More data show that ‘Yes, climate change is happening, ice is melting at alarming rates, and the time for action is now.’

Independent research using state-of-the-art modeling and satellite observations shows that melting of the Greenland ice sheet is speeding up.

Four months ago, new research showed that Arctic sea ice was at its lowest point in about 800 years, another study a couple months ago showed suprisingly fast melting in Greenland and Antarctica. Now, research from other scientists in Bristol (UK) published in Science confirms that ice sheets in Greenland are melting at an unprecedented rate.

There has been a lot of effort in the past few months to knock down climate change activists, say it isn’t happening. No wonder, of course, given that we are quickly approaching one of the most important meetings in the history of the human race — the climate change conference in Copenhagen. This new report shows again that whether we admit it or not, ice is melting, sea levels are bound to rise, climate change is happening, and the whole world will be changed as a result of it.

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This week in the journal Nature scientists give the most comprehensive view of thinning ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to date.

Scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of Bristol analyzed 50 million satellite measurements (from NASA) to show the massive ice loss on these polar giants.

The result are surprising, even to the scientists.

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The break up of the Arctic ice sheet–now at record levels –might make an Arctic crossing much easier for a small group of previously untracked Right Whales. And that’s the problem. The Arctic ice-sheet break up is making the “Northwest Passage” across the Pole much easier for everyone–including commercial fishing ships. If this newly discovered group of whales decides to take this short cut (heading south for the Winter), scientists fear, they could swim headlong into the newly opened shipping lanes. It is estimated that collisions with ships cause one third of all Right Whale deaths world-wide.

In 2007 and 2008, marine researchers tracked over 2000 whale songs coming from the waters of Cape Farewell Ground (Just off Greenland’s Southwest coast). The songs are believed to be those of male Right Whales–a fairly rare baleen (mysticine) whale that was hunted to near extinction here back in the late 1800’s. They were named “right” whales because they were deemed the “right” whale to hunt for their prized oil and baleen content. Researchers studying the new group believe that there must be at least two of them, possibly three. Whales in general tend to be creatures of habit, returning seasonally to the same  “grounds” for eating or mating.

Normally, the few Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) sightings that there are (in the North Atlantic) have been largely off of Nova Scotia and the New England coasts during the Summer feeding months (the whales feed off off massive up-welling of plankton). Returning to this area (Cape Farewell Ground) is a bit of a surprise, for these were also the former “killing grounds” of these rarest of the large whales.  Dr. Mellinger, the research team’s lead scientist, believes that they are indeed a new group, and are either reoccupying this area, or possibly (despite all odds), may have always been here.

The Right whale “songs” were detected using a high-tech network of submerged listening posts. A version of the system was originally used for monitoring the Right whale population off Massachusetts Bay in 2006. Preliminary analysis of this singular, acoustical phenomenon–produced exclusively by younger male whales–indicates that there may be as many as three whales contributing to these songs.

No one knows, however, if there are any females that have joined the group–a factor crucial for the long-term survival of any would-be whale pod. Female Right whales do not sexually mature until 10 years or age, and they give birth to only one off-spring at a time (after a year long gestation). This possibility (of a pregnant female in the group) makes concern over the arctic ice break-up, and any accidental ship strike, all the more pressing. Right Whales have been under international protection since 1949, but the North Atlantic Right whale’s numbers have not seen the same population rebound as other groups of Rights.

Mellinger’s team reported its findings at the annual Acoustical Society of America meeting in Portland, Oregon.

photo: NOAA

Scientists studying northeastern Greenland’s hairy, meat-eating wolf spiders have discovered every arachnophobe’s worst nightmare.

It appears that as the Earth has been warming and summers have been getting longer, the 8-legged hunters have been steadily growing larger and more numerous. And it’s likely that other creepy-crawly species around the world could be growing larger too.

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One of the most important findings of this project is a confirmation of what many climate scientists have suspected for a couple of years now–that the impact of climate change on our environment is happening at a much faster rate than previous computer models predicted. This is true even for the four major reports released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the last of which was released in 2007).

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When Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele guest-hosted William Bennett’s nationally syndicated conservative talk radio show a few weeks back—in part, to diffuse the mounting tension between the Republican Party chief Steele and the de facto Republican Party chief, Rush Limbaugh—he gave a skewed interpretation of natural history and aligned himself with Limbaugh’s position on global warming in one fell swoop:

“We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long.”

But Steele didn’t stop there. He exhorted listeners to take sides in a debate that is “leading to the ultimate political Armageddon between conservatism and liberalism.” Telling one caller:

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The numbers speak for themselves — we must make 2009 the showdown year for global warming action. There is no time to lose.

35%

Increase in the global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1992.

388.57 ppm

Average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in May 2008, a record high.

541 – 970 ppm

The projected concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 2100 under a business as usual scenario where we don’t dramatically reduce global warming emissions.

260 – 280 ppm

Average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before industrial emissions.

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The outgoing President of United States has urged lawmakers to stake claims to Arctic’s vast and untouched natural resources. In a detailed policy directive, President Bush made it clear that Congress needs to reconsider the existing rules regarding control of the seabed. The President wants lawmakers to make arrangements for the U.S. to stake claim on area extending beyond Alaska.

