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Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low Extent
mdsolar writes "Arctic sea ice has hit a record low extent for the period of satellite observation. Further, this record has been set in August when the minimum annual sea ice extent (and the prior record) has always come in September. Further still, the ice is still retreating as rapidly as it was in June and July when normally the decrease of sea ice extent slows in August. It is thus possible the the final minimum sea ice extend for 2012 will be seen in October rather than September as has always occurred in the past. More than one monitoring effort agree on the existence of a new record."
...watching nature at work...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I expect this post will be full of the normal vitriol from barely-informed people.
The CB App. What's your 20?
If climate change is real and man-made, the human race isn't mature enough to react to it in time. The number of people that have a wishy-washy position on it despite the evidence is downright scary. Until the price of food goes up by 10x there isn't going to be a significant reaction, and by then it may be too late.
Not only air temperature but water temperature also has an effect on ice melt. With less ice the exposed water has more chance to absorb heat and warm up which may delay the start of freezing.
Translation: I have found a meme that I can continually repeat to rationalize away any disturbing finding. Now come on kiddies, let's BURN MORE OIL!!!!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Start looking at northern land that can be purchased cheaply, soon it may be prime tropical real estate!
Chief Thinker www.devotedskeptic.com
Oil? We are already burning oil as fast as we possibly can.
Now, we must burn more fracked up gas!
Sometimes I wander if the loonies that oppose all and any nuclear energy projects (including ITER), are somehow not guided by the hand of big oil and big gas companies.
If arctic sea level is a quasi-monotonically decreasing function, then isn't every point in time (after a certain threshold, and when the level changes) a record low?
Without the same observations over a longer period, this data is meaningless in and of itself.
It could easily be part of a cycle we have not been able to observe because we've lacked the means and meaningful observational time frame to detect it. It's simply one point on a graph spanning millenniums.
Strat
Translation # 2: Let's stop doing meaningless science on things that that span millennia. let's BURN MORE OIL!!!!
Moral of the story: Invent time travel first so we can have at least 3 points on the graph to make climate change REALLY convincing.
... that if climate change were legitimate, the Earth would "shut down" and prevent any bad consequences.
What is really scary about this is that only a few years ago scientists were saying that the Arctic "could be ice free in summer before the end of the century" and the deniers were calling them alarmists THEN. Then in the last couple of years some of the most alarmist of these alarmists have been saying that the Arctic could be ice free in summer in the next couple of decades.
Now I look at the slope of the line on that chart and I think the Arctic is going to be to be pretty close to ice free THIS summer.
The Arctic sea ice is showing us how much more rapidly things can change than even the "worst alarmists" dare to predict when positive feedback loops kick in and tipping points are passed. What will be the ripple effects of this? Where is the next tipping point?
Global warming is a Great thing!
We can provide for endless new jobs over the coming centuries as we have to rebuild literally thousands of drowning cities! We will open up new sea shipping lanes, as previously impassable straits are expanded from rising ocean levels! Previously frozen tundra will become prime temperate real estate!
Imagine the possibilities!
/sarcasm
Couple that with the fact salt water freezes at lower than 0 C and that dramatic line this year, it's possible. If people remember the articles a month or so ago, about the very unusual complete surface melt over the surface of the Greenland ice sheet this summer, it also wouldn't be surprising. As far as salt water, I would think given the volume being diluted that the salinity isn't that much less (due to the melting ice), but it would be interesting to see what effect this major melt has on these levels. What does it take to stop the Atlantic conveyor (probably nowhere near that kind of level, but still)?
That said, I do believe man is responsible for much if not all of the environment change we're seeing, but I really hope that graph is a mistake. I find it somewhat scary. But given the Greenland melt event this year, plus the record high temperatures in the norther hemisphere this year, I think it is probably accurate. Let's hope this year is an anomaly because a change that great in one year is pretty drastic.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I know several people who never took any interest in any scientific matter whatsoever, and yet are now passionate in their critique of climate science and the vast global conspiracy that all scientists and smart people are obviously parties to. If this is what it takes to finally get them interested in science, maybe it's a good thing?
