Thank you Al Gore
 

Your diligence has paid pointing out it is all my fault how it is too late and nothing can be done we were all doomed to beach front property and flooded cities.

Looks like another ice age is on the way polar bears in you back yard, snow foxes eating your cats. Lets us come together and seek out who at fault this time for causeing this doom. DOOM is on the way again change your light bulbs back to incandesent, get back in your SUV's, we have to stop global cooling.

Arctic sea ice begins to re-freeze
This summer's dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice peaked on September 15, and the polar ice cap is finally beginning to re-freeze, according to a press release issued by the National Snow and Ice Data Center on October 1. Extent of the September polar sea ice fell 39%, compared to the 1979-2000 average. To put this loss in perspective, in one year we lost as much ice as we lost during the previous 28 years. Summertime Arctic sea ice is now at 50% of what it was in the 1950s (Figure 1). One may look at at graph and wonder, but what about sea ice loss in other seasons? It hasn't been nearly so severe. True, but it is the summer ice we care most about, since summer is when the thick, multi-year ice melts, which can then precondition the Arctic for much greater ice loss in future years. As sea ice melts in response to rising temperatures, more of the dark ocean is exposed, allowing it to absorb more of the sun's energy. This further increases air temperatures, ocean temperatures, and ice melt in a process know as the "ice-albedo feedback" (albedo means how much sunlight a surface reflects). There is an excellent chance that the summer of 2007 will be remembered as the "tipping point" for Arctic sea ice, when an irreversible ice-albedo feedback process firmly established itself.

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Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent since 1900, as estimated from satellite and ship reports compiled by Walsh and Chapman (2001). Image credit: University of Illinois cryosphere group.

Northwest Passage opens for the first time in recorded history
Long before the Panama and Suez Canals made commercial trading between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans economically feasible, ships made the long and perilous trip around the African and South America continents. Explorers, traders, and world leaders looking for faster and less dangerous shipping routes to far-away areas of the world have long eyed two routes through the ice-choked Arctic Ocean--the fabled Northwest Passage, through the cold Arctic waters north of Canada, and the Northeast Passage, extending along the northern coast of Russia. The first recorded attempt to find and sail the Northwest Passage was in 1497, and ended in failure. The thick ice choking the waterways thwarted all attempts at passage for the next four centuries. Finally, in 1905, Roald Amundsen completed the first successful navigation of the Northwest Passage. It took his ship two-and-a-half years to navigate through narrow passages of open water, and his ship spent two cold, dark winters locked in the ice during the feat. More recently, icebreakers and ice-strengthened ships have on occasion battered their way through the ice-blocked route.

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Figure 2. The Northwest Passage shipping route (red line) and Northeast Passage (green line) superimposed on an ice coverage map from August 22, 2007. The Northwest Passage was ice-free and navigable for 36 days between August 14 and September 18, 2007. The Northeast Passage was blocked by a narrow strip of ice most of the summer. Image credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Times are changing. In 2001, the Bering Strait, a key portion of both the Northwest and Northeast Passages, was completely ice free. This was followed in 2005 by record-breaking sea-ice melt in the Arctic, leading to the first ever recorded opening of the Northeast Passage. The fabled Northwest Passage remained closed in 2005. Arctic ice recovered a bit in 2006, and both passages remained closed. But the unprecedented melting during the summer of 2007 saw the Northwest Passage become ice-free and navigable along its entire length without the need for an icebreaker as of August 14, 2007. Remarkably, the Northwest Passage remained ice-free for 36 days, finally refreezing over a small section on September 19. The Northeast Passage was blocked by a narrow strip of ice all summer. However, this strip of ice thinned to just 30% coverage on September 25 and 26, making the Northeast Passage passable for ordinary ships on those days.

When is the last time the Northwest Passage was open?
We can be sure the Northwest Passage was never open from 1900 on, as we have detailed ice edge records from ships. It is very unlikely the Passage was open between 1497 and 1900, since this was a cold period in the northern latitudes known as "The Little Ice Age". Ships periodically attempted the Passage and were foiled during this period, and the native Inuit people have no historical tales of the Passage being navigable at any time in the past.

A good candidate for the last previous opening of the Northwest Passage was the period 5,000-7,000 years ago, when the Earth's orbital variations brought more sunlight to the Arctic in summer than at present. Prior to that, the Passage was probably open during the last inter-glacial period, 120,000 years ago. Temperatures then were 2-3 degrees Centigrade higher than present-day temperatures, and sea levels were 4-6 meters higher.

