
Arctic Summer Melt Shows Ice Is Disappearing Faster Than Normal - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-19/arctic-summer-melt-shows-ice-is-disappearing-faster-than-normal
======
pjkundert
There is something that you can do.

Advocate that governments cut down on soot emissions.

This accounts for a significant portion of the current temperature rise in the
Arctic -- but, most importantly -- an unknown amount of the loss of snow and
ice cover.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-
track-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-track-the-
source-of-soot-that-speeds-arctic-melt/?redirect=1)

Unfortunately, this form of carbon (soot) is not as useful for funds
transfer...

Between cutting down soot (all Chinese power plants could be outfitted with
soot collectors in one year), and planting trees (which is the least
expensive, most accessible option for sequestering carbon dioxide at planetary
scale), we could actually start to impact arctic snow cover and permafrost
within _a couple of years_ , within a budgetary envelope that every developed
country could easily manage.

But, once again -- unfortunately, neither of these options appear to be
_politically_ attractive, because the primary goal seems to be wealth
transfer, not actual harm mitigation...

~~~
xoraes
Can you elaborate on what you meant by "funds transfer" or "wealth transfer"?
I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
gervase
Pollution is a commonly-used example of a _negative externality_ [0], or a way
to shift business costs onto a third party.

In the parent example, the implication is that rather than investing money in
reducing pollution, that money can instead by returned to the investors as
dividends, and the global public must bear the impact of the unmitigated soot
emissions.

The "wealth transfer" in this case is represented by the costs absorbed by the
public (in terms of increased healthcare costs, endangered coastal real
estate, disaster relief costs, etc which may result from pollution and/or
anthropogenic climate change) being transferred to the
investors/owners/operators of the polluting companies in the form of reduced
spending on mitigation technology.

That was my interpretation of the parent's meaning, at least. At the time I
posted this comment, there were three different interpretations of the same
comment, which is very interesting.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative)

------
mistrial9
in the 2007 time-frame, the US National Snow and Ice Science Center showed up
en-masse in California and were _flipping out_ about ice changes, semi-
desperate to find some way to communicate to the public about it.
Post-"Inconvenient Truth" and early days of Twitter, the idea that if
"somehow, someway, people could know about this" things would get better
faster, was the knee-jerk idea amongst people who were immersed in details.

Twelve years later.. and .. recurrent headlines on YNews ? US EPA being
dismantled, with the legal authority to regulate air pollution at the center
of it.. Mixed signals from the other world economies, while posturing for
trade routes through the Northern passage, and billions bet on small changes
in oil prices each day .. Whats to worry about.

Is it that goof founder of 360-dot-org that said something like "Do something,
just do something" ? Panic and gossip are clearly not enough.

~~~
Will_Parker
The trouble is that if the "we" who are doing something does not include China
and the rest of the world in coordination, then it is just sacrificing local
economics in vain.

The idea that the rest of the world is going to follow suit automatically
based only on morals is far from obvious.

It doesn't seem that anyone in the mainstream has really found a way to come
to grips with this, that at its core any solution is a global coordination
problem. (Even putting aside that half the US has found it more politically
useful to deny the problem entirely.)

~~~
seem_2211
I grew up in New Zealand, and now live in America.

In New Zealand, people with high carbon lifestyles say "well regardless of
what we do, nothing matters if Americans don't change"

Now I live in America, where people with high carbon lifestyles say "well
regardless of what we do, nothing matters if the Chinese don't change"

And I'm sure in China they say the same thing back to the US.

It's fun shifting the blame.

~~~
Will_Parker
> It's fun shifting the blame.

I don't think blame is a useful concept at all. The question is, within the
complex world of economics and politics, starting from the point we are at
today, what would a pragmatic solution look like, that is actually possible?

It is far from obvious that the best solution is to make local sacrifices,
then hoping the world will follow. It might be that we all (in the world) need
to agree to make sacrifices together first, put some rules and treaties in
place, and then start improving together in coordination.

It sounds so Machiavellian but, if we are already making the economic
sacrifices (that other countries aren't, but would like us to), I wonder if we
aren't even losing potential bargaining power in coordinating globally?

~~~
bryanlarsen
"what would a pragmatic solution look like, that is actually possible?"

William Nordhaus' climate club:

[https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.15000001](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.15000001)

[https://issues.org/climate-clubs-to-overcome-free-
riding/](https://issues.org/climate-clubs-to-overcome-free-riding/)

------
sunshinelackof
It's scary, but there's nothing I can do. We need approachingly authoritarian
action on this issue by world leaders. They've had the data for decades. And
the longer they wait, the more dramatic the changes to everything will be.
Certainly economic freedoms taken for today will be a thing of legend (and
possibly horror.)

~~~
adrianN
Dumping a trillion dollars over twenty years into wind turbines, solar panels,
batteries and power-to-gas would go a pretty long way without draconian
measures. Providing strong monetary incentives to insulate buildings and
install heat pumps doesn't have to be authoritarian either.

~~~
ssnistfajen
None of these will work because a significant portion of the population in
countries with elective governments do not believe in climate change at all.
This means they will viciously oppose all climate change action plans so long
as they are allowed a voice. Authoritarian measures become necessary (even if
I don't necessarily advocate for it) when a large portion of the population
are too short-sighted to decide what's best for themselves.