If you read response #4 of this update from Real Climate, you will see that the National Snow and Ice Data Centre hasn't called the record low yet (as of 26 Aug 2012 at 12:04 PM), since they use 5-day moving averages on their graphs. The graph referred to by the realclimate.org update and I think in the OP is based on daily data. The response is from Walt Meier of the NSIDC. I'll quote it here:
These are daily values, not the 5-day average, which is not quite at a record yet. Using a 5-day average removes some of the noise due to weather and other effects that cause small errors in the daily values. Thus the 5-day estimate is a more robust measure of sea ice changes. We will make an announcement on our web site when we have passed the current record: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Walt Meier
NSIDC
I think however that there are other data series that do agree that the record has been broken, even with 5-day averages. Here is my favourite data compilation for Arctic Sea Ice. It contains many different graphs from different sources. Taken together, the data paints a disturbing picture.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
By October the air temp is around 13 degrees Fahrenheit. The max is 18 degrees and the minimum is 8 degrees. Days with Min Temp Below Freezing 31. http://www.climate-zone.com/climate/united-states/alaska/barrow/ Are you still gonna stand by your statement of melting in October??
Do you realize how much time and energy it takes to raise a mass of water even one degree? It's why water temperature is always behind air temperature. You can have 90 degree days all through June and still have cold water temperatures yet still be swimming in September when air temperatures are cold. Water is a wonderful heat sink.
Translation: I don't like BlueStrat's perfectly calm, rational point, so I'm going to argue against it with emotion, wave my hands around, and come up with some meaningless term that sneers at his point without SOUNDING too sneery. oh, I know -- "meme." Yeah, that'll work.
So, I have a question for you. Do you consider yourself scientifically minded and skeptical? Do you think it's the OTHER guys who post on emotion, looking for anything that confirms their pre-existing notions? Because -- surprise! -- that's exactly what you just did. Kind of humbling, isn't it? BlueStrat made a perfectly scientific point -- this observation, in and of itself, doesn't mean much, because our data set is so small. We've only been making these observations since (I think) 1978 -- an eyeblink in geologic time.
There is nothing rational about saying we just do nothing about a bad situation because we haven't observed in the past how those situations play out. BlueStrat's post basically boils down to "this is probably just nature at work, and we haven't directly observed nature scientifically for a long enough period to know if this is a temporary condition".
We haven't directly observed arctic sea ice cover for very long, but the trends in our observations tie in very closely with other related more long term direct observations, and for much further back in time through indirect methods. The data is not meaningless, and accusing someone of being "emotional" when they post a sarcastic comment rather than regurgitate the thousands of rebuttals that have been made in the past is just you trying to sound reasonable about your cunning plan to do absolutely nothing.
Here's a paper about Arctic sea ice for the past 47 million years: "History of sea ice in the Arctic" (Polyak, et. al. 2010). It may have some of the information you seek. Here's the abstract:
Arctic sea-ice extent and volume are declining rapidly. Several studies project that the Arctic Ocean may become seasonally ice-free by the year 2040 or even earlier. Putting this into perspective requires information on the history of Arctic sea-ice conditions through the geologic past. This information can be provided by proxy records from the Arctic Ocean floor and from the surrounding coasts. Although existing records are far from complete, they indicate that sea ice became a feature of the Arctic by 47 Ma, following a pronounced decline in atmospheric pCO2 after the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Optimum, and consistently covered at least part of the Arctic Ocean for no less than the last 13–14 million years. Ice was apparently most wide-spread during the last 2–3 million years, in accordance with Earth’s overall cooler climate. Nevertheless, episodes of considerably reduced sea ice or even seasonally ice-free conditions occurred during warmer periods linked to orbital variations. The last low-ice event related to orbital forcing (high insolation) was in the early Holocene, after which the northern high latitudes cooled overall, with some superimposed shorter-term (multidecadal to millennial-scale) and lower-magnitude variability. The current reduction in Arctic ice cover started in the late19th century, consistent with the rapidly warming climate, and became very pronounced over the last three decades. This ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Explorers have unsuccessfully sought a Northwest Passage for a lot longer than climate satellites have been orbiting the Earth, so it seems likely that the current minimum dates back to pre-industrial times, at least.
But if you're arguing that "we need more research", then by all means advocate for that to your congressional representatives. House Republicans have been trying to slash climate research funding for a long time. They're also trying to prohibit the National Institutes of Health from funding health economics studies. I wonder what issue that might relate to?
See no evil, hear no evil...
