Eastern Arctic warming trend alarms scientists

[Newsjock]

Source: Nunatsiaq News

You might think of scientists as calm and cool.

But the first three presenters during the opening session of the three-day ArcticNet conference in Ottawa sounded alarmed by the increasingly visible signs of Arctic warming and the limited amount of money that Canada will spend to understand what’s happening.

... Observations from the ground in the Eastern Arctic, from places like Iqaluit — where ice in Frobisher Bay is only now forming — and views taken by satellites at 500 kilometres above the earth’s surface showed ArcticNet participants that ice formation in 2010 is abnormally slow.

... Nothing is progressing as it used to, she said, listing a string of peculiar happenings:

• air temperatures 20 C above normal at the beginning of the year in the Baffin Island communities of Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq;

Read more: http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/141210_eastern_arctic_warming_trend_alarms_scientists/

[truthisfreedom]

1. Dudes, there's no reason to spend money trying to figure out what's happening.

We can't stop it. It's global warming, and it's here to stay unless we do something to the atmosphere to cool down the planet.

[Grassy Knoll]

2. LOL......

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. The magnolia tree across the street is budding..

as are my hydrangeas. The tree outside my window is showing new red growth.

This is NOT normal. :(

[AlbertCat]

4. The magnolia tree across the street is budding..

But it's FREEZING here in NC. It was like 17*F early this AM... so see there is no Global Warming!

Of course for it to be this cold on the southern NC coast this early is a little strange.... but what of that!.....

[JDPriestly]

9. My paperwhites are in full bloom.

They used to bloom in February.

They are beautiful, but .....

Also, my iris are up. This is Los Angeles, but still to have paperwhites in November and December is strange.

[bigmonkey]

5. Which way to the Eastern Arctic?

It's clear from the follow-on what area they mean, but isn't that like saying the Eastern North Pole? From the North Pole, which way is east? Which is the eastern part of the North Pole?

[Nihil]

10. Head North and turn right on the Arctic Circle!

> but isn't that like saying the Eastern North Pole?

You are correct that the North Pole doesn't have an "East" but the
Arctic is a much bigger area and so has clearly defined Eastern and
Western areas (0-180 E and 0-180W respectively).

[caseymoz]

12. My thought exactly, except . . .

1) From the exact point of the north pole, everything is south, but once you get anywhere below it, you have to refer to latitude and longitude again, or at least distinguish between sunrise and sunset directions;

2) They have to still refer to geographical areas on the map. Just because most everything is south doesn't mean that one place south is the same as another. There's still a difference between Inuit and Siberia.

Although the exact area they're referring to here is a mystery. I guess it's Northeast Inuit.

[hatrack]

14. It's about the eastern Canadian Arctic - Hudson Bay, Frobisher Bay, points N & E from there . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxe_Basin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frobisher_Bay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_and_Hecla_Strait

[Canuckistanian]

18. It's OUR Eastern Arctic in Canada

That is, just WEST of Greenland.

[social_critic]

22. Looks like you may be getting some beach resorts in the future

I wonder, how did that guy in Waterworld get his gills?

[mbperrin]

6. Beat a 102 year old record for heat today out in our neck of the

woods.

Whew.

[SnakeEyes]

7. curious

where is here?

[mbperrin]

11. Odessa-Midland area

right where the southeast corner of New Mexico intrudes into Texas

[BlackHoleSon]

20. It's all about Texas

where New Mexico intrudes into Texas!!!
I'm glad we have you guys as neighbors, actually - let's us fly under the radar!
LOL
Anyway 8" of snow here and counting, outside of Albuquerque.

[breadandwine]

8. The white polar ice cap is being replaced by dark melted waters.

As the white polar ice cap melts more sunlight will be absorbed instead of reflected back into space, causing a huge increase in temperatures that will jack up heat all over the planet, one of many tipping points.

But we have more important things to worry about, more important to be sure. We have to have comity with the Republicans so we can give tax cuts to the rich in return for a few crumbs.

