I know it is customary to post comments shortly after a post. You pack a lot of stuff into one essay. Takes a long time to digest. It's a tutorial--which of course is needed for the "scientifically challenged" like me. SO this is just a note of thanks and know that I am reading and re-reading this. It is clear, but very dense.
Posted by gtash at March 31, 2007 05:30 AMVirtually everything frozen on earth is melting. Observations of "coolness" in weather are everywhere declining annually.
I assume when you say "abrupt decline to Sept ice-fee conditions by 2040" (a "possibility", but no one knows), you mean year-round ice-free conditions which we now see just in Sept.
BushAmerica watched the entire world change before its eyes from human pollution and did exactly nothing. That will be our epitaph.
We are failing the future, and I hope today's children come to bitterly despise their selfish, willfully ignorant parents.
Posted by euzoius at March 31, 2007 07:33 AMThanks, Dr Hulbe, for a wonderful essay on Arctic ice. I have always loved the pelagic birds, but did not know that the web of life that supports them relies on the sea ice.
Posted by Mary at March 31, 2007 09:25 AMI assume when you say "abrupt decline to Sept ice-fee conditions by 2040" (a "possibility", but no one knows), you mean year-round ice-free conditions which we now see just in Sept.
The Arctic ocean currently supports sea ice year round. Its minimum extent is in September, the end of the melt season. There is a declining trend in sea ice extent for all months but the decline is greatest in September. This site at the University of Illinois provides a really nice overview of the monthly and annual change.
The dramatic change that emerges in a few simulations is no ice at all in September by 2040. About half the models get to that point by 2100. There is still sea ice in other months. Ice-free conditions at the end of the melt season has big implications because it means, among many other things, an end to thick multiyear sea ice in the Arctic.
Posted by Christina at March 31, 2007 09:54 AMYou pack a lot of stuff into one essay.
Yeah, I'm a professor, it comes with the territory. I hope to find time to post some shorter more newsy items as well, but winter term (just back from Antarctica; teaching, advising, campus service, public presentations) really got the best of me. My family are very forgiving.
Posted by Christina at March 31, 2007 10:01 AMThanks very much for the clarification.
Posted by euzoius at March 31, 2007 10:56 AMThe truth of Global Warming can be found in this video.
http://www.gorelied.notlong.com
Global Warming is a Scam
Posted by Ted at March 31, 2007 11:51 PM