Final thoughts
If we have reached the tipping point for Arctic ice, what are the implications? I'll discuss this more in a future blog. Sea ice is very complicated, and it is not a sure thing that we have reached the tipping point. For more on the complexities of sea ice, read wunderblogger Dr. Ricky Rood's latest blog.

NASA has posted a beautiful satellite image of the Arctic ice cap at the September 15 2007 minimum, showing the open water of the Northwest Passage.

I thank Edalin Michael of the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Robert Grumbine of NOAA's Sea Ice Group for their contributions to this blog.

References
Walsh, J.E and W.L.Chapman, 2001, "Twentieth-century sea ice variations from observational data", Annals of Glaciology, 33, Number 1, January 2001 , pp. 444-448.

Jeff Masters

First the internet, now this!?! Is there no problem Algore can't solve:shifty: .


My prediction is... he will be a pioneer in spacetravel! YES!, To the Moon dare I say? Algore will PERSONALY invent some sort of rocket ship????

May I...bask in the warmth of your infinate knowledge...

There will be a point where we can directly influence the warming or cooling of this planet in the not too distant future. This though is not what bothers me, but what it will do to our somewhat mild weather is what bothers me. Tornados, Hurricanes, Flooding, Freezing, You name it, it's all about to get screwed up. I personally don't think we had much influence on the polar ice caps however. The Earth is going to go through cycles whether we are here or not. We may help nudge it one way or another, but overall, we are at it's mercy, SUV driving or not.

Why? Planets are also warming up in our solar system at this very moment. Pluto is even warming up right now. So is Jupiter. Something much bigger than us is the cause.

-S

It doesn't seem to be due to solar output, at least not on Earth anyway.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...solar-forcing/

^great site for climate info :) ^

I have to wonder if the source stated above is biased towards one policy preference or the other.

The earth does indeed go through normal periods of warming and cooling. BUT, we have never added pollution into the equation. How pollution affects this warming and cooling is what worries me.

It aims to be politically neutral, written by climate scientists. The debate on this issue is beset by special-interest groups, however I've noticed that the majority of skewed reporting lies on the side of skepticism/denial, funded by fossil fuel groups. Example, check out the groups behind the recent High Court Inconvenient Truth case.

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

The relocation of massive quantities of carbon from under the ground to the atmosphere, yeah, sounds like it could have an effect :)

It amazes me how people politicize this issue. So what if the people who believe the scientific evidence of climate change are wrong? Then they're wrong and the world doesn't turn to desert and we all live a bit cleaner and less reliant on fossil fuels. Is that such a BAD thing? I hate the fact that it's even a debate. It's turned into "prove the other side wrong at any cost" without thinking why they're even fighting in the first place. Right or wrong, reducing carbon emissions and taking care of our environment is a good thing.

You know, I respect Al Gore for the work he's done in raising awareness of this issue, but I believe his role as a politician has created more divisiveness due to small minded people opposing his every view on the general principle that he's a "DADGUM LIB'RUL WHO HATES 'MERKA!"

BANG! Thats the sound of a nail being hit on the head.

According to the British High Court it was Algore himself who politicized the issue.

Why don't you read what the judge said the term 'political' meant?

Enlighten me.

Great. It still doesn't matter. I still think you're missing the point. Even if Gore's right or wrong, we need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and find greener alternative energy sources.

There's been some debate on whether or not we've reached "peak oil." That too, still doesn't matter. If "peak oil" was yesterday, 10 years from now, or 50 years from now, it's either happened or will happen relatively soon. And the fact that we know about it, yet choose to do nothing makes us nothing more than bickering, lazy, decadent fools. It's incumbent upon us to do something about it, whether or not you believe that carbon emissions are raising global temperatures.

New technologies take decades to research and deploy. What happens if we remain sitting on our hands, doing nothing and oil stocks really become indisputably depleted. You think there's wars for oil now? Wait until it starts becoming more and more scarce. Wait until the price of heating oil skyrockets and people start freezing to death during winter because they can't afford to heat their home. Wait until fossil fuel based fertilizers become cost prohibitive and crop yields plummet. And then there will be the cost of transporting the food to markets...wait until people are starving to death because someone wanted to remain complacent and argue about global warming being part of the "liberal agenda." It'll be too late to do anything then.