In his directive the President urged the lawmakers to consider the economic, environmental and security interests of the country and take the required legal initiatives to stake claim to the rich natural resources of the Arctic. The directive said that increased human activity in the region and the phenomenon of global warning would provide new opportunities to tap the vast reserves of natural resources and that the United States should take appropriate steps to get hands on those resources.

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$268 bottle of water, anyone? Going once… going twice….

Just as growth in the US bottled water market is finally dropping off, Greenland has made the bewildering move to bottle and export 1 to 3,000 year old water that it will drill from icebergs. To add insult to environmental injury, Greenland will market its product as “sustainable.” Just how much marketing sense went into the idea to bottle the climate-induced melt from Greenland’s glaciers in plastic and ship it with a heavy carbon footprint stamped firmly into each “sustainable” bottle is anyone’s guess.

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And now, thanks to researchers from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the Center for Space Research (CSR) in America, a new and accurate picture of Greenland’s shrinking ice cap has been formulated.

Subsequently, the researchers have found that Greenland is currently responsible for an annual increase of sea levels of up to half a millimeter.

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Ever since I first saw Ernie and almost the entire felt-cast of Sesame Street do “The Rubber Duck, Duck” dance on Sesame Street, I have had a strange fascination with rubber ducks. They aren’t the common toy here in Australia that they appear to be elsewhere. And though looking back at that video now presents me with a bit of a moral and architectural dilemma, considering just how many people are naked together in that tub, my love for the rubber duck continues.

And now, once again, the rubber duck is coming to the aid of science. US rocket scientist Alberto Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California has sent 90 rubber ducks into the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland in an attempt to figure out what is happening inside Greenland’s fastest moving glacier.

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Researchers who have been monitoring daily satellite images of Greenland’s glaciers from Ohio State University have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers within the last month.

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This report adds weight to a growing number of reports and findings that are pointing to 2008’s summer as a turning point for the Arctic region; one where there could be no sea-ice at all.

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Link 1:  http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/steffen/greenland/melt2005/

More recently there has been a flurry of activity in the media, spurred on by a comment or two from James Hansen, (GISS), alleging recent alarming increase in the rate of melting, but most of it being in vague terms, with some saying double the rate and some triple, relative to something not elucidated.

One of the sources of this seems to be the following November 2007 release from NASA:

Link 2: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/greenland_recordhigh.html

Here is the Intro’ for that release:    “A new NASA-supported study reports that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire [sic] Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was greater than ever at 150 percent more than average…”

This seems a very strange way of putting it….for instance in 2002; a declared record high; it was simply stated as the highest since 1991 ….simple! (Later, and similarly, 2005 became legend as higher than 2002, but the data says no!)

“Tragically” though, 2007 was a notably LOWER melt, than in seven major previous years over two prior decades, depending on source thus: {1987}, {1991}, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004 and 2005; {for 1987 & 1991, see link1 graph}; for the other years, see link 2 graph.

In other words, the 2007 “alarming” recent melting, although more than that in 2006, was actually typical of 1987, twenty years ago!

Of course, the “disappointing” number for 2007 does not make exciting news, so rather than say it was a flop, they found that it was better to say it was higher than the average from 1988 to 2006.

(Why average from1988!? Uh? Maybe because there was a statistical “benefit” in choosing 1998 - 2006, i.e. 1987 was avoided as a high melt year and 2006 was a low melt year?…. very convenient!)

They also failed to mention that there was a well instrumented warmer period in Greenland, especially 1920-1930, that should be compared with today, concerning melt potential. However melt data in those warmer times is not available; find more at:

http://bobfj.greenoptions.com/

Funny business this; why don’t they talk straight to us mortals!

Facts: As climate change skepticism has developed into a full-blown industry, a number of myths have filtered out about historical patterns of warming and cooling: just mention the “Little Ice Age” or the “Medieval Warm Period” to your favorite skeptic, and let ‘em go…

As a history buff, I always found today’s myth fascinating. As Coby Beck at Grist notes, Viking leader Eric the Red gave Greenland its name not because it was lush and green, but because he wanted folks back home to think it was:

Greenland was called Greenland by Erik the Red (was he red?), who was in exile and wanted to attract people to a new colony. He thought you should give a land a good name so people would want to go there! It likely was a bit warmer when he landed for the first time than it was when the last settlers starved due to a number of factors — climate change, or at least some bad weather, a major one.

But it was never lush, and their existence was always harsh and meager, especially due to the Viking’s disdain for other peoples and ways of living. They attempted to live a European lifestyle in an arctic climate, side by side with Inuit who easily outlasted them. They starved surrounded by oceans and yet never ate fish! (Note: this was not a typical European behavior, and is a bit of a mystery to this day.)

The issue here, of course, really isn’t Greenland’s name; it’s the idea of a Medieval Warm Period that skeptics claim was comparable to the present day in terms of the average temperature (or even warmer!). By extension, ice melts on Greenland aren’t that big a deal: it’s happened before.

Coby has thoughts on the Medieval Warm Period, and points to information from NOAA. RealClimate, the blog for anyone interested in hardcore climate science, also presents a number of reasons why the perception skeptics have about the Medieval Warm Period are likely incorrect.

Greenland wasn’t green in the tenth century… and we don’t want it to become green this century…