Actually the true statement IS that "this has never happened before". Ok, maybe it did happen in the interglacial periods before the last ice age, but not in the last 1450 years for which we have ice cores and other proxy data... and by that point there is no reason to not assume it to be true for the rest of our current interglacial unless you have some good argument to the contrary. You don't NEED the rather super-precise satellite observations we have for the last 33 years to make this kind of statement.
If this weren't so tragic it would be really funny seeing you deniers all flailing madly about for a way out of this one.
That's the way it usually works. You get a dramatic year followed by more normal years but a bit lower than the previous normal years. Then you get another dramatic year. Meanwhile on average it just keeps going downhill.
If you're interested in graphs here's a bunch more.
Yeah, but 30 is longer than any history to a lot of people on slashdot... :)
A simple sediment core from the Arctic seabed provides temperature and biological records going back a very long ways, and can trivially establish if the ocean in an area was exposed or whether it was covered with ice.
Yes, I know the saying goes, don't argue with a fool because outside observers won't know the difference. Sorry, I fed the denier troll. Slaps back of hand. I'll try not to let it happen again.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
You're correct that satellites can only provide us with relatively recent data, but scientists have used arctic ice cores and rock samples dating back hundreds of thousands of years to show the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels. The data shows a drastic spike in atmospheric CO2 during the last century. http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ As for my personal opinion, I think we're toast. We're far too selfish, divided, and concerned with immediate gratification to change our course. I don't dwell on it too much, though. I find my time better spent in front of nice warm tire and plastic bottle fire.
I think we have good enough records to say unequivocally this is the lowest sea ice in several hundred years. Proxies from boreholes drilled in the Arctic Ocean indicate it's the lowest for several thousand years. Here's a paper I referenced in a reply above about Arctic sea ice for the past 47 Ma.
Translation: I have found a meme that I can continually repeat to rationalize away any disturbing finding. Now come on kiddies, let's BURN MORE OIL!!!!
Nice strawman you built there. I never said anything about burning oil or touched on energy at all in my post.
I'm all for alternative energy sources where they make economic and practical sense.
Economic to the general populace or economic to those who benefit from not paying the for the full cost of their actions?
One data point on a scale covering millenia doesn't prove anything. It only tells us that, *right now*, there seems to be less arctic ice than there has been over the last decade or four.
We know that global climate has changed radically over the ages, from much warmer than now to much colder than now.
We simply don't have data spanning enough time to know whether this is natural or not.
At the timescales you are talking about, having enough data on the past is irrelevant. We would need instead to have data on a sample of similar planets with similar chemical compositions, in similar orbits around stars of similar age size and luminosity, with a similar distribution of landmasses and a similar ecosystem. Bit of a tall order. Just because something happenned in the past doesn't mean it will happen again, and the longer the timescale involved in any cycle, the more chance that things will be different the next time around due to different starting or external conditions to the cycle. We won't have a repeat of pre-carboniferous conditions. Even if we dug up all the coal and oil in the world that we can find and released them back into the atmosphere, tectonic processes will have slightly changed the chemical balance at the surface. The earths orbit will be slightly different, it's rotational speed will be different, the moon will be further away than back then. The amount of light hitting us from the sun will be different. If you want to talk about massive timescales, what nature decides to do to us should be given a judicious shove in the direction we want things to happen, because nature doesn't care about us.
Why don't you be honest and abandon all pretense that you're basing your opinions on science and the scientific method.
Whenever someone mentions unusually cold temperatures in a single winter or even a decade or two, well, that's just weather. Why isn't the reverse true?
What you advocate isn't science, it's evangelism.
Strat
Why don't you be honest and just admit that you are trying to say science doesn't know, so we should do nothing? I like your little "evangelism" dig. Suggesting that climate theory is a religion.... haven't heard that one before.
Whenever someone mentions unusually cold temperatures in a single winter or even a decade or two, well, that's just weather. Why isn't the reverse true? What you advocate isn't science, it's evangelism.
I have a feeling you're going to just scoff at any science anyway, but low and high pressures alternate. If there's been an unusually cold winter one place, other places probably had unusually warm winters. The whole globe isn't cooling down, it's warming up. And we do have other less accurate measures that go further back in time, you're the one claiming we don't have enough information but can't be bothered to find out if it's true. If you go camping and make a fire and a forest fire breaks out near your campsite and you go "it's not proven, forest fires can start by lightning strikes" yet nobody has seen a thunderstorm pass through your claim of natural causes starts looking pretty weak. Replace the campfire with the whole earth burning oil, the forest fire with melting ice and the lightning strike with natural variation and you have a pretty good analogy.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Yes, That reflectiveness of the white ice as compared to the darkness of the deep blue sea is known as its albedo .
