfire season. Total U.S. wildfire damages in 2020 were $16.5 billion, said Aon, ranking as its third-costliest year on record, behind 2017 ($24 billion) and 2018 ($22 billion). Wildfires caused at least 43 direct U.S. deaths. But the indirect death toll among people 65 and older in California alone during the period August 1-September 10 – due to wildfire smoke inhalation – was likely between 1,200 and 3,000, researchers at Stanford University reported in <a href="http://www.g-feed.com/2020/09/indirect-mortality-from-recent.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a September 11 study</a>. The 4.2 million acres burned in California in 2020 was more than double the previous record set in 2018.</p><h4>5. Super Typhoon Goni: Strongest Landfalling Tropical Cyclone on Record</h4><p>Super Typhoon Goni made landfall near Bato, Catanduanes Island, Philippines, on November 1 with sustained winds of 195 mph and a central pressure of 884 mb, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, or JTWC. Goni was the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone in world recorded history, using one-minute average wind speeds from the National Hurricane Center for the Atlantic/Northeast Pacific and one-minute average winds from JTWC for the rest of the planet's ocean basins.</p><p>Goni killed 31 people, damaged or destroyed 250,000 homes, and caused over $1 billion in damage, tying it with Typhoon Bopha in 2012 and Typhoon Vamco in 2020 as the Philippines' second-most expensive typhoon on record, adjusted for inflation. Only Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 ($11.1 billion) was more damaging.</p><p>Ominously, seven of the 10 strongest landfalls in recorded history have occurred since 2006.</p><h4>6. Hottest Reliably Measured Temperature: 130°F in Death Valley</h4><p>Death Valley, California, hit an astonishing 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4°C) at 3:41 p.m. PDT, August 16, 2020, at the Furnace Creek Visitor's Center. This reading was rounded to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the <a href="https://twitter.com/NWSWPC/status/1295137837361139712" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">daily summary from NOAA</a>. According to weather records experts Christopher Burt, who wrote the comprehensive weather records book "Extreme Weather," and Maximiliano Herrera, who tweets under the Twitter handle, <a href="https://twitter.com/extremetemps?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Extreme Temperatures Around the World</a>, the observation may be the hottest reliably recorded temperature in world history, breaking the 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit readings <a href="https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/historic-heat-wave-reponsible-for-death-valleys-129f-gradually-weak.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">at Death Valley in 2013</a> and <a href="https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/eastern-hemispheres-alltime-temperature-record-kuwait-fries-in-54.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in Kuwait in 2016</a>.</p><p>The World Meteorological Organization is conducting a review of the site's observing equipment. "If the observation passes an investigation (instrument calibration, etc.) then, yes, this is a new reliably measured global extreme heat record," Burt wrote by email. However, the <a href="https://wmo.asu.edu/content/world-meteorological-organization-global-weather-climate-extremes-archive" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">official world record</a> will remain a 134 degrees Fahrenheit measurement taken at Death Valley on July 10, 1913, a record <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/08/death-valley-california-may-have-recorded-hottest-temp-in-world-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">widely viewed as bogus</a>.</p><h4>7. Most Expensive 2020 Disaster: Flooding in China Causes $32 billion in Damage</h4><p>Seasonal monsoon flooding in China in June through September killed 278 people, damaged or destroyed 1.4 million homes and businesses, and did $32 billion in damage, according to insurance broker Aon. EM-DAT, the international disaster database, ranks that total as the third-most expensive non-U.S. weather disaster since accurate records began in 1990 (adjusted for inflation), behind 1998 flooding in China ($48 billion) and 2011 flooding in Thailand ($47 billion).</p><p>In a September 2020 study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, "<a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/bams/article/101/8/E1464/345591/Each-0-5-C-of-Warming-Increases-Annual-Flood" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Each 0.5°C of Warming Increases Annual Flood Losses in China by More than US$60 Billion</a>," researchers found that annual average flood losses in China during the period 1984-2018 were $19.2 billion (2015 dollars), which was 0.5% of China's GDP. Annual flood losses increased to $25.3 billion annually during the period 2006-2018. The study authors predicted that each additional 0.5 degrees Celsius of global warming will increase China flood losses by $60 billion per year.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk5MDEzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTQ3MzUwOX0.oao5yK9yRRggMbMxirT8h4SicN9QSGMi72cm5KDxiYU/img.jpg?width=980" id="e5190" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9ad394b10d6702921de5c865a0786dc0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="974" data-height="545" />
Figure 5. Arctic sea ice age near the time of the annual minimum in 1985 (left) and in 2020 (right). There is very little old, thick ice left in the Arctic, increasing the chances of a late-summer ice-free Arctic by the 2030s. Image credit: Zack Labe
<h4>8. Near-Record Low Arctic Sea Ice</h4><p>Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on September 15, 2020, bottoming out at its second-lowest extent and volume ever recorded, behind 2012. A <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/10/warmer-climate-and-arctic-sea-ice-in-a-veritable-suicide-pact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new study suggests</a> that the 2012 record hasn't been broken despite ever-rising temperatures because the rapidly-warming Arctic has altered the jet stream, leading to cloudy summer Arctic conditions that have acted to temporarily preserve some of the sea ice. However, long-term global warming will inevitably win out, and scientists expect the Arctic to be ice-free in the summer beginning sometime between 2030 and 2050. Overall, three-quarters of the volume of summer sea ice in the Arctic has melted over the past 40 years.</p><p>The Northern Sea Route along the northern coast of Russia finally froze shut on November 3, after being open a <a href="https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/1323746737316679680" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">record 112 days</a>, and 2020 was the busiest shipping season ever for natural gas tankers in the Arctic, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-12/melting-arctic-ice-means-longest-lng-sailing-season-in-northern-sea-route" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to Bloomberg</a>.</p><h4>9. U.S. Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord and Election of Joe Biden</h4><p>The U.S. officially withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/11/covid-19-put-u-s-back-on-track-with-reneged-paris-targets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the day after the November 3, 2020 election</a>. But Joe Biden, who won that presidential election, has announced his intent to immediately rejoin the Paris agreement on the day of his inauguration: January 20, 2021.