See? We're getting. Something. Done.



Did you hear the story about the Prozac user?
Someone said to him, "Did you hear? The price of Prozac is going up."
The Prozac user replied with a vague, pleasant smile, "Whatever...."

[caseymoz]

13. It looks like we can't do anymore about it than the polar bears could.

We don't have the level of social organization required. You might point to the paralysis, the bickering, the stupidity, but that's just what I'm talking about. We're not adapted from our tribal evolution to deal with this scale of a problem, even if some of us can see exactly what it is.

Or at least, that's what's being demonstrated so far. It's perfectly incredible to me that anyone could doubt this problem, or could have doubted it after 1990. Yet, well educated people I know doubt it and think that some kind of power grab is the motivation behind it.

[BeFree]

15. It is a power grab

The only way that Climate Change can be stopped is to take away the power of each and every individual to continue doing the stupid things they are doing.

[caseymoz]

16. Which proves my point.

If we're still deciding on this the way we would think about an intra-tribal power struggle, we're not enough advanced to deal with this problem. When one faction really believes the scientific information on Global Warming (and I stubbornly use the old term) is simply a ploy to take power, and they really put their heads in the sand on even the possibility that human beings can effect climate, and meanwhile the other faction talks about forcibly taking power because of that, then the climate disaster is practically fated.

The problem with your solution is that there's no way to peacefully do it. None. Doing it otherwise will cause worldwide conflict, and the industry required to power such an extreme conflict will exacerbate the problem and lead to the very thing we'd want to avoid: destroying our resources and environment, causing the crumbling of worldwide society.

No, there's no way to stop this. When the plane is crashing, all you can do is fasten your seat belts and deal with things after the crash-- if possible.

[kenfrequed]

17. This is a big problem.

What I hate is the absurdly moderate pro corporate crowd that think this should be the business of the consumers and that the markets should dictate how the probelem is solved.

I think anytime anyone ever suggests that we should 'let the genius of the free market solve the problem.' That someone would stop them and substitute the words 'Fear and Greed.'

[caseymoz]

19. That has been the result of capitalist propaganda like Ayn Rand.

The real problem with it is that we constantly need innovations to save us from environmental wreckage, depleted resources and over-population, such as the Green Revolution. If the innovation doesn't pan out though, or if it comes too late then we face catastrophe.

The innovation that did not pan out in the 20th century was space travel/colonization. Once that didn't pan out, global calamity was inevitable.

[kenfrequed]

21. Too true

I recall reading papers of the period when automobiles were new that said funny things about the automobile saving us from the noisome pollution of animal transport and litter.

[caseymoz]

23. And yes, and it did. Except . . .

The problem is we then took those innovations like that and used them to support the production of . . . more people. If the population were still at the level it was when we invented the automobile, we wouldn't be facing any of the environmental crises we are now for another four or five centuries.

[kenfrequed]

24. I suppose it solved some of the concerns...

I just find it amusing that rather than change behavoir we are expecting some techno-positivist solution to every problem we encounter. I have no problem with looking for technological fixes, but we are fast moving towards expecting them and ultimately depending upon them.

[caseymoz]

27. Moving to? We're there.

And we've been there for at least since the 1960s. Remember how SF writers and movies promoted space travel as a future? There was a reason for that. It was supposed to be the ultimate fix. It never panned out because it turned out to be far more daunting and expensive than anyone ever imagined, and our immediate surroundings turn out to be less rich with resources and premium living space than we thought, and far more dangerous.

Instead, we got the Internet, which at least gives us a way to dither to our doom. There is one other hope, if you could call it that. If we invent a super AI computer that solves these problems. That's all I can see.

[Uncle Joe]

25. On edit Kicked, but too late to recommend.

Thanks for the thread, Newsjock.

[CJvR]

26. You can get some of our cold.

Here in Sweden we have the coldest opening of the winter since 1875!