In the last decade, Al Gore has won the triple crown: an Oscar, a Nobel Peace Prize, and (this is disputed) Florida. Now, winning an Oscar is hard—you usually have to pretend to be handicapped, or speak with a semi-convincing English accent, or spend hours in an uncomfortable period costume. And Gore himself would have trouble telling you how to claim the Sunshine State. But the Nobel Prize is easy. The important thing to remember is that peace doesn't have much to do with it. One of the very first winners was Theodore Roosevelt, a man who described the Spanish-American War as "fun." The Peace Prize is more of a Humanitarian of the Year Award, with humanitarian defined loosely enough to include Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger.

Broadly speaking, there are three ways to get it:

1. Be a famous humanitarian. This is the obvious approach. It is also the hardest. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Albert Schweitzer, who built hospitals in Africa; to Norman Borlaug, who developed high-yield strains of wheat; to Muhammed Yunus, who devised a new method of giving loans to low-income entrepreneurs; and to the Dalai Lama, who...actually, I'm not sure what the Dalai Lama does, but evidently it impresses a lot of people.

Does your achievement need to be related to peace? It can—as with, say, Linus Pauling, who capped off an impressive scientific career with a crusade against above-ground nuclear testing. But the peace angle isn't necessary. It isn't even strictly necessary that your accomplishments be as impressive in practice as they are in your intentions. (You'll note that Gore has not actually stopped global warming.) The best way to get credit in Oslo is to conduct your humanitarian pursuits while working with some vast global agency. Indeed, if you don't think you have the chops to, say, revolutionize Third World agriculture, you can always get a Peace Prize the next way:

2. Start an international organization. Or, if you can swing it, be an international organization. Over the years, the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, the UN's International Labor Organization, and the Red Cross. Gore himself will share his prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The Peace Prize has also gone to Cordell Hull, who helped found the United Nations; to Dag Hammarskjöld, the former head of the United Nations; to Kofi Annan, another former head of the United Nations; and to a wide range of delegates to and officials within the United Nations. UNICEF won it once. The UN's refugee office won it twice. When Annan took the prize, he shared it with the entire United Nations. And before there was a United Nations, the Nobel committee promoted the League of Nations. (In 1919 it gave the prize to League founder Woodrow Wilson, whose previous contribution to peace was to plunge the United States into the most pointless major war in its history.) Before there was a League of Nations, the Nobel committee honored groups like the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Institute for International Law.

Now, some of those organizations do worthy things. But they don't have much to do with peace, unless you define peace as "international cooperation." Sometimes, as with Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, that means a bottom-up movement of individuals collaborating across national lines. More often the award honors institutions of global governance, whether or not they're particularly pacific. One year it went to the UN's peacekeeping forces, which advance the cause of peace by shooting people.

You'll see a similar trend in the non-institutional figures who win the Peace Prize. Occasionally it goes to a Carl von Ossietzky, a Martin Luther King, an Andrei Sakharov, a Lech Walesa—that is, to a person nonviolently struggling against an oppressive state. But the award is as likely to go to a current or former government official: a George Marshall, a Willy Brandt, a Mikhail Gorbachev, a Jimmy Carter. Some of those statesmen aren't exactly pacifists, which leads us to the third and easiest way to win the Peace Prize:

3. Kill a lot of people, then stop. In 1973, the Nobel Peace Prize was shared by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. Kissinger's CV included the "secret" bombing of Cambodia and the "Christmas" bombing of North Vietnam; just a month before his prize was announced, he was complicit in the coup that installed a brutal dictatorship in Chile. So why did he win? Because he and Tho had reached a truce to end the Vietnam War. Tho wasn't a particularly peaceful man either, but at least he had the common courtesy to refuse the award.

More recently, the prize went to Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat, a man whose career to that point had been spent arranging terrorist assaults on civilians. He shared the award with Israel's Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin; the three of them, like Kissinger and Tho, had negotiated an end to a war. In this case the peace agreement didn't hold, and both the state of Israel and various Palestinian groups went on to produce many more corpses. So don't worry if you develop a taste for blood during the initial stage of your Peace Prize campaign: You're free to resume killing once Mr. Nobel's money is safely in your hands.

By this method, the prize could conceivably go next year to Dick Cheney, the Janjaweed, or anyone else in a position to bring a war to a temporary stop. That someone could be you!

My advice to anyone who wants to follow in the footsteps of Linus Pauling and the Dalai Lama is to fuse approaches two and three. Start an NGO devoted to murder and mayhem—something on the SPECTRE/Al Qaeda/Medellin Cartel model—and then agree to a truce. In theory, you could accomplish this in an afternoon, but to make a splash big enough to impress the Nobel judges it's probably best to bargain with something larger than the Nashville Police Department's hostage negotiations unit. Choose your target wisely.
Either that, or make a movie.