Being I first learned solid state linear design on germanium transistors, I am well aware of something we called "thermal runaway", in which the transistor would bias itself on more and more as it got hotter, yet being biased on was what was making it hot. The hotter it got, the more current it passed. Thermal runaway.
The result was a fused transistor.
The mathematics of thermal runaway on those old designs is nearly identical to the albedo-loss calculations of our ice caps. I find it a frightening scenario, as I can't simply change out the planet as easily as I can replace a fused transistor.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
With regard to the Arctic melt of recent years, the VOLUME has been on a steady downward trend with little to no recovery. Extent is probably the easiest to measure but, by itself, it can be very misleading and is heavily influenced by waves and winds.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Extent can decrease without melting, for example by compaction of the remaining ice. If refreezing is delayed, extent may decrease into October while ice volume levels off or even starts to increase.
Yes, AGW is a serious problem, and denying it makes it costlier. However, the world is not ending. Green(tm) energy is getting cheaper and cheaper. It is predicted that solar will reach residential grid parity as early as 2015*. Not to mention next-generation nuclear. And, in a few decades, nuclear fusion. And if reducing emissions is not enough, we can cool Earth by increasing solar reflection** or by sequestering carbon*** or through some other action.
Also, how can people have such ridiculous short memories? The world was supposed to end in the 1970s though mass famines caused by overpopulation. Then the doomsayers changed their minds and predicted water wars. Then peak oil. Then the ozone layer hole (remember that?). Then acid rain. Then we very closely avoided Armageddon in 2000, due to the Y2K bug. Remember that? The mass societal disruptions, the nuclear wars that would be started because some digital nuclear weapon system misfired due to Y2K? Phew, that was close! But we survived.
Recently, we survived the Apocalypse in 21 May 2011, then 21 October 2011.
Now, of course, all the headlines are about climate change.
Do you know what is the single greatest cause of climate-change denialism? You. Doomsayers. Because you predict the Apocalypse every 5 years, people stopped listening.
Want to help the environment? Start talking straight.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
** http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/putting-the-breaks-on-climate-change-with-diamonds/
*** http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/08/25/2359234/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic
We know that global climate has changed radically over the ages, from much warmer than now to much colder than now.
That collapses to one data point, and ignores a drastic game changing event. The Evolutionary Singularity has occurred, the past is mostly irrelevant now. We have TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED SENTIENT LIFE.
So, that means we have to make do with what we've got. Now, we only have one planet colonized, so if there's a chance that things we are doing are messing it up beyond repair, to the detriment of our existence, then the ONLY logical thing to do is to take action and CHANGE what we're doing as soon as possible. We don't have a "control group" Earth to run the experiment in parallel...
Yes, it's going to be a bit painful to change, it's going to take some sacrifice. All change is a bit uncomfortable at first, but we should have started doing much more sooner. Blame your parents, and grandparents for not being smarter, but being whiny and greedy isn't acceptable anymore -- We know better. If there's a chance we're causing drastic climate change, then something must be done regardless of absolute proof we're going to kill ourselves -- Not doing the experiment is gross negligence. We can't afford to wait until it's too late to do anything about it -- There is a chance it may already be too late, but if you say, "Oh well, it's hopeless, I don't care", then off yourself now, you're hindering the herd.
Drastic climate change is deadly. I'm not being an alarmist, all of our eggs really are in one basket, you should be very concerned about this. While you're burring your head in the sand how can you ignore the fossil record therein?
You are absolutely right. Volume and area are more telling than extent but as you say extent's the easiest to measure and volume the most difficult. With the launch of Cryosat in April 2010 volume measurements are much more accurate now. That page I cited has graphs for extent, area and volume.
This is a prime example of a record low over recorder history.
And over flute history, and clarinet history, and, indeed, all of woodwind history.
You are right. In one of the groups publishing extent measurements any area of the ocean that is 30% covered by ice is counted as extent. That is why area and volume are more informative measurements of sea ice. Both of those are at record lows as well.
You mean the CO2 level increases that lag behind the temperature rises?
