{"id":8890,"date":"2012-08-27T07:30:08","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T11:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=8890"},"modified":"2012-08-26T17:30:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-26T21:30:33","slug":"arctic-ice-pre-obit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/arctic-ice-pre-obit\/","title":{"rendered":"Arctic Ice, Pre-Obit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below, the opening paras of an excellent article in Think Progress\/ Climate Progress. You can read the full piece here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Why The Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral Matters<\/a><\/h3>\n

By\u00a0Joe Romm<\/a>\u00a0on Aug 26, 2012 at 12:25 pm<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Arctic sea ice extent takes a nosedive this year. What does it mean for us? (Source:\u00a0Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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By Neven Acropolis with\u00a0Kevin McKinney<\/em><\/p>\n

In the past week the Arctic sea ice cover reached an\u00a0all-time low<\/a>, several weeks before previous records, several weeks before the end of the melting season.\u00a0The long-term decline of Arctic sea ice has been incredibly fast, and at this point a sudden reversal of events doesn\u2019t seem likely. The question no longer seems to be \u201cwill we see an ice-free Arctic?\u201d but \u201chow soon will we see it?\u201d. By running the\u00a0Arctic Sea Ice blog<\/a>\u00a0for the past three years I\u2019ve learned much about the importance of Arctic sea ice. With the help of\u00a0Kevin McKinney<\/a>\u00a0I\u2019ve written the piece below, which is a summary of all the potential consequences of disappearing Arctic sea ice.<\/p>\n

Arctic sea ice became a recurrent feature on planet Earth around\u00a047 million years<\/a>\u00a0ago. Since the start of the current ice age, about 2.5 million years ago, the\u00a0Arctic Ocean<\/a>\u00a0has been completely covered with sea ice. Only during interglacials, like the one we are in now, does some of the sea ice melt during summer, when the top of the planet is oriented a bit more towards the Sun and receives large amounts of sunlight for several\u00a0summer months<\/a>. Even then, when winter starts, the ice-free portion of the Arctic Ocean freezes over again with a new layer of sea ice.<\/p>\n

\"\"Since the dawn of human civilization, 5000 to 8000 years ago, this annual ebb and flow of melting and freezing Arctic sea ice has been more or less consistent. There were periods when more ice melted during summer, and periods when less melted. However, a\u00a0radical shift<\/a>\u00a0has occurred in recent times. Ever since satellites allowed a detailed view of the Arctic and its ice, a pronounced decrease in summer sea ice cover has been observed (with this year setting a new record low). When the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, it was generally\u00a0thought<\/a>\u00a0that the Arctic could become ice-free somewhere near the end of this century. But changes in the Arctic have progressed at such speed that most experts now think 2030 might see an ice-free Arctic for the first time. Some say it could even happen this decade.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below, the opening paras of an excellent article in Think Progress\/ Climate Progress. You can read the full piece here. Why The Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral Matters By\u00a0Joe Romm\u00a0on Aug 26, 2012 at...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,31,67],"tags":[1273,1274],"class_list":["post-8890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arctic-ice","category-climate-change","category-man-made-disaster","tag-joe-romm","tag-think-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8890"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8896,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8890\/revisions\/8896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}