Icecap? What icecap?

According to American scientist Mark Serreze, the North Pole may be ice-free this summer.

This is scary. It should be particularly worrying for anyone who happens to live in Florida, Louisiana, Alaska, Holland or Bangladesh. There is a positive feedback loop involved here; the less ice there is, the less heat is reflected, so the more heat is absorbed by the water which is where the ice should have been. So, since the water is warmer, less ice forms; and so less heat is reflected, et cetera.

Why is this a problem, to anyone except polar bears? Well, there's enough water on the Greenland icecap to raise sea level - globally - by seven metres. (That's somewhere over 22 feet, for Americans.) All of that ice is right next to the rapidly warming Arctic, and guess what? It's melting faster than anyone expected. Gosh, what a coincidence.

It will take a while for that lot to work through; a few years. How many? I don't know; I used to think I was pessimistic about this. But every prediction we get is that things are worse than we thought they were, this time last year. When i does work through, this is what seven metres looks like.
No more Florida Keys. No more New Orleans. No more Holland. Have a look at the East Coast; not pretty. San Francisco Bay Area will have serious flooding problems. For those who think this is a minor issue in terms of national defence, Newport News, Langley and Norfolk will all be lost to the sea. And that's just in Virginia. I forget how much imported oil comes through New Orleans; more than 10%, IIRC.

Bangladesh? Millions of Muslim refugees into India, which maintains a nuclear standoff against its Muslim neighbour Pakistan. We can pray for sensible behaviour in hard times. I suppose that might work.

Oh yeah; while we're at it, I should add that there's a real possibility that the loss of the Arctic ice-cap will produce long-term drought in the American Midwest. You know; where all that grain and corn is grown. That's because the warmer Arctic air will produce thermals which drag wet air further north, away from the Midwest. (Expect the south and east to get much wetter; same mechanism.)

Pretty much any greenhouse gas reduction is a good idea, now. Probably the most efficient is to eat less beef; none, if possible. But any reduction is good.

Surfin' USA!

on that seven meter rise presentation they show an awesome lake in death valley! I'm a get my trunks!

My elevation...27 ft. I'll have beachfront property!

God, I wish I was a shipping tycoon.

We need a fucking freeze gun! Catch up science!!

I am hereby appropriating Ice Cap as my rap name.

Oh !

I thought you said nightcap.

Damn.

hmmm time to buy a boat

Fixed.

So what? I was just at the beach yesterday, it wasn't any closer to my house.

1. This is all speculative, the article doesn't say 'Arctic Ocean is ice-free for the first time in human history'. The article says some guy says there might be a 50/50 chance the Arctic Ocean might be ice free this year, and IF that happened it would be the first time in human history. IF IF IF

2. I live pretty far north and this is the coldest summer I can remember. It hasn't broken 70 degrees this summer in Anchorage, hasn't broken 90 degrees in Fairbanks. It's 54 today and this is a typical day this summer. There are lakes in the mountains still covered with ice and the snow on Aleyska ski resort still has 150 inches at the top.

We'll see. Let's revisit this thread in Nove December, hey?

"Some guy" is a professional at his work. This is where he works. These are the sponsors of that organisation.

And, you know, this is the first year it's been 50/50. That's the first time that's happened.

You're still confusing "weather" and "climate".

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

I wish, I hope, you are right.

Can you take some photos of ice and snow and post to reassure?

I suppose we've got another ten years of this type of rhetoric:

At which point, they will declare a war on global warming and claim they've been the advocates of fighting it all along. We'll then invade Syria.

Extreme weather is an effect of climate change. You should actually expect more extreme winters.

Something people like Stockula need to realize about climate change and the effects of global warming is that wider temperature extremes and severe weather patterns are the result.

Interestingly enough, as the ice caps and land based glaciers melt, cooler fresh water will disrupt the normal haline currents of the ocean. Contrary to conventional belief, we can actually expect to see cooler temperatures in some areas. For example, more rivers and coastlines may become frozen over in the winter at southern climates (the dilute water will have a higher freezing point, closer to that of fresh water). Another result of climate change, closely related to global warming, is the greenhouse effect (and unless you've been living in a hole for the last 25 years, I'm sure you've heard mention of it). Roughly, as the model goes, the increase in temperature results in increased evaporation and a higher concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere. The torrential downpour and flooding we've been seeing across the mid-west is just one representation of this increase in water vapor. Unseasonable and more violent hurricanes, thunderstorms, snowfall and blizzards are a just few others. Incidentally, we are also seeing these events increase in frequency.

I'm no scientist, but I appreciate their efforts to help understand the phenomenon of our universe. The guiding principles of objective observation and reason have illuminated us to the fact that the world is round and not flat. Though I haven't flown into space to see the curvature of the earth, I can tell by the daily seasonal changes of the earth to understand the motion of the planet in our solar system. Though I may not entirely understand the physics behind pressure change in the atmosphere, I can clearly see which direction the wind blows. I just wish the last few holdouts would stop clinging to their flat earth and join reality along with the rest us.

Here's something a little better then just a simple picture...
Global December-February Temperature Warmest On Record. See all the related articles as well, they're quite interesting and make my point as well.

If you look at the graph he used:


You can see that last year the ice was melting pretty fast but this year it is between last year's amount and the average. It is actually melting less then it did last year and keep in mind this is Mark Serreze's own graph. So all of a sudden it is panic time even though the trend seems to be the ice is melting less? This seems to me that Mark Serreze wanted to be published so he skewed the research in his favor and he never talks about the South Pole that is having record amount of ice build up then again "ice caps will be gone" makes the better headline. This is just fear mongering and an unknown scientist trying to get known and the amount of false claims in articles dealing with global warming/climate change is getting a bit ridiculous.

Sorry I'm a bit behind on my conspiracy theories but wasn't the ice build up swapping pole's a sign that the magnetic axes between the south and north would flip causing tidal waves and earthquakes? I'm remembering this off the top of my head from 8 years ago from a conspiracy magazine. So no source right now sorry.

A global crustal displacement event occurring in 2012, predicted by the Mayan calendar and caused by the combined effects of a build up of ice on the poles and the gravitational effect of various astronomical factors is the basic gist of Graham Hancock "Fingerprints of the Gods". Hancock effectively got the whole 2012: End of the World movement going. He also argued that Antarctica used to be located somewhat further North between Africa and the Americas until a previous global crustal displacement event moved Antarctica to its present position. He claims that the Piri Reis map provides evidence of this.

I think that Hancock's theory depended on a build up of ice on both poles. I don't recall Global Warming getting much of a mention in his book. I tend to regard Global Warming as providing refutation of Hancock's version of global crustal displacement.

Fixed.