</p><p>President-elect Biden considers tackling climate change a top priority and has proposed a plan to invest $2 trillion over four years in deploying climate solutions. He has <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/12/heres-the-team-tasked-with-carrying-out-bidens-incredibly-ambitious-climate-plans/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">assembled a team</a> tasked with carrying out that plan, including several climate-focused cabinet member-nominees and the first national adviser on climate change.</p><p>It's a dramatic change from the previous administration's record of <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/most-trump-environmental-rollbacks-will-take-years-to-be-reversed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate and environmental protection rollbacks</a>.</p><h4>10. A Near-Record Number of Global Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters</h4><p>Through the end of November, 44 billion-dollar weather disasters had occurred globally in 2020, <a href="http://thoughtleadership.aonbenfield.com/Pages/home.aspx?reportcategory=impact%20forecasting" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to the November 2020 Catastrophe Report</a> from insurance broker Aon. The record in the Aon database is 47, set in 2010, and 2020 could challenge that record when the final tallies are announced on January 25, 2021.</p><p>The United States suffered 25 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2020, surpassing Aon's previous U.S. record of 20 in 2017. The record number of U.S. disasters led to the American Red Cross's providing record levels of disaster sheltering in 2020, according to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/2020-is-a-record-year-for-disaster-shelters-red-cross-says/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a December 2 article</a> by E&E News.</p><p>An <a href="https://www.undrr.org/publication/human-cost-disasters-overview-last-20-years-2000-2019" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">October 13 report</a> by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction found a "staggering" rise in climate-related disasters, including extreme weather events: those nearly doubled, from 3,656 in 1980-1999 to 6,681 in 2000-2019. The number of major floods more than doubled, from 1,389 to 3,254, and the incidence of destructive storms increased from 1,457 to 2,034.</p><p>The report blamed human-caused climate change as a significant factor in the increased disasters. It warned: "It is baffling that we willingly and knowingly continue to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people." The U.N. report authors called attention to "industrial nations that are failing miserably on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to levels commensurate with the desired goal of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius as set out in the Paris Agreement."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/12/the-top-10-weather-and-climate-events-of-a-record-setting-year/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2649628910#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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The Arctic Is Drastically Changing Due to Climate Change: Watch New Video From NOAA
09 December 2020
Climate
The Arctic is becoming "warmer, less frozen, and biologically changed in ways that are scarcely imaginable even a generation ago," according to NOAA's annual Arctic report card. NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory/ YouTube
Global warming is rapidly changing the Arctic into a region that is, "warmer, less frozen, and biologically changed in ways that are scarcely imaginable even a generation ago," according to NOAA's annual Arctic report card, released Tuesday.
<p>That description, from Rick Thoman, a University of Alaska scientist and one of the editors of the assessment, describes not just the region's dramatic loss of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice">sea ice</a>, but also its soaring temperatures and the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires">wildfires</a> that burned an estimated 23 million acres across Siberia. </p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1da2d738671ecc6d9ba843504fe35793"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TcfQiKUkgBY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>As global warming caused by burning <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a> heats the planet, it has an outsized impact on the Arctic, which in turn has an outsized impact on the rest of the globe. "Changes in the Arctic climate are important because the Arctic acts as a refrigerator for the rest of the world — it helps cool the planet," Lawrence Mudryk, a report contributor and a climate scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, told The Associated Press. "How much of the Arctic continues to be covered by snow and sea ice reflects part of how efficiently that refrigerator is working."</p>
<video controls id="ae4b2" width="100%" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4868ce37a508bb91d7a2837e2e3ba285" expand="1" feedbacks="true" mime_type="video/mp4" shortcode_id="1607539935335" url="https://roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F21201-90438_1_08CLI-ARCTICREPORT-vid_wg_720p.mp4" videoControls="true"> <source src="https://roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F21201-90438_1_08CLI-ARCTICREPORT-vid_wg_720p.mp4" type="video/mp4"> Your browser does not support the video tag. </video><p><em>An animation shows Arctic sea ice from this year's maximum to minimum, along with the 30-year average minimum.</em><em> Trent L. Schindler / NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio</em></p>
<p>As reported by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/climate/arctic-climate-change.html?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9FMqJSeQJBKKTxL-AOyMGwhwXl15QDR3jjpKQhJWN6ceXw6OEWbt5oZn07Ufz6lxmqFkQtNJ-KcTIGwoe89005bdmjMw&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The New York Times</a>:<br></p><blockquote>"Nearly everything in the Arctic, from ice and snow to human activity, is changing so quickly that there is no reason to think that in 30 years much of anything will be as it is today," [Thoman] said.</blockquote><blockquote>While the whole planet is warming because of emissions of heat-trapping gases through burning of fossil fuels and other human activity, the Arctic is heating up more than twice as quickly as other regions. That warming has cascading effects elsewhere, raising sea levels, influencing ocean circulation and, scientists increasingly suggest, playing a role in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather">extreme weather</a>.</blockquote>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/climate/arctic-climate-change.html?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9FMqJSeQJBKKTxL-AOyMGwhwXl15QDR3jjpKQhJWN6ceXw6OEWbt5oZn07Ufz6lxmqFkQtNJ-KcTIGwoe89005bdmjMw&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/arctic-climate-fires-oceans-wildfires-95e84c9be889a4a933c85a91a78eca64?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9T-X8FV3a_XaGndrEoYxqvnX4pgszokzbCvlNfa7ECR8BNZxCYnXV2OAWpsiEXtV4hw6V0l-qhIgjSWRFBV5xJxrASnQ&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>, <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-old-arctic-is-gone-1845834100?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_JDkfhlqAsMXOAPiu3n8f1mFAm3SE-JK2BIfC0yv8UW1p20L4pLGMtcgzlZqXaCd8dVCOgVq-EwA2qP1hyxEqNYSlmDA&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Earther</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/08/arctic-report-climate-crisis-wildfires-ice-loss?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_gHsQrdAO6O0qq64NkaqfL7qPnM7Q8WXVlQXqOJfWcFlnVEcRsmqGLmc86YhTebbSRfe6WGoVGO8bptI97OGeU_A7M6Q&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/529277-arctic-wildfires-linked-to-warming-temperatures-noaa?