Ice-free arctic in 23 years, and polar bear extinction?

(Polar bear photo ganked from ucumari's incredible set on Flickr. Found mah bukkit.)


Here are some fairly terrifying news articles out in the past few days on the subject of global warming:

  • "Ice-free Arctic could be here in 23 years," Sep 5, in The Guardian. Snip:

    The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and
    levels of sea ice in the region now stand at a record low, scientists said
    last night. Experts said they were "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an
    area almost twice as big as Britain disappearing in the last week alone. So
    much ice has melted this summer that the north-west passage across the top
    of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the north-east passage along
    Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month. If the increased rate of
    melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by
    2030.

  • "Warming Is Seen as Wiping Out Most Polar Bears," Sep 7, New York Times:

    Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will disappear
    by 2050, even under moderate projections for shrinking summer sea ice caused
    by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, government scientists reported on
    Friday.

  • "Arctic ice cap to melt faster than feared, scientists say," Sep. 7, Seattle Times. snip:

    About 40 percent of the floating ice that normally blankets the top of the
    world during the summer will be gone by 2050, says James Overland, an
    oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
    Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Earlier studies had predicted it
    would be nearly a century before that much ice vanished. "This is a major change," Overland said. "This is actually moving the
    threshold up."

  • See also this Google News comment by Kassie Siegel from the Center for Biological Diversity:

    All of this is indeed horrifying, but it is not cause for despair, but
    rather a call to action. The good news is that there is still time to save
    the Arctic, though the window is closing. Our hope lies in a rapid response
    including both deep and immediate carbon dioxide reductions, as well as a
    full-court press on other greenhouse pollutants such as methane. While
    carbon dioxide emissions remain in the atmosphere for about a century, and
    therefore commit us to long term warming, methane is more powerful but
    remains for only about a decade. Opportunities to reduce methane from
    sources like landfills, mining, and agriculture abound, and such reductions
    would also directly benefit air quality and human health. With such
    reductions we can still buy ourselves some time.

    But we cannot "stay the course" of our current energy consumption, land use,
    and transportation patterns, without losing the Arctic sea ice, polar bears,
    and the quality of life we have enjoyed.

  • More background: here's the National Snow and Ice Data Center — Link.

    (All of these found on Ned Sublette's mailing list, sorry but I don't have a proper subscription request url)