Global Warming News of the Week — Focus on the Arctic

Along with the articles we wrote on global warming this week — on the finding that women are more likely to back scientific consensus on global warming than men, on Artic sea ice being the third-lowest in history, on the lack of media coverage of Pakistan’s greatest disaster in modern history and other global warming-related stories, on Japanese waters hitting a record high, on record fires in Russia, and on the irony of global warming denial — check out these good global warming stories from around the web.

Arctic Sea Ice Melting, Walruses Coming Ashore in Alaska

Arctic sea ice continues to melt at greater and greater rates. One result of that this year (and in 2007 and 2009) is that tens of thousands of walruses had to come ashore in Alaska last week, “because the sea ice they normally rest on has melted.”

As always, Peter Sinclair has a great new video out, an Arctic Sea Ice Update. Check it out below:

Slamming anti-science global warming disinformers as well, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) director Mark Serreze said:

There are claims coming from some communities that the Arctic sea ice is recovering, is getting thicker again. That’s simply not the case.  It’s continuing down in a death spiral.

Every bit of evidence we have says the ice is thinning.  That means there’s less energy needed to melt it out than there used to be.

Joe Romm of Climate Progress also has a piece on Arctic sea ice volume and extent, including this great graph from the Polar Science Center:

Romm writes: “Arctic sea ice volume, extent, and area continue to shrink apace as we approach the dramatic end to this year’s melt season.  The NSIDC tells me extent dropped to 4.76 million square kilometers today — which is below the majority of even the most recent expert predictions logged with the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH).”

NASA: Hottest January to August on Record

No surprise, since every month this year has been breaking records like the Mafia break bones, NASA has reported that January-August 2010 was the hottest January-August on record.

Deutsche Bank: “Human-Made Climate Change is a Serious Long Term Threat”

That is the title of a recent post by Brad Johnson of The Wonk Room. A great piece on a great story. On Deutsche Bank’s excellent climate change study and report, Brad Johnson writes:

Global financial giant Deutsche Bank has crushed the climate skeptics in a new paper released today, finding that “human-made climate change is already happening and is a serious long term threat.” The bank’s DB Climate Change Advisors, working with the Columbia Climate Center at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, reviewed the suite of skeptic claims — that global warming is a hoax, natural, or good for people — and found no evidence to support these contrarian positions. Mark Fulton, Global Head of Climate Change Investment Research for Deutsche Bank’s $7 billion in climate funds, concluded that trusting the skeptics “does not seem a gamble worth taking.”

Hope you enjoyed this week’s wrap-up of global warming news from around the internet. Let us know if you have any other great stories that weren’t mentioned above.

3 thoughts on “Global Warming News of the Week — Focus on the Arctic”

  1. Data Analysis of Recent Warming Pattern in the Arctic

    Masahiro Ohashi1) and H. L. Tanaka2)

    1) Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba
    2) Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba

    Abstract:

    In this study, we investigate the mechanism of the arctic warming pattern in surface air temperature (SAT) and sea ice concentrations over the last two decades in comparison with global warming since the 1970s.
    According to the analysis result, it is found that the patterns of SAT and sea ice before 1989 are mostly determined by the Arctic Oscillation (AO) in winter. In contrast, arctic warming patterns after 1989 are characterized by the intensification of the Beaufort High and the reduced sea-ice concentrations in summer induced by the positive ice-albedo feedback.

    It is concluded that the arctic warming before 1989 especially in winter was explained by the positive trend of the AOI. Moreover the intensified Beaufort High and the drastic decrease of the sea ice concentrations in September after 1989 were associated with the recent negative trend of the AOI. Since the decadal variation of the AO is recognized as the natural variability of the global atmosphere, it is shown that both of decadal variabilities before and after 1989 in the Arctic can be mostly explained by the natural variability of the AO not by the external response due to the human activity.

    http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/6A/SpecialEdition/6A_1/_article

    Author’s Commentary

    “According to our result, the rapid warming during 1970-1990 contains a large fraction of unpredictable natural variability due to the AO. The subsequent period of 1990-2010 indicates a clear trend of the AO to be negative. The global warming has been stopped by natural variability superimposed on the gentle anthropogenic global warming. The important point is that the IPCC models have been tuned perfectly to fit the rapid warming during 1970-1990 by means of the ice-albedo feedback (anthropogenic forcing) which is not actually observed. IPCC models are justified with this wrong scientific basis and are applied to project the future global warming for 100 years in the future. Hence, we warn that the IPCC models overestimate the warming trend due to the mislead Arctic Oscillation.”

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