Congratulations. You know that increased levels of CO2 are a feedback of increased temperatures (primarily from the ocean warming and outgassing CO2). Now show how increasing CO2 by other means than the feedback method doesn't force additional warming.
Read it again, The last low-ice event related to orbital forcing (high insolation) was in the early Holocene, after which the northern high latitudes cooled overall, and note that the higher insolation was caused by variations in Earths orbit, not a hotter Sun. Whether summer in a hemisphere happens at apogee or perigee affects the climate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Thankyou for all the great links. I agree that AGW is a serious problem, and denying it could potentially be very dangerous (say, 10% chance of CAGW), and Green energy is about to show its hand big-time.
There is something import that I'd like to add. You have decried all the Malthusians since the 70s, but they've been around forever. (e.g., Christianity was, and still is, an apocalyptic cult.) It is a phenotype -- related to our genetic make-up -- and short of a eugenics program, or some evolutionary-scale event that punctures the genetic equilibrium, we will always have members of the population who are attracted to Malthusian dreams. If behavioural genetics doesn't make sense to you, then you can think of it as Jung's archetypal unconscious.
But, and it is a big but, it would be a mistake to believe that just because there is a Malthusian streak to a significant portion of the population (moths flying towards the flames) -- that does not mean that catastrophes never happen. A a collective, we have still failed to digest the Greek myth of Cassandra. The primary reason is the cognitive bubble, which characterizes pretty much all political discourse.
In the end, I believe that it is scientists -- real seekers of truth -- that identified the problem of AGW, and it will be scientists and engineers that save us. Our political discourse is simply too puerile for anything else.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The higher insolation at the beginning of the Holocene was because of orbital variations, AKA Milankovitch Cycles. The condition of the cycles is different now and trending toward cooler. That's why temperatures have been on a slight cooling trend since the Holocene Climatic Optimum about 8,000 years ago. The abrupt warming we are experiencing today has different causes than orbital variation and so we might expect some of the effects to be different.
There are people that oppose ITER? I have never heard this before.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/ITERprojectFrance/
Nuclear fusion reactor project in France: an expensive and senseless nuclear stupidity
Press release - June 28, 2005
Greenpeace deplores the agreement by the Representatives of the Parties to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) (1) to construct one of the world's largest nuclear fusion experiments in Cadarache, Southern France. The project, estimated to cost 10bn euros, will not generate any electricity, instead it will need massive amounts of energy to heat up.
etc. etc. etc.
While I wholeheartedly support Greenpeace in their conservation efforts (eg. saving the whales in 1970s), their other efforts in the realms they know nothing about, like nuclear, kind of negates any goodwill I have towards them.
How Greenpeace cannot see that nuclear waste is not a problem for nature, but a problem for man, is kind of beyond my level of thinking. Nature doesn't care about nuclear waste because nature functions through evolution via natural selection. DNA damage, mutations, cancers, etc. don't matter provided some can survive. Human society does not follow those principles and hence any nuclear waste "problem" is a problem for man, not a problem for nature.
A wise man said that the only way to save the Amazon jungle is to spread nuclear waste all over it. I say he was right.
They want to see Capitalism and the US economy destroyed,
If they wanted to see Capitalism and the US economy destroyed, all they have to do is vote Republican.
Learn to love Alaska
It sounds like you're having some effects from the bong.
Yep, the top 10 feet of the oceans contains as much heat energy as the entire atmosphere.
Here's a credible hypothesis for you - CO2 is buffered by the oceans. Temperature increases drive CO2 out of the oceans and adjust the set point, as it were, of the concentration of CO2 in the air. Solar heating of the oceans occurs (moderated by the albedo of clouds), and long deep cycles of currents cause a significant lag in time before such heat can convect through the system. Given that the oceans hold orders of magnitude more heat, it's much more likely that they drive the temperature cycle, rather than the atmosphere (other than, again, the albedo of clouds, which behaves in uncertain ways).
But here's the thing, you can take my hypothesis, and break it - you can show me an observation of say, an immediate heating of oceans based on surface atmospheric temperatures, and my hypothesis falls. Or you could show a discontinuity between ocean CO2 levels and atmospheric CO2 levels (i.e., falsifying the idea of outgassing). Or you could show that there is no solar heating of the oceans.
