“I really didn’t care about it (referring to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), and then when I heard that everybody wanted it, for 40 years they’ve been trying to get it approved, I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR.’” Donald Trump speaking to congressional Republicans at a retreat in West Virginia.
At the northernmost city in the United States, Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow), the sun rose on May 10th and will not set again until August 2nd. Utgiagvik is on the great coastal plain located in the State of Alaska along with the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada, and it is to the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) that the vast herds of pregnant female caribou begin their long migration by crossing international lines to their calving grounds at ANWR where they give birth in early June. The females give birth near the edge of the sea ice in the Beaufort Sea where they arrive exhausted and hungry. Once the cow gives birth she feeds on the tundra vegetation to produce milk for her nursing calf. ANWR is critical for the survival of the calves as it provides an area mostly devoid of wolves (because of a lack of denning sites), and steady cool breezes from the sea ice that keeps mosquitoes at bay. The Gwich’in name for this vast coastal plain is “Sacred place where life begins”, as it is the breeding ground of the caribou”.
xMidnight Sun! Sunrise this morning in Barrow was at 2:59 AM. The Sun won't set in Barrow until August 2nd.
— NWS Fairbanks (@NWSFairbanks) May 11, 2018It is in this very polar region that Donald Trump, apparently on a whim, recently unleashed fossil fuel interests into this fragile eco-system with a quick rubber stamp of approval by the GOP held congress. This assault on the Arctic will destroy habitat for not only Caribou, but Walrus and many other arctic species as well. These animals get incredibly freaked out by human activity. While beached, walrus for example, will stampede to get away from the slightest sound of a human presence, crushing many in the herd as a result.
The cruelty of the GOP decision on ANWR is not just limited to the loss of the Arctic’s coastal plain, but it’s also incredibly bad news for most life forms on earth, including humans. What Trump is clearly incapable of understanding is that the funneling of more untapped carbon into the atmosphere is altering the climate in such a way, that a new study suggests a “35 percent probability that emissions concentrations will exceed those assumed in even the most severe of available climate change scenarios” because of the larger range of (economic) growth rates. “"The implication is that if we are producing more and consuming more, we must assume that emission rates will grow significantly faster than we thought," Christensen says. "In the absence of meaningful climate policy, higher baseline growth scenarios likely imply higher emissions growth around the world. The level of uncertainty revealed by this study will shift our modeling of physical and social processes related to changes in the climate and the baseline for policymaking."”
@CopernicusEU near realtime #Sentinel3-A OLCI image reveals bare ice near the start of the #Greenland melt season across the southwestern ice sheet periphery. The area is normally snow covered by now, making it pre-conditioned for abnormally high ice loss from melting in 2018. Jason BoxAs can be seen in these satellite images, Greenland’s glacial ice is primed for rapid melt.
Satellite images of the dark zone of Greenland ice sheet clearly show the impure ice in remarkable contrast to the pristine snow. The dark ice increases melting Satellites however miss out on details in the composition of the impurities. . In western Greenland, the dark zone (a loss of solar reflectivity causing which increases ice and snow melt as a dark surface absorbs more heat) is about the size of West Virginia. It grew by 12 percent between 2000 and 2012, and new research suggests it's likely to continue to expand, according to climate researcher Jason Box, who travels wide swaths of the ice sheet each summer to collect samples for the Geological Survey of Denmark and the Dark Snow project. The new research, published in the journal Nature Communications, describes a geological feedback loop on the ice that's expanding the dark zone: Warming melts the western edge of the ice sheet, releasing mineral dust from rock crushed by the ice sheet thousands of years ago. That dust blows to the surface of the ice, nurturing the microbes and algae living there. Those organisms produce colored pigments as sunscreen, which contribute to the darkening of the surface, reducing reflectivity and increasing melting.So far, the month of May is alarming sea ice scientists, as it is much warmer than normal for the month and portends an even warmer summer. The sea ice is already worrisome, because it is younger and thinner which makes it more susceptible to breakup and melting.
In areas of Greenland and Alaska permafrost has begun to thaw, freeing tons of mercury and releasing methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
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When it comes to sea ice, old age can be a good thing.
So it’s troubling to researchers that older layers of Arctic sea ice—which have persisted for multiple years in a row—are increasingly melting away.
Since 1984, the percentage of multiyear ice cover has declined from 61 percent to just 34 percent, according to a new report from the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC). And the oldest sea ice—ice that’s been frozen for at least five years—now accounts for just 2 percent of the ice cover. That means more and more of the total ice cover consists of “first-year” ice, or ice that’s only been frozen for one season.
These trends are not to be taken lightly, experts warn. When it comes to sea ice, age is far more than just a number—it’s an indicator of the ice thickness, its likelihood of melting away in warm weather, the amount of light it lets through to the ocean below, and other factors that affect the Arctic ecosystem and its resilience to climate change.
x.@NASANPP#VIIRS nighttime imagery show the North Greenland sea ice breakup in nice spatial detail and simultaneously show sea ice export into Nares Strait pic.twitter.com/3slHwqT8ZW
— Stef Lhermitte (@StefLhermitte) February 26, 2018Here’s what vanishing sea ice in the Arctic means for you
“The Arctic is a natural freezer,” says Michael Mann, a climatologist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, in an email to The Verge. “Just like you’d be concerned if all of the ice in your freezer melted, so should you be concerned about the loss of Arctic sea ice.”
The changes that are happening in the Arctic don’t just affect the Arctic. Our planet is an interconnected system, and the vanishing ice is already having ripple effects down south. Among them: faster global warming, rising sea levels, and possibly more extreme natural disasters. (Plus, the polar bears will suffer.) Scientists are still trying to figure many things out, but pretty much everyone agrees that a melting Arctic isn’t a good thing.
“This whole climate change is a big can of worms,” says Ignatius Rigor, coordinator of the International Arctic Buoy Program at the University of Washington. “It’s pretty scary because we’re starting to realize more and more how big of an impact we’re having on the planet.”