Any fossil fool executives out there that want to rebuild the planet’s ice caps?
Feedback loops make the problem of a warming Arctic that much worse and according to Thomas Growther, a professor at the Department of Environmental Systems Science of ETH Zurich, “It’s already begun, the feedback is in process”. Yahoo news, reports that “carbon dioxide and methane emissions from thawing soils are “accelerating climate change about 12 to 15 percent at the moment,” and said past IPCC reports that left out the feedback “were way more optimistic than they should have been.”
From Polar Portal on the ice melt on Greenland:
Today DMI scientists announced the start of the Greenland melt season, the second earliest in a record that stretches back to 1980. “The start of the melt season occurs on the first of three consecutive days where more than 5% of the ice sheet has melted at the surface.” said scientist Peter Langen. “We use a pretty strict definition as we want to make sure it is a consistent start to melting and not just a blip due to unseasonal weather”. This year’s start of 30th April is second only to 2016 when a very unusual weather pattern caused a very early start to the melt season in mid-April.
“This winter a persistently positive north Atlantic Oscillation – the weather pattern that also largely controls how cold and wet northern European winters are has led to a generally dry and cold winter in Greenland,” said climate scientist Martin Stendel. “IN many ways Europe and Greenland have opposite weather patterns, a mild wet winter in Europe often means a relatively cold and dry winter in Greenland”.
The persistent dry winter followed by a mild April has consequences for Greenland glaciers.
“Through most of the winter, the majority of the ice sheet has been unusually dry, which sets it up for enhanced melting - if the right weather conditions occur – in the summer this year,” said scientist Ruth Mottram. “A period of warm sunny weather will soon melt this winter’s thin snow cover exposing the darker glacier ice underneath. If this happens we would then expect much faster melting as the dark glacier ice absorbs more energy from the sun than snow. But it all depends on the weather”.
There is an exception though, southeast Greenland, where most of the snow in Greenland falls has had an exceptionally wet spring with a lot of snow and rain associated with storms tracking through the North Atlantic. “Actually, there have been several records broken in Greenland for extreme weather in April. Tasiilaq in southeast Greenland had its wettest April on record. Aputiteeq, Tasiilaq, Ikermiuarsuk, and Summit had their warmest April on record and the Summit station on the top of the ice sheet measured the warmest temperature ever in April, -1,2C on April 30, which is incredibly warm for more than 3000m in altitude. The old record was -6.5C, though this record only goes back about 20 years.” said DMI climatologist John Cappelen.
Trump is doing all he can so his powerful friends can pillage the Arctic without any restrictions to get in their way.
Most members of the Arctic Council, a forum comprising Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and representatives of indigenous peoples, seem to accept urgent action is needed. But one member, the US, disagrees. American obstructionism now threatens to prevent meaningful progress on joint ameliorative measures.
Trump officials have tried to block any mention of climate change in summit documents. The US also rejected any reference to the Paris agreement, which Trump, a notorious climate change denier, withdrew from in 2017. The American position reportedly softened after other countries strongly objected, but big questions remain over what the summit can actually achieve.
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Yet even as he denies climate change, Trump wants US businesses to exploit Arctic resources, including vast oil and gas reserves, which is only possible due to thawing ice and increased accessibility. It’s a prospective bonanza that Russia and China also eye greedily. There is even talk of a “polar Silk Road” as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road trade initiative.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state and climate change sceptic who will attend the Finland summit, has other priorities. Last week, his spokesman warned China, which has Arctic Council observer status, to keep out. What most worries Pompeo and the Pentagon is increasing Chinese (and Russian) investment – and expanding military bases – not a drowning, dying planet.