Slashdot Mirror
NASA: Arctic Sea Ice 2nd-Lowest On Record (earthsky.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from EarthSky: NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said on September 15, 2016 that summertime Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual minimum on September 10. With fall approaching and temperatures in the Arctic dropping, it's unlikely more ice will melt, and so the 2016 Arctic sea ice minimum extent will likely be tied with 2007 for the second-lowest yearly minimum in the satellite record. Satellite data showed this year's minimum at 1.60 million square miles (4.14 million square km). NASA said in a statement: "Since satellites began monitoring sea ice in 1978, researchers have observed a steep decline in the average extent of Arctic sea ice for every month of the year [...] The sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas helps regulate the planet's temperature, influences the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, and impacts Arctic communities and ecosystems. Arctic sea ice shrinks every year during the spring and summer until it reaches its minimum yearly extent. Sea ice regrows during the frigid fall and winter months, when the sun is below the horizon in the Arctic." The NASA/NSIDC statement explained why the melt of Arctic sea ice surprised scientists in 2016. For one thing, it changed pace several times: "The melt season began with a record low yearly maximum extent in March and a rapid ice loss through May. But in June and July, low atmospheric pressures and cloudy skies slowed down the melt. Then, after two large storms went across the Arctic basin in August, sea ice melt picked up speed through early September." NASA posted an animation on YouTube that "shows the evolution of the Arctic sea ice cover from its wintertime maximum extent, which was reached on Mar. 24, 2016, and was the lowest on record for the second year in a row, to its apparent yearly minimum, which occurred on Sept. 10, 2016, and is the second lowest in the satellite era."
Reality doesn't give a fuck about you or anyone else. You are not being presented with an option where you get out of the consequences of conspicuous consumption. That is the point idiot.
Its always amused me, RWNJ the denialist nuke fans have this amazing cognitive dissonance, where they claim climate scientists are corrupt, and make up climate change data, then believe the paid nuke industry shills who try to tell us nuke is safe., I would believe an independant academic any day over an industry employee.
No form of energy that can sustain our current daily energy needs is safe. Coal, oil, natural gas all come with a price. In fact, over a long period, all of these kill more people each year than nuclear. And that's based mostly on 1970s reactor technology (due to the hurdles in building new ones).
The argument that Nuclear is completely unsafe when looking at the plants in operation today is kind of like arguing that cars are horribly unsafe because the study only looked at vehicles in Cuba (i.e. mostly all from the 50's). Much like car design, Nuclear reactor design has advanced. For example, molten salt reactors can be designed to eliminate the possibility of a meltdown, even in the conditions that happened in Japan.
A few quick points to ponder:
1) Norway is a tiny country.
2) Car ownership is a luxury few Norwegians can afford.
3) 25% of a small number of new cars purchased in a small country is meaningless.
4) The vast majority of those electric cars are being bought by Norwegians that derive their income from the oil industry.
Ken