Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low

Titus Andronicus writes "Angela Fritz and Jeff Masters of Weather Underground analyze this year's record ongoing Arctic ice melt. Arctic sea ice extent, area, and volume are all at record lows for the post-1979 satellite era. The ice is expected to continue melting for perhaps another couple of weeks. Extreme sea ice melting might help cause greater numbers of more powerful Arctic storms, help to accelerate the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and help to accelerate global warming itself, due to the increased absorption of solar energy into the ocean."

Comments

Re:Ice Tea...

[Black Parrot]

I'm thinking of the sun's 11-year cycle and the recent larger-than-normal volcano activity

I.e., any explanation except the actual one.

Re:Anthropogenic Global Warming

[Vintermann]

we get 18ft of snow

Quick quiz: What is more effective for getting more snowfall on a given winter day?

a) lower temperatures

b) more moisture in the air

Re:Anthropogenic Global Warming

[TapeCutter]

Yep, despite what the psuedo-skeptics would have you believe the IPCC is actually very conservative with it's claims. Which is precisely what you would expect when trying to get a large number of experts to agree on a statement. Another point to note is that not a single one of the 2-3,000 scientists get a dime for their work from the IPCC. The organization has $5-6 million budget which comes from donations by over 120 different nations representing ALL the colours of the political rainbow. Most of that is spent on airfares and conference rooms and the accounts are available for inspection on their web site.

The incredibly robust review process of the IPCC should be held up as an outstanding example of how science should inform policy. The partially successful assassination of it's character by Luddites in the coal industry should be held up as an outstanding example of how easy it is convince people to work against their own best interest with nothing more than cheap, transparent, propaganda.

Re:Wow.

[DarkOx]

For some reason, "alarmists" seem a lot more willing to put their money where their mouth is than "skeptics". So far, they have also won a lot more on it.

Because skeptics are um skeptical. There are many of us who don't adopt a position of belief on this subject. Its clear the climate is changing. Its also clear there is lots we don't know about how the system works, and its not entirely clear where things are headed and its even less clear that its man made.

I am not saying it is not man made. It very well might be! I don't want to put money down that its not. I also don't want to adopt economically ruinous measures; on the possibility it is. I want to let the scientists do more science. That is really not an extreme position. Especially when its already to late to fix the problem by 'controlling emissions' if our current level of understanding does turn out to be mostly correct. The focus should be on enhancing our understanding of the climate model and figuring out how we might directly and actively control it.