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--qxym66u4yh-vFdyb5ISiExf5xOVHnT75BPsWr08c8hTsBEy9bRntWKijcU2T47BD4OLtdObyIhznQqqXCXwQF78qKqg&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Hill</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-08/a-year-of-heat-and-fire-accelerated-the-arctic-s-transformation?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--x-UfkF8ZYuF8QICl0SqC559nvhIQDecRXtl9rcpikC3bv-ysLlUkzeM89dLCY_AotuLrie_wF6DEiILn2M-6qIXBDYg&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08122020/annual-report-card-marks-another-disastrous-year-for-the-arctic/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8eW4syZ5yWvjbtl9ltR2W_xeBI0cUcipEeg0ySSLfgXPm_4xERrTK39CT2i-b2CGEaiqI_J5T-RM_4kIZCSVy7Oyt_og&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">InsideClimate News</a>, <a href="https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/e2t/tc/VW3vz21mQw5mW7kHTYC6CC0tMW67tPB74knhyVN2lhp1Q3p_9rV1-WJV7CgSlZW5_X1k26X-kYrVTffhZ2RL7pzVGlqVM3x6qHCW3SN56b6MTCStW6WccTT5xd-QGW6PQ6rW2Zx-f7W6y2qNv6_mL22W8GnBxZ5brTfFW6F7rYR2C4WjwW9hmpbp80YxgbW7WpcZC680VGVVK1rcr5yqPw6W5tFW_J5Qc49qW39-ZYV6w-https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2020/12/08/stories/1063720177?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=102377357&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_DFx40sZtAf_vv2q34AC9lahi_X1Qn9uf5lV4LIz8cZUwnNWoUP0lKLk3-vi2Qy6wGFRiAaDXxcEk57UaXDO-Smb0YrA&utm_content=102377357&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">E&E</a></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>. </em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Are We Really Past the Point of No Return on Climate? Scientists Respond To Controversial New Study
13 November 2020
Climate
A flooded house south of Dhaka, Bangladesh. A new climate study has found we could be locked in for nearly 10 feet of sea level rise by 2500 even if we stop emissions today. Yann Arthus-Bertrand / Getty Images Plus
A controversial new climate study has found that, even if greenhouse gas emissions were halted tomorrow, it might not be enough to stop temperatures from continuing to rise.
<p>The study, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75481-z" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Scientific Reports Thursday</a>, was conducted by two researchers at the BI Norwegian Business School. They used the ESCIMO climate model to determine that, even if emissions ceased tomorrow, the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/permafrost" target="_self">permafrost</a> would continue to thaw for hundreds of years.</p><p>"According to our models, humanity is beyond the point-of-no-return when it comes to halting the melting of permafrost using greenhouse gas cuts as the single tool," lead author and professor emeritus of climate strategy Jorgen Randers <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/controversial-model-finds-global-warming-will-continue-even-if-we-stop-emissions-tomorrow" target="_blank">told AFP</a>. "If we want to stop this melting process we must do something in addition – for example, suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it underground, and make Earth's surface brighter."</p>
<p>However, other <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scientists" target="_self">scientists</a> have pointed to the simplicity of the model Randers and his colleague Ulrich Goluke used and cautioned against misinterpreting their findings as a reason to give up on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-action" target="_self">climate action</a>.</p><p>"This paper clearly may be cited in support of a misleading message that it is now 'too late' to avoid catastrophic climate change, which would have the potential to cause unnecessary despair," University of Exeter climate scientist professor Richard Betts <a href="https://foreignaffairs.co.nz/2020/11/13/mil-osi-united-kingdom-expert-reaction-to-study-using-a-simulation-to-estimate-how-long-global-warming-might-continue-for-if-greenhouse-gas-emissions-are-reduced-to-zero/" target="_blank">said in response</a>. "However, the study is nowhere near strong enough to make such a frightening message credible."</p>
<p>So what exactly does the study say? The researchers used their model to see what would happen by 2500 if emissions stopped today and if they slowly declined to zero by 2100, as AFP explained. In the first scenario, temperatures would still rise to around 2.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels within the next 50 years, taper off, then rise again starting in 2150. By 2500, the world would be around three degrees Celsius warmer and sea levels would rise by around three meters (approximately 9.8 feet). In the second, temperature and sea level rise would end up in the same place, but the temperature increase would be much faster.</p>
<p>The reason for the persistent increase comes from three feedback loops, the model found.</p><ol><li>The melting of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a>, which means that the sun's heat is absorbed into the darker <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean" target="_self">ocean</a> instead of reflected back by the bright ice.</li><li>The thawing of permafrost, which releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.</li><li>Increased moisture in the atmosphere, which in turn raises temperatures.</li></ol><p>The only way to have prevented runaway climate change would have been to have stopped burning <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a> between 1960 and 1970, the model found, as <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/11/12/reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-stop-climate-change-study/3761882001/" target="_blank">USA TODAY reported</a>. In order to stop temperatures and sea levels from rising now, we would have to remove at least 33 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year starting this one.</p>
<p>The study authors were the first to admit their findings were limited to one model.</p><p>"We encourage other model builders to explore our discovery in their (bigger) models, and report on their findings," they wrote.</p><p>However, Betts noted that their model was not the model used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and did not realistically simulate how the climate works.</p><p>Penn State University meteorologist Michael Mann agreed. He told USA TODAY that it was not very complex and did not accurately reproduce atmospheric and ocean circulation systems.</p><p>"While such models can be useful for conceptual inferences, their predictions have to be taken with great skepticism. Far more realistic climate models that do resolve the large-scale dynamics of the ocean, atmosphere and carbon cycle, do NOT produce the dramatic changes these authors argue for based on their very simplified model," he said. "It must be taken not just with a grain of salt, but a whole salt-shaker worth of salt."</p><p>That said, even the models used by the IPCC show that we will need to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reach the Paris agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, even if we achieve zero emissions by 2050.</p><p>"What the study does draw attention to is that reducing global carbon emissions to zero by 2050 is just the start of our actions to deal with climate change," University College London climate professor Mark Maslin said in response.</p>
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For the first time on record, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing by late October. Euronews / YouTube
By Sharon Guynup
At this time of year, in Russia's far north Laptev Sea, the sun hovers near the horizon during the day, generating little warmth, as the region heads towards months of polar night. By late September or early October, the sea's shallow waters should be a vast, frozen expanse.