Of course, me being wrong doesn't make you right, but at least you've got some chance at falsification.
What observations will cause your hypothesis to fall? Where is your falsifiability?
Slashdot is one of the oldest nerd/tech blogs in existence, before there even was a word for such a thing. For this reason, it's a bit peculiar:
1. Unbelivable as it may seem, the net had a higher share of libertarians before than today. Libertarians often (not always) deny global warming because a) it gives the uncomfortable feeling that strong government action may be needed to address it, and b) they have no problem assuming they're smarter than climate scientists, because they assume they're smarter than everyone anyway.
2. Since it is so old, many slashdot posters have actually had time to become quite rich from their geek skills. Well-off, established people don't want to believe the world is in trouble and that they need to change.
3. There are today a number of tech/geek sites which are arguably more interesting than slashdot. Most have moved on to these. Those who remain are weighted towards the kind of people who don't approve of unnecessary change, i.e. conservatives, who also tend to deny climate science for cultural reasons. (Not inherent reasons, if you ask me climate change is a prime example of unnecessary change).
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
CO2 concentration in water is governed by temperature but it is also governed by the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. There is a balance between the two. That is why despite ocean temperatures rising the oceans are still sinking CO2 from the atmosphere. We've increased the level of CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% over the past ~200 years and the oceans haven't caught up with the total new CO2 in the system yet.
You and I have gone back and forth before over whether the warming will be good or not. Weather statistics show that heat waves like we've had this past year in the US and like Russia had in 2010 and Europe in 2003 have become more common over the past half century. That is an expected effect of global warming. I don't consider that a good thing.
Don't bother citing WUWT to me. I spent time there a few years back and found nothing of value. I don't even bother to give Watts the page views any more. It's a waste of my time.
Cryosat uses SIRAL (a synthetic aperture radar/inferometric radar altimeter) to measure the altitude of sea ice over sea level to get the volume. Since ice is about 9% less dense than water you can tell how much ice there is by how high it sticks out of the water. If a 5 cm layer is at the surface then Cryosat will show an elevation of a little less 0.5 cm. I don't think there is such a thing as submerged lumps of thick multiyear ice because something would have to be holding it down to keep it from floating at the surface. There may be some relatively small areas that are held under water by mechanical pressure but they still contribute to the overall ice elevation in the area.
Oceans can't drive warming overall because they have no internal source of heat energy. The oceans are warming because right now the absorb about 90% of the increase in heat energy in the Earth system. Despite the fact that oceans are warming they are still absorbing CO2 because we've increased the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 40% over the past ~200 years. Ocean acidification is direct evidence of that.
More liquidity means more economic activity.
More activity means more trade.
More trade means more development.
More development means lower GDP/CO2
Lower GDP/CO2 means faster accumulation of AGG.
Faster accumulation of AGG means greater human forcing of temperature.
If we wanted to go back to the pre-industrial era and live in a semi-permanent malthusian depression, we could end global warming now. The challenge is to maintain current economic growth, and improvement in living standards, within the bottlenecks we face at any given time. Sometimes this does mean temporizing with them – i.e. slowing economic growth by monetary means until technology has advanced sufficiently to substitute around the bottleneck – however if liquidity gets low enough, a self-perpetuating cycle of austerity begins, and capital falls into disuse entirely.
n.b. I'm not a gold bug.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
The mathematics of thermal runaway on those old designs is nearly identical to the albedo-loss calculations of our ice caps.
I'd be brave enough to guess that they are the same equations with different constants and variables. When "thermal runaway" happens to a planet it's called a runaway greenhouse effect, Venus is to Earth as the fused transistor is to a working transistor. We're very unlikely to trigger such an effect here on Earth* but it's fairly well established science that Earth's ultimate fate is to look like a lot like Venus, ( in about 500Myrs from now). There are also -ve feedbacks, eg: expanding deserts tend to put dust in the air which has a cooling effect, as do sulfur emissions (which unfortunately also cause acid rain). When you add up all the +ve/-ve forcings and feedbacks you get a number called climate sensitivity
Once the planet has undergone "thermal runaway" it's "fused", the oceans are gone forever, the hydrogen in the water vapor is split off in the upper atmosphere by radiation and over time leaks off into space due to it being the lightest element, carbon is now bound to the oxygen from the H2o to form more CO2, the process also makes the atmosphere denser since C is heaver than H. Earth is losing Hydrogen from the same process, it just taking a lot longer than it did for Mars and Venus (probably due to Earth's strong magnetic field.
