by Laurence Lewis
The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has awakened many to the necessity of ending our addiction to fossil fuels. In the traditional media, the even more dangerous crisis caused by that addiction continues to be largely ignored. This report, in ScienceDaily, is a little reminder: Less ice covers the Arctic today than at any time in recent geologic history. That's the conclusion of an international group of researchers, who have compiled the first comprehensive history of Arctic ice. How drastic is it? "The ice loss that we see today -- the ice loss that started in the early 20th Century and sped up during the last 30 years -- appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years," said Leonid Polyak, a research scientist at Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. Polyak is lead author of the paper and a preceding report that he and his coauthors prepared for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. At least the last few thousand years. As in all recorded history. And lest anyone wonder about or doubt the cause, the abstract of the study itself makes it clear: The last low-ice event related to orbital forcing (high insolation) was in the early Holocene, after which the northern high latitudes cooled overall, with some superimposed shorter-term (multidecadal to millennial-scale) and lower-magnitude variability. The current reduction in Arctic ice cover started in the late 19th century, consistent with the rapidly warming climate, and became very pronounced over the last three decades. This ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities. As diaried by FishOutofWater, the ice volume of the Arctic Sea has collapsed over the last few months. In other words, the unmatched reduction in Arctic ice revealed by this new study seems to be accelerating. Rapidly.
continued at Daily Kos....