<p><br/></p>
<p>But not this year. For the first time since records have been kept, open water still laps this coastline in late October though <a href="https://weawow.com/c9189393/tomorrow" target="_blank">snow</a> is already falling there.</p><p>"In one sense, it's shocking, but on the other hand, it's not surprising," said <a href="https://nsidc.org/research/bios/meier.html" target="_blank">Walt Meier</a>, a research scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder's <a href="https://nsidc.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Snow and Ice Data Center</a> (NSIDC). Over the past 40 years, unprecedented climate change-driven events such as this have become the new normal in the Arctic — which is heating up <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/why-the-arctic-is-warming-so-fast/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">far faster</a> than the rest of the planet.</p>
<p>While weather patterns at the top of the world vary, the overall changes are dramatic and occurring so rapidly that the region may be entering a "new Arctic" climate regime, <a href="https://www.ecoshock.org/2020/09/the-arctic-has-entered-a-new-climate-state.html" target="_blank">says Laura Landrum</a>, an oceanographer with Colorado's <a href="https://ncar.ucar.edu/" target="_blank">National Center for Atmospheric Research</a> (NCAR). The Arctic <a href="https://www.nature.com/nclimate/" target="_blank">is transitioning</a> from a mostly frozen state into an entirely new climate — and impacting the entire planet, she said.</p><p>Meier calls the Arctic the "bellweather of climate change" because it's a place where a small bump in temperature has real impact: a change from -.5°C to .5°C (31°F to 33°F) is the difference between ice skating and swimming, he said, while a couple of degrees warmer in Florida may not even be noticed.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDcyMzIzMH0.EaEzABAC2Xq96dXQJ91WnuuPQfSE1o8ig7Vo-HZHCek/img.jpg?width=980" id="87d48" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c0f95377ec752e87a80832136af0f46a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="631" data-height="340" />
Comparison of autumn sea ice formation for the first half of October 2012 (the record year for Arctic sea ice extent loss) and in 2020 (second place for sea ice extent loss). The satellite record goes back to 1979. @Icy_Samuel, data provided by NSIDC
<h3><strong>An Extreme Year in a Region Known for Extremes</strong></h3><p>It's been quite a year in Siberia — on land, and off the Arctic coast. The first six months were extraordinarily warm and the sea ice began melting early. By May, fires burned in permafrost zones that are usually frozen year-round. In June, temperatures hit a record-breaking 38°C (100°F), and by September, blazes <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02568-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">incinerated</a> about 14 million hectares (54,000 square miles) of tundra — an area the size of Greece.</p><p>A combination of changing climate and quirky weather are now preventing this fall's freeze-up. Siberian sea temperatures are higher than usual because of this year's extreme climate events. The heat wave warmed the many rivers that feed into the Arctic Ocean and also triggered an early melt-out. Without ice and snow that acts like a mirror — reflecting the sun's heat back into the atmosphere — the dark ocean absorbed extra warmth over the summer. Much of the remaining ice disintegrated. Then in September, unusually strong, warm winds blew in from the south, pushing any newly formed ice out to sea.</p><p>In the past, a shift in the winds wouldn't have mattered much. Back in the 1980s, <a href="https://news.uaf.edu/expertsguide/igor-polyakov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Igor Polyakov</a>, a climate scientist at the University of Alaska, remembers being part of expeditions that landed small seaplanes on sea ice to study the Siberian Arctic. He described the Laptev Sea as a solid, glaring white landscape punctuated by pastel-tinged ice: rose-colored, light blue and green. Since the regions' deeply cut gulfs and bays are located in shallow continental shelf waters, they mostly stayed frozen.</p><p>But by summer 2002, sea ice was less stable, and today, ice breakers can travel the region through open water. "The changes are dramatic," he said. "It happened in front of our eyes. Now, in the summer, there's no ice at all for thousands of kilometers, sometimes as far north as the 85th parallel." That's five degrees from the North Pole.</p><p>In the 1980s, about 80% of the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas were frozen in thick, "old ice" that mostly survived the summer melt, said <a href="https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/scientist/dr-james-e-overland" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">James Overland</a>, an oceanographer with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who has studied the Arctic for decades. "Now much of that has to refreeze each winter. We did not expect to see this so soon."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTI4NTQ3Nn0.h7gfBVBOiWHjc1F6veGxzZh7NIP2Aec0YsVgoyuF26Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="f9eed" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76639f8f14b9d48d7496132d68b324ce" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="610" />
Arctic sea ice extent on Oct. 25, 2020 was at a record low 5.613 million square kilometers for this date, surpassing the record set in 2019 of 6.174 million square kilometers. ChArctic NSIDC
<h3><strong>A Dangerous Cycle</strong></h3><p>Across the Arctic, ice is now thawing earlier, freezing later, thinning and — in many places — disappearing altogether.</p><p>Thinner ice is less resilient. Picture ice cubes in a glass. Thick chunks last longer and melt slower than ice chips and slivers. All disintegrate faster in warmer liquid. This is a huge problem in the Arctic, where vast stretches of open blue water absorb the sun's heat during summer, when the sun never really sets. Those warm waters flow beneath the ice to melt it from below.</p><p>This year, the overall health of the sea ice was bleak: the end-of-summer minimum was tracking at the second-lowest amount of sea ice in 42 years, Landrum said. Measurements by NASA and the NSIDC found it was about 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles) lower than the average from 1981 to 2000. NASA satellite data shows an overall downward trend in Arctic ice is averaging 12.9% a year.</p><p>This year's average global temperature will be among the warmest on record, researchers say. Current models predict the Arctic will be ice-free in summertime by 2040 – 2050. Overland thinks this so-called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82e8XF-5Lo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blue Ocean Event</a> (BOE) might come even sooner.</p><p>Many factors are colliding that could speed massive melt. New feedback loops continue to emerge, compounding and accelerating changes. For example, early climate models didn't factor in methane — a potent greenhouse gas — that's pouring into the atmosphere from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/arctic-permafrost-moving-toward-crisis-abrupt-thaw-a-growing-risk-studies/" target="_blank">melting permafrost</a>. The tundra is now thought to be emitting 300-600 million tons of carbon yearly, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator" target="_blank">equivalent of driving</a> between 65 and 129 million cars for a year.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjc2MjQyMX0.aAfm5qED_d_pgl29XwQcKL8lVcGi_yuDTmpsdxSlTFY/img.jpg?width=980" id="ce7d7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="35b889b0841d11eb150720ea638a0a90" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="873" />
The Arctic appears to be changing into an entirely new climate state due to rapid warming. The extent of sea ice in the late summer, when it reaches its minimum each year, has already entered a statistically different climate, with surface air temperatures and the number of days with rain instead of snow also beginning to transition. Simmi Sinha, ©UCAR
