Comments on: Arctic expert predicts I will win $1000 this year

By: paulm

paulm — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:22:29 +0000

Skeptic!

By: paulm

paulm — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:50:08 +0000

the severity of it all is around the corner…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ theguardian/ 2008/ mar/ 01/ scienceofclimatechange.climatechange?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:19:45 +0000

Global cooler?

Is that where I should keep my beer?

By: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:32:24 +0000

Joe, per weather observer Wayne Davidson of Resolute the Arctic sea ice is more primed to melt now that it was at the same time last year. The details are discussed at RC starting here.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:27:30 +0000

If this year has the same ice loss as last year (let alone more) than I’ll surely win the bet. The only way I could lose, I think, is if the ice expanded to a different trend, making 2007 an anomaly. We’re probably going to have some very hot years in a few years according to a lot of folk.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:40:29 +0000

Might the melting of the artic ice the tipping point of public opinion on the needed to really do something about greenhouse gas emissions? If we are artic ice free in the summer, that could be enough to switch some people who are undecided whether global warming is human-caused to thinking it is human caused and those who are thinking it isn’t and can’t be human caused to neutral or human caused.

Could the date of Artic Ice Free (AIF) be as big as Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor or Sept 11, 2001, World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks? Would people be motivated by such an event?

Should those people who are in favor of doing something to limit greenhouse gas emissions be ready with some type of propaganda program? Or is it enough to just comment on it after it happens?

I haven’t thought any of it thru. Just wondering if anybody has any ideas on it.

By: Lou Grinzo

Lou Grinzo — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:25:35 +0000

Ronald: I would dearly love to see the kind of mass enlightenment you describe, but I don’t believe for a second it will happen. Assume, for the sake of argument, that we do hit AIF (nice coinage, by the way) in a few years. What will we hear? Endless discussions from the deniers and delayers, aided by the usual suspects in the media, about what a wonderful thing this is because of the new opportunities for commercial shipping and oil and natural gas exploration and extraction.

In other words, more of what we’re dealing with today, which only prevents the kind of movement of public opinion you and I and many others hope for. The deniers and delayers will claim GW isn’t happening, that we’re not causing it, that we can’t predict it will continue, That today’s cold snap proves it isn’t happening, and that it’s a good thing, all at the same time.

By: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:12:59 +0000

Ronald, bear in mind that at first the ice-free period likely will be both brief and followed by a recovery to more-or-less normal winter levels (and quite possibly by some intermittent summers that aren’t ice-free). As well, “ice-free” isn’t quite literally ice-free since for some years there will be some lingering bits in the northern Canadian archipelago and northwest Greenland. IOW the denialists will have no fundamental problem dealing with it, although of course each such episode shrinks their credibility and profile.

My big question on the science has to do with how soon after we can expect to see the climatological knock-on effects of substantial melt of coastal permafrost and the northern Greenland ice sheet.

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:00:02 +0000

Steve Bloom — Siberian permafrost has already been noticed to be expressing methane.

My understanding of the matter is that we will experience Peak Oil and Peak Coal soon enough that the nothern portion of Greenland’s ice is probably safe.

By: Jim O'

Jim O' — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:36:00 +0000

Deniers aside, the near melt-off of the ice cap is an image that should galvanize all of humanity (I’d even include the red states in that though not subhuman coal and energy lobbyists). I don’t think you can say that we’ll revert to “more or less normal winter levels” as I am pretty sure the reports from the pole this summer indicated that the melt included not only a dramatic reduction in the extent of the ice but more importantly a much thinner ice pack that remained such that the percentage of ice thats been lost is higher than the surface area of ice lost.

In any event, lets assume this summer the American public gets to see some shocking images of polar ice melt along with $4 gallon gasoline, $110-120 a barrel oil and more reports of declining oil fields - people will not be happy - what do the politicians say they are going to do about it? Do we finally get a national clean energy mobilization? Does Detroit get a kick in its rear bumper? Buy your family some gold bullion before its too expensive.

By: John L. McCormick

John L. McCormick — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:46:38 +0000

David, not to be argumentative but your comment:

[My understanding of the matter is that we will experience Peak Oil and Peak Coal soon enough that the nothern portion of Greenland’s ice is probably safe.]

overlooks the heat being stored in the oceans and that could represent about .5 degree C increase in the pipeline, as they say.

I do not share your optimism.

John McCormick