~~~
hef19898
That's what taxes are there for. E.g. in Germany we managed to implement a
system to increase the share of renewables. That it wasn't perfect to begin
with and was then screwed up but successive governments is a different story.
What matters is that it worked.

I have the impression that most people opposing clinate change are afraid that
the will loose something by the necessary changes, their cars, their perceived
life style,... That's where politics come into play. Politicians have to
communicate the necessary changes and come up with ways to manage the change
without screwing the average Joe over. They found ways to divert billions to
corporations with the best lobbyists, so there should be enough funds to
combaz climate change. And once the western world started we are already half
way there. The Paris accords used to be a global treaty, so there can be a
global approach.

~~~
polotics
Hallo Leute. Believe me I would really like nothing more than for you to be
right when you write: _it worked_ The share of renewables may have risen, but
at huge costs, and most importantly the installed capacity of non renewable
plants has not been reduced, mostly because of intermittency of renewables.
The net result: all the plants, just with lower utilisation. For nuclear this
is a tragedy because the marginal costs of production are minimal, lower
utilisation just hits profitability, which may indirectly be raising risks.
For coal, well just look up how much the Energiewende Germany still mines...
More on this here: [https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/societal-
choices/...](https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/societal-choices/what-
transition-are-the-germans-up-to-exactly/)

------
FailMore
If you're interested in following the latest climate change related news check
out Paul Beckwith's YouTube channel:

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr546o7ImhGM57qoY0hHvkA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr546o7ImhGM57qoY0hHvkA)

He does 15 minute videos reviewing the latest papers and news.

Headline: everything is happening faster than predicted.

[I'm not affiliated with Paul in any way, I just like his videos.]

~~~
eledumb
No, the climate models the businesses and politicians found acceptable are
watered down models that showed that we had a lot of time before we needed to
make changes, thus letting the businesses and politicians pass the buck.

The more aggressive models and the scientists that supported those models lost
funding and were shouted down. Some of the models that got buried fully
expected the changes to be happening at the pace we are witnessing. Some of
those models said that once the permafrost started to thaw that it would
release so much carbon, methane and nitrious oxide withing 10-15 years that
the earth it's self would surpass human generated output. If those models are
correct then it means we've passed a climate tipping point and nothing humans
can do will reverse what's been set in motion. Event if human greenhouse gas
output is reduced to zero overnight, the earth itself is now driving the
changes to the climate.

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ndonnellan
Minor nitpick: 20,000 square km is not equal to 12,427 square miles. Looks
like the author divided the area by the km/mi ratio instead of km^2/mi^2. I'd
email the author but the mailto: is improperly formatted.

------
markkat
Here's what we can do:

1\. Refuse to support politicians that do not see this as the grave issue it
is. Most other political issues won't matter if we cannot change the course of
global warming.

2\. Spread awareness. Update yourself on the facts, and share them with your
friends and family.

3\. Plant trees like crazy.

------
bubblewrap
"Ice flows are melting faster than average rates observed over the last three
decades"

This is actually normal for averages - some years are higher, some are lower.
Otherwise it wouldn't be an average.

Maybe the state of affairs is still alarming, but then they should describe it
better.

------
jcoffland
Honest question. If during the warmest periods ice melts all over the planet,
wouldn't ice cores lack carbon measurements for those periods? I'd love an
answer from someone with some expertise.

~~~
ceejayoz
Sure, but that hasn't happened for at _least_ 2.7 million years.

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/record-
shattering-27...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/record-
shattering-27-million-year-old-ice-core-reveals-start-ice-ages)

~~~
jcoffland
That article says that the oldest ice in the core was 2.7 million years old.
It actually mentions gaps in the record and ability to date ice only with a
100k year margin of error. This does not imply that we have a continuous
record of carbon levels for the past 2.7M years.

------
rolltiide
The article shows a graphic of year round shipping lanes by 2075

That seems like an un-dire consequence of the ice being gone

What am I missing? I should put a downpayment on beach front property in
Nevada?

~~~
truculent
Just don't buy any property in Miami

------
kitten_smuggler
News like this seems to be dominating my feed lately. Very depressing.

~~~
SiempreViernes
Is this a variation on the common lament that the media always shows negative
news, or sadness about the oncoming climate crisis?

------
brandmeyer
Here's a more quantitative view, to get an idea of how serious this season is.
Summary: its still early in the melt season, but this year is somewhat ahead
of every previous year.

(via the excellent arctic sea ice blog's regional data aggregation page:
[https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/regional](https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/regional))

This first graph is arctic sea ice area, including the sum of all of the sub-
regions that are what you normally think about as the Arctic Ocean. Several
other bodies of water also get seasonal ice coverage adjacent to the arctic
basin.

[https://14adebb0-a-62cb3a1a-s-
sites.googlegroups.com/site/ar...](https://14adebb0-a-62cb3a1a-s-
sites.googlegroups.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/amsr2/grf/basin-area-
multiprod.png)

There are three clusters of lines shown here. Each one corresponds to the
reports provided by a different sea-ice monitoring office. Differences in
technique have been used by commentators to kibbutz about the finer points of
what constitutes a record minimuim in the past, so its common for independent
observers to show multiple institutes all together now. While the details
differ, the broad picture