<p>Likewise, thick ice that withstood high winds and storms decades ago, now is thin and can be severely damaged by such storms — amplifying one-off extreme weather events. Then there's "<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-atlantification-is-making-the-arctic-ocean-saltier-and-warmer" target="_blank">Atlantification</a>," the increasing intrusion of salty, temperate Atlantic Ocean waters into chillier Arctic seas.</p><p>The changes in the Laptev Sea, long known as an Arctic "ice factory," add another concerning factor. In the past, sea ice created there typically moved with wind and ocean currents, traveling over the North Pole towards Greenland. Depending on changing conditions, that ice then spent years trapped in a slowly spinning gyre in the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arctic-archipelago" target="_blank">Beaufort Sea</a>; ended up off the Greenland coast; or piled up on the north shore of <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arctic-archipelago" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Canadian Archipelago</a>, building ice ridges that towered 3 to 9 meters (12 to 30 feet) high — multi-year ice that resisted melting.</p><p>That system no longer works as before, with the Laptev Sea now turning to blue water every summer, the "ice factory" largely shut down, and <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/multiyear.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">multi-year Arctic sea ice</a> at a record low — and still dropping.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MDc0NzYxNX0.iJKlXtiHFvOVh8eGCjcqXroVaTwSZGPTUVjPAAymh1A/img.jpg?width=980" id="8a9ef" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0b74b890c99f5a70fc03f874e627e58" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="508" />
A polar bear prowls the Arctic shoreline. VisualHunt.com
<h3><strong>An Interconnected Planet</strong></h3><p>The <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/polar-bear-population-decline-a-wake-up-call-for-climate-change-action" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">polar bear</a> has become the poster child for climate change impacts on wildlife. But Ursus maritimus isn't the only victim; <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/beyond-polar-bears-arctic-animals-share-in-vulnerable-climate-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cascading affects</a> throughout the Arctic food chain are impacting everything from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0905-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">plankton</a> to <a href="https://climate.org/archive/topics/ecosystems/seals-battle-climatechange.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">seals</a>, globally <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00179/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">important fisheries</a> species like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-arctic/climate-change-hitting-top-u-s-fishery-in-the-arctic-noaa-idUSKBN1YE2F2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pollock</a>, on up to <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/cetaceans/threats/climate_change/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">whales</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/dress-like-a-polar-bear-learning-to-love-muskoxen-at-15-below-zero/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">musk ox</a> and other cold climate mammals.</p><p>In Siberia, <a href="http://climate.org/archive/topics/climate-change/reindeer-climate-change.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reindeer</a> are starving in wintertime. "<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/weather-whiplash-record-heat-snow-colorado-wyoming-typhoons/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Weather whiplash</a>" is bringing rain, in what should be the frigid dead of polar night. The falling rain freezes atop the snowpack, forming a layer of thick ice that makes it impossible for reindeer to dig down to grass and plants below; many now die of hunger. These once-rare Arctic warm spells are now commonplace.</p><p><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/arctic-thaws-indigenous-alaskans-demand-voice-climate-change-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indigenous people</a> are <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/environment/indigenous_impacts.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">also suffering</a>. Without proper ice platforms, it's growing harder for them to hunt for the walrus and whales that sustain them. Coastlines are eroding as sediments held together by permafrost become unglued. And rising seas are inundating coastal villages.</p><p>Worse, rapidly escalating climate change in the Far North is being exported to the rest of the world: The Earth's biomes are interconnected. "You can't alter one system without affecting others," explained <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/geography/mark-serreze-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mark Serreze</a>, a research scientist for the NSIDC. "What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic, and the changes are unfolding faster than our ability to keep up with them." Serreze, in his 2018 book framing the problem, dubbed the north polar region as, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Arctic-Melting-Essentials/dp/0691173990" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Brave New Arctic</a>."</p><p>Serreze notes that the Arctic covers a massive area; it's the size of the lower 48 U.S. states combined. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/melting-arctic-sea-ice-may-be-altering-winds-weather-at-equator-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amplified Arctic warming alters global weather</a>, and impacts the rest of the planet, changing weather, ocean patterns and the jet stream.</p><p>Intense storms, droughts and heat waves — once every 100- or 500-year extreme weather events — are now occurring regularly around the globe, with devastating impacts on people, economies, and ecosystems. This year alone, for example, saw massive record wildfires in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/25/california-wildfires-winds-power-cuts/" target="_blank">California</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/3-largest-wildfires-colorado-history-have-occurred-2020-n1244525" target="_blank">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/photos-show-scale-of-massive-fires-tearing-through-siberian-forests/" target="_blank">Siberia</a>, and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/list/amazon-fire-beat/" target="_blank">Brazil</a>, and no one yet knows how this autumn's delayed Arctic re-freeze might impact the planet's upcoming weather.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYzNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1ODQ2Njg5Nn0.4Wo1cYXxGqf_k1sKhmmP0BR7L2vz25xSw7oV40K8QX8/img.jpg?width=980" id="f964c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4ccb27ee442373429ccf6f0ec973031e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="432" />
A fire burning through northern forest in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, in July 2020. Greenpeace International
<p><a href="https://nsidc.org/research/bios/stroeve.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Julienne Stroeve</a>, who specializes in sea ice research at NSIDC, adds another potential serious impact to the list: threats to our food supply. "What's predicted to happen in <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2005.1744" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">agricultural sectors</a> is not good news ... We're going to be living on a very different planet if we keep adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere," she said. "We're conducting this blind experiment, and we don't yet know the real implications.</p><p>Stroeve is desperate to inform people of the urgency: "How do you sell climate change to be as much of an emergency as COVID-19? Except that it will kill a lot more people."</p><p>She believes we can rally. If we can produce a COVID-19 vaccine in record time, and heal the ozone layer through the <a href="https://www.state.gov/key-topics-office-of-environmental-quality-and-transboundary-issues/the-montreal-protocol-on-substances-that-deplete-the-ozone-layer/" target="_blank">Montreal Protocol,</a> Stroeve thinks "we have the ability to change the course of this train."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/brave-new-arctic-sea-ice-has-yet-to-form-off-of-siberia-worrying-scientists/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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'The Arctic Ocean Is Dying': Grim Conclusion as Biggest North Pole Mission Returns
12 October 2020
Oceans
The Polarstern research vessel returns from a year-long drift across the Arctic on Oct. 12, 2020 in Bremerhaven, Germany. David Hecker / Getty Images
The largest Arctic research expedition in history returned to Germany Monday after 13 months in the Arctic, including several months with its ship deliberately trapped by sea ice, according to The New York Times.