* - James Hansen and other climatologists at the top of their field have warned that burning ALL known reserves of FF (coal/oil/gas/tar sands) would be more than enough forcing to trigger a RGH, sadly it's exactly what most industrial nations are planning to do over the next 250yrs or so (politicians can and do think long term when they want to). I say a RGH is unlikely since there are major signs that political will is growing to make the simplest and most cost effective adaptation we can to avert such an apocalyptic scenario, namely rebuilding the energy infrastructure ('a stitch in time' and all that). It's really not a huge drama when spread over 40-50yrs, on that time scale every nuke/coal generator on the planet has been planned, built and/or rebuilt, since I was born. We have to replace every one of them again in the next half century anyway. The only thing holding us up is a shrinking group of corporate Luddites such as Peabody coal who have not yet accepted their business model is as dead as the dinosaurs they are burning. If they hold on to coal for too long then bankruptcy will be a self-fulfilling prophecy as renewables take over and coal mines become virtually worthless.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The VAST MAJORITY are ignorant about their cars but will take the advice of a certified mechanic.
This is called "sensible".
Those who insist their mechanic is on some government-led secret plot to sell "gas" (which you can't see! Can you see the air? No! That's a gas! See! PROOF!) and that cars run by pixies riding horses in the engine compartment, therefore place hay in their tank and insist that everyone else do so too are called "lunatics".
But perhaps there is an impenetrable barrier on September 30 that requires a bounce.
It trips over the barrier about week earlier (the equinox), so I'd expect the timing of low point would have a similar consistency when noise is removed. I picture the ice extent as a sine wave that is being distorted and dragged downward on the graph in TFA, however the frequency of the wave remains unchanged since it represents the climate "forcing" causing the change (ie: Earth's orbit). The same phenomena is behind the "Pluto is warming" canard, summer solstice had just passed on Pluto but the atmosphere continued to warm due to thermal inertia.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There is no global overpopulation. Some places (such as Japan) are already experiencing population aging and decline, which is bad in many ways. Other places (such as the USA and specially Europe) already have sub-replacement fertility rates, and their population only grows because of demographic lag and immigration. It is predicted the the European Union population (now at 503M) will reach zero natural population increase by 2015 and zero total population increase in 2035 (at 520M), then start declining.
The USA will grow from 310M in 2010 to 403M in 2050. [1]
Asia will increase from 4.2B in 2010 to 5.1B in 2050, then start declining. [2]
The only region that is really growing is Africa. It will increase from 1B in 2010 to 2.2B in 2050. [2] Then its population density will be 73/km2. [3] Compare that to the current population density in Portugal (115/km2), in South Korea (487/km2) and in Taiwan (641/km2). [4]
Global population is predicted to grow from 7B in 2011 to 9B in 2050 and 10B in 2100 [5] and start falling soon after [6].
And according to [7], 40-50% of America-produced food is thrown away. According to [8], 1/3 of the world food is thrown away.
And this does not take into account that people eat, just for pleasure, excessive quantities of resource-intensive food (such as meat). If Americans/Europeans want to help the poor, an easy way would be to decrease (say, by 30%) their diet of meat. This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity. And much arable land is wasted on subsidized inefficient corn-based ethanol. You can lobby your government to stop that.
Plus, there does not seem to be a negative correlation between population density and GDP per capita. [9]
African hunger is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by corrupt and authoritarian governments, and by guerrillas/terrorists motivated by Marxism, Islamism, ethnic hate or simply greed.
Overpopulation fear-mongering is very old - at least as old as Malthus. One of its more recent incarnations was the 1968 book "The Population Bomb", which predicted mass starvation to occur in the 1970s.
Anyway, for better or for worse, there is already strong action taken by individuals, foundations, and Western governments, to restrict fertility in Africa.
1 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_11.htm
2 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_2.htm
3 : According to [2], Africa will have 2.2B people in 2050, and according to Google[10] and Wikipedia [11], the area of Africa is 30,221,532 km2
4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density
5 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_1.htm
6 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_6.htm
7 : http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=56376-us-wastes-half
8 : http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/
9 : http://sanamagan.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/population-population-density-gdp-per-capita-ppp/
10 : https://www.google.co