As you know, I love to worry you. I could not help but take a break from the EU Referendum to bring you news from the Arctic that should scare the pants off you more than any "Project Fear". The Arctic Ice seems to be melting extraordinarily rapidly this year, the red dotted line all on its own, ending in May, is 2016 data:
Other data sources agree with the NSIDC.
Of course, this could be blip and the red line could return to join its fellows. Photographic evidence from the Arctic shows that it is melting fast, there is now hardly any snow cover in Alaska and Western Canada. We have had false alarms before: in 2012 it looked like all the ice would be gone by 2016 but 2013 and 2014 showed some recovery.
The warming of the Arctic is causing widespread fires this year, in Russia as well as Canada:
See Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring for current fires.
The big problem with Arctic ice melting is that if the Arctic isn't white it doesn't reflect sunlight so once the ice has gone it will be hard to get it back again. The average temperature of the Earth will leap upwards as a result. There are other serious risks, the Arctic permafrost contains a great deal of carbon dioxide and methane and some pundits believe that there are huge reserves of methane hydrate that will be released if the Arctic Ocean warms excessively and methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
The next few months will be interesting...
Update - not this year thank goodness. But each year is edging closer.
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| NSIDC Data |
Of course, this could be blip and the red line could return to join its fellows. Photographic evidence from the Arctic shows that it is melting fast, there is now hardly any snow cover in Alaska and Western Canada. We have had false alarms before: in 2012 it looked like all the ice would be gone by 2016 but 2013 and 2014 showed some recovery.
The warming of the Arctic is causing widespread fires this year, in Russia as well as Canada:
 |
| Wildfire raging near a village in Buryatia, Russia |
The big problem with Arctic ice melting is that if the Arctic isn't white it doesn't reflect sunlight so once the ice has gone it will be hard to get it back again. The average temperature of the Earth will leap upwards as a result. There are other serious risks, the Arctic permafrost contains a great deal of carbon dioxide and methane and some pundits believe that there are huge reserves of methane hydrate that will be released if the Arctic Ocean warms excessively and methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
The next few months will be interesting...
Update - not this year thank goodness. But each year is edging closer.
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