<p>The mission aboard the German Alfred Wegener Institute's Polarstern ship spent the year gathering vital information that would give scientists a window into the future of the Arctic during the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>"We witnessed how the Arctic ocean is dying," said Markus Rex, the mission's leader, to <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20201012-biggest-north-pole-mission-returns-from-dying-arctic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Agence-France Presse</a> (AFP). "We saw this process right outside our windows, or when we walked on the brittle ice."</p><p>The team aboard the Polarstern comprised more than 300 hundred scientists from 20 countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China. According to Rex, the dramatic consequences of a warming planet were evident in an area he described as "the epicenter of climate change," as AFP reported.</p>
<p>"We basically achieved everything we set out to do," Rex told <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-climate-climate-change-bears-arctic-c992fcfc1468a570c93efebfafd2f4b7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a> (AP) by satellite phone as the expedition left the polar circle last week. "We conducted measurements for a whole year with just a short break."</p><p>The trip to measure the ice and gauge conditions in one of the planet's harshest environments cost $177 million, according to the AP, and the mission almost had to be abandoned months early when the coronavirus was detected on the mission.</p><p>The researchers had to break away from the ice in May to get new supplies and to rotate team members in order to adhere to new coronavirus protocols, which upended the mission's carefully planned logistics.</p>
<p>"Who knew when we went up there that life was going to take such an astoundingly strange turn?" said <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/profile/cashjian/" target="_blank" title="">Carin Ashjian</a>, a biological oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, as The New York Times reported.</p><p>And yet, the expedition was able to stay the course and complete its research.</p><p>"We're bringing back a trove of data, along with countless samples of ice cores, snow and water," said Rex, an atmospheric scientist at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Ocean Research, as the AP reported.</p>
<p>The observations of the crew reflect a grim future for the Arctic. Rex warned that if the current warming trend the planet is on continues, then soon the Arctic will see ice-free summer. He noted that in some areas that were once covered in ice, the crew was able to sail through open water stretching out as far as the eye could see, as AFP reported.</p><p>"At the North Pole itself, we found badly eroded, melted, thin and brittle ice," said Rex, according to AFP.</p><p>While the returning crew is optimistic that the trove of samples and data they brought home will paint a clearer picture of how the Arctic is changing, the results will take years, and maybe even decades, to sift through and analyze, according to Melinda Webster, a sea ice expert at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, as the AP reported.</p><p>"We went above and beyond the data collection we set out to do," said Webster, according to the AP. The crew returned with 150 terabytes of data and more than 1,000 ice samples.</p><p>"This is an extremely exciting time to get into Arctic science because of the changes that are happening," Webster added. "We need to get all the help we can because it's important to understand what's going on and the more people help out, the better."</p><p>The scientists hope that the data will help them understand how floods, fires, storms and heatwaves will affect the Arctic over the next century, according to AFP. Rex said he hopes the data will be "a breakthrough in understanding the Arctic and climate system."</p>
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Arctic sea ice is photographed in 2011 during NASA's ICESCAPE mission, a shipborne investigation to study how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems. Kathryn Hansen / NASA
A recent Science Magazine feature blamed an underwater heat blob for exacerbating sea ice loss as it proclaimed what many Arctic scientists already know: Arctic sea ice is racing toward its demise.
<p>Even without the blob, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/earth-sea-ice-melt-study-2647072206.html" target="_self">ice levels were already catastrophically low</a>.</p><p>"There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth's ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming," UK scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London researching the massive ice loss wrote in their <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-232/" target="_blank">review paper,</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>One study from the University of Copenhagen determined that Arctic sea ice is melting faster than <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate</a> models had predicted because they use a "slow and steady" temperature increase model for the Arctic, but warming is actually happening at a more rapid pace, reported <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Barron's</a>. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-wildfires-climate-crisis-2646355896.html" target="_self">The Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe</a>, a different study found, and this is speeding sea ice loss.<span></span></p><p>"We have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice to disappear faster than we had anticipated," University of Copenhagen professor and researcher Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen told <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" target="_blank">Barron's</a>.</p>
<p>The last time the Arctic Ocean saw such unusually high temperatures was during the previous ice age, Barron's reported. Christensen warned that scientists had yet to realize the significance of this steep temperature rise, <a href="https://www.futurity.org/arctic-sea-ice-temperature-climate-change-2424682-2/" target="_blank">Futurity</a> reported.<br></p><p>"We have looked at the climate models analyzed and assessed by the UN Climate Panel. Only those models based on the worst-case scenario, with the highest carbon dioxide emissions, come close to what our temperature measurements show over the past 40 years, from 1979 to today," Christensen told Futurity.</p><p>A third set of researchers also recently determined that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html" target="_self">Greenland's ice sheet has reached the "point of no return,</a>" and that it would continue to shrink even if global warming were to end today, <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" target="_blank">Barron's</a> reported.</p><p>None of this bodes well for the sea ice. September is when the ice usually reaches its annual minimum, and this year's extent is scheduled to be among the lowest on record, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/growing-underwater-heat-blob-speeds-demise-arctic-sea-ice" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Science Magazine</a> reported. The sum of this evidence has led some <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-sea-ice-melt-2035-2646947902.html" target="_self">scientists to posture a total loss of Arctic sea ice by 2035</a>.</p>
<p>"It's definitely a when, not an if," Alek Petty, a polar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/growing-underwater-heat-blob-speeds-demise-arctic-sea-ice" target="_blank">Science Magazine</a>.<span></span></p><p>Unfortunately, many of these dire predictions do not take into account what's happening below the water's surface, where a heat blob is melting sea ice from below as the warmer climate assails it from above.<br></p><p>The Arctic Ocean enjoys an "unusual temperature inversion" where deeper water is warmer than surface waters, according to Science Magazine. Chilly winter air and buoyant, cold freshwater coming off the Eurasian continent help to keep the ice's surface cold and the underside from melting under the sun, Science Magazine explained.</p><p>The warmer, saltier Atlantic Ocean water congregates in a deep heat blob that was presumed "safely separated" from the sea ice, but a recent study published in the <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/33/18/8107/353233/Weakening-of-Cold-Halocline-Layer-Exposes-Sea-Ice" target="_blank">Journal of Climate</a> found that the blob is growing, migrating vertically, and melting the ice from below.</p>
<p>The study found that as brighter, reflective sea ice melts, darker water flows in to take its place. That water then absorbs more heat and sinks down to the blob, where it causes the blob to grow and warm even further.</p><p>Measurements indicated that the blob, usually found 150 meters below the sea ice or deeper, has moved up to within 80 meters of the surface. Water turbulence can then cause some of that blob heat to reach the sea ice and melt it, Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told Science Magazine.</p><p>"This heat has become, regionally, the key forcing for sea ice decay," Polyakov said.</p><p>Scientists now think the blob has enough heat to melt the Arctic's ice three to four times over, and estimate that it could "devour the ice from below" if the blob ever reaches the surface sea ice, Science Magazine reported.</p>
<p>The process is called "<a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL088036" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Atlantification,</a>" and has already been observed in the Barents Sea north of Norway, where warm Atlantic waters have risen up to melt sea ice from below, even during cold winter months, according to Science Magazine and a study published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0772-6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a>. Scientists expect Atlantification to continue to decimate sea ice throughout the Arctic as the heat blob grows and rises.</p><p>The downstream effect of this massive melt would be felt in ways that are still unknown. Previous studies have linked Arctic ice loss to a number of different global phenomena, such as <a href="https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-ice-melt-changing-major-ocean-current-beaufort-gyre" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">changing ocean currents</a> and <a href="https://sfist.com/2020/01/27/new-study-finds-direct-link-between-melting-arctic-ice-and-extreme-weather-in-california/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">extreme weather in California</a>.</p>
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Earth Lost Over 30 Trillion Tons of Ice in Under 30 Years, Scientists 'Stunned' by Landmark Study
24 August 2020
Climate
Sea ice breaking up in Greenland. steve_is_on_holiday / E+ / Getty Images
The Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes (approximately 31 trillion U.S. tons) of ice in just 23 years, and the climate crisis is largely to blame.
<p>The finding comes in a <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-232/" target="_blank">review paper</a> published in The Cryosphere this month that used satellite data and numerical modelling to calculate all the ice that melted worldwide between 1994 and 2017.</p><p>"In the past researchers have studied individual areas – such as the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctic</a> or <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenland" target="_self">Greenland</a> – where ice is melting. But this is the first time anyone has looked at all the ice that is disappearing from the entire planet," study coauthor and director of Leeds University's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling Andy Shepherd told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "What we have found has stunned us."</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a>, Antarctic ice shelves, mountain <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" target="_self">glaciers</a>, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and Southern Ocean sea ice all lost mass during the study period, the researchers wrote. About 68 percent of those losses were caused by warmer air temperatures, while the remaining 32 percent were caused by warmer <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean" target="_self">ocean</a> water.</p><p>"There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth's ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming," the researchers wrote, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>In fact, the total ice loss recorded matches the worst-case scenario predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And it's likely to get worse. The researchers prognosticate a meter (approximately three feet) of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a> by 2100.</p><p>"To put that in context, every centimetre of sea level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands," Shepherd told The Guardian.</p><p>But sea level rise isn't the only consequence of ice melt. For one thing, the melting ice exposes darker ocean waters or soil, which absorb the sun's heat rather than reflect it, increasing global heating. The fresh water melting from ice sheets also disrupts Arctic and Antarctic ocean ecosystems, while the loss of mountain glaciers threatens the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" target="_self">drinking water</a> of several communities.</p><p>"What more can be said? What further evidence are we waiting for?" UK Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas tweeted in response to the news. "Feel so overwhelmingly sad - and so angry too. We can't say we didn't know. Are we really saying we just didn't care?"</p>
<div id="820ce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc5cc2d33d34204b11a78693091a1afe"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1297470664031588352" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">What more can be said? What further evidence are we waiting for?
Feel so overwhelmingly sad - and so angry too
W… https://t.co/cvYV9ore53</div> — Caroline Lucas (@Caroline Lucas)<a href="https://twitter.com/CarolineLucas/statuses/1297470664031588352">1598176086.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>This has been a bad summer for ice news. Another study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html" target="_self">published this month</a> found that Greenland's ice sheet had reached the "point of no return" and would continue to melt even if the climate crisis were halted. A <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-melt-2019-2647049163.html" target="_self">third study</a> found that Greenland lost a record amount of ice in 2019.</p>
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Arctic sea ice in the Denmark Strait on the east coast of Greenland. NASA
The records of Greenland's ice melt date back to 1948 and nothing in that record compares to what happened in 2019. The amount of ice lost was more than double what it has been any year since 2013. The net ice loss in 2019 clocked in at more than 530 billion metric tons for 2019. To put that in context, that's as if seven Olympic-sized swimming pools were dumped into the ocean every second of the year, according to The Guardian.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The new study, which used NASA satellite data to measure the size of Greenland's ice, found that in July alone, Greenland lost 223 billion tons of ice. That means for that one month, it lost what it normally loses in an entire year, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/climate/greenland-ice-loss-climate-change.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>The study was published Thursday in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-0010-1,"><em>Communications Earth and Environment</em></a>. It follows a trend of troubling news coming out of Greenland. Another new study published in the same journal found that even if the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> stopped today, Greenland's ice sheet is so diminished it will never recover, as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html">EcoWatch</a> reported earlier this week. That study found the ice is retreating in rapid bursts and may portend an ominous revision of predictions of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise">sea level rise</a>.</p>
<p>This new study also spells trouble for coastal cities as it may force scientists to revise their predictions to match the accelerated pace of ice melt, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-arctic/greenlands-ice-sheet-saw-record-mass-loss-in-2019-study-finds-idUSKBN25G1RM" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported. The island's ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by 20 feet, or six meters, if it were to melt away completely.</p><p>"We are likely on the path of accelerated sea level rise," said Ingo Sasgen, a glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and co-author of the study, to Reuters. "More melting of the ice sheet is not compensated by periods when we have extreme snowfall.</p><p>"What this shows is that the ice sheet is not only out of balance but it's increasingly likely to produce more and more extreme loss years," he added, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/weather/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-climate-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>Sasgen noted that 2010 and 2012 were also years with massive amounts of melting and he expects more are in the not-too-distant future.</p>
<p>"The real message is that the ice sheet is strongly out of balance," Sasgen said, as The Guardian reported. "If we look at the record melt years, the top five occurred in the last 10 years, and that is a concern. But we know what to do about it: reduce CO2 emissions."</p><p>Greenland's ice sheet is the second largest in the world, behind Antarctica's. CNN notes that the amount of ice it loses everywhere will start to increase sea level beyond the one millimeter it adds annually, pointing out that planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions are the culprit. And all that warming is creating a dangerous feedback loop.</p><p>"This extreme melt kicks off feedbacks that may accelerate the mass loss. This is what is worrying, the extremes are increasing and we understand too little about how the ice sheet will respond to more extreme climate variability," Sasgen said, as CNN reported.</p>
<p>The amount of melting that's happening means trouble for the hundreds of millions of people that live along coastlines, but there is still time for them to retreat inland. The ice sheet will likely not melt entirely since the rate of melt tends to slow down as the ice retreats from warmer <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans">ocean</a> waters. Furthermore, the centuries it will take to melt completely gives us some time to reverse course on emissions, according to The Guardian.</p><p>"If we reduce CO2, we will reduce Arctic warming and we will therefore also reduce the sea level rise contribution from the Greenland ice sheet," Sasgen said, as The Guardian reported. "So even though it might eventually disappear in large part, it happens much slower, which would be better as it would allow more time for the 600 million people living near coasts to move away."</p>
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Researchers on the ICESCAPE mission, funded by NASA, examine melt ponds and their surrounding ice in 2011 to see how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the biological and chemical makeup of the ocean. NASA / Flickr
By Alex Kirby
The temperature of the Arctic matters to the entire world: it helps to keep the global climate fairly cool. Scientists now say that by 2035 there could be an end to Arctic sea ice.
<p>The northern polar ocean's sea ice is a crucial element in the Earth system: because it is highly reflective, it sends solar radiation back out into space. Once it's melted, there's no longer any protection for the darker water and rock beneath, and nothing to prevent them absorbing the incoming heat.</p><p>High temperatures in the Arctic during the last <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Interglacial%20Cycles" target="_blank">interglacial – the warm period around 127,000 years ago</a> – have puzzled scientists for decades.</p><p>Now the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/organisations-and-reports/met-office-hadley-centre/index" target="_blank">UK Met Office's Hadley Centre</a> climate model has enabled an international research team to compare Arctic sea ice conditions during the last interglacial with the present day. Their findings are important for improving predictions of future sea ice change.</p>
<p>What is striking about the latest research is the date it suggests for a possible total melt − 2035. Many studies <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-ocean-ice-free-mid-century/" target="_blank">have thought a mid-century crisis likely</a>, with another even <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-11-arctic-ocean-ice-free-year.html" target="_blank">carefully specifying 2044 as the year to watch</a>. So a breathing space of only 15 years may surprise some experts.</p><p>During spring and early summer shallow pools of water form on the surface of the Arctic sea ice. These "melt ponds" help to determine how much sunlight is absorbed by the ice and how much is reflected back into space. The new Hadley Centre model is the UK's most advanced physical representation of the Earth's climate and a critical tool for climate research, and it incorporates sea ice and melt ponds.</p><p>The researchers report their findings in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0865-2" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a>. Using the model to look at Arctic sea ice during the last interglacial, they concluded that the impact of intense springtime sunshine created many melt ponds, which played a crucial role in sea ice melt. A simulation of the future using the same model indicates that the Arctic may become sea ice-free by 2035.</p>
<p>The joint lead author of the team is <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/marino/" target="_blank">Dr Maria Vittoria Guarino, an earth system modeller at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge</a>. She says: "High temperatures in the Arctic have puzzled scientists for decades. Unravelling this mystery was technically and scientifically challenging. For the first time, we can begin to see how the Arctic became sea ice-free during the last interglacial.</p><p>"The advances made in climate modeling mean that we can create a more accurate simulation of the Earth's past climate which, in turn, gives us greater confidence in model predictions for the future."</p><p><a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/lsim/" target="_blank">Dr. Louise Sime, the group head of the palaeoclimate group and joint lead author at BAS</a>, says, "We know the Arctic is undergoing significant changes as our planet warms. By understanding what happened during Earth's last warm period we are in a better position to understand what will happen in the future.</p>
Melt Ponds Crucial
<p>"The prospect of loss of sea ice by 2035 should really be focusing all our minds on achieving a low-carbon world as soon as humanly feasible."</p><p><a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/search/search-staff-details.aspx?id=10813" target="_blank">Dr. David Schroeder from the University of Reading</a>, UK, who co-led the implementation of the melt pond scheme in the climate model, says, "This shows just how important sea ice processes like melt ponds are in the Arctic, and why it is crucial that they are incorporated into climate models."</p><p>The extent of the areas <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/formation.html" target="_blank">sea ice</a> covers varies between summer and winter. If more solar energy is absorbed at the surface, and temperatures rise further, a cycle of warming and melting occurs during summer months.</p><p>When the ice forms, the ocean water beneath becomes saltier and denser than the surrounding ocean. Saltier water sinks and moves along the ocean bottom towards the equator, while warm water from mid-depths to the surface travels from the equator towards the poles.</p><p>Scientists refer to this process as the ocean's global "conveyor-belt." Changes to the volume of sea ice can disrupt normal ocean circulation, with consequences for global climate. </p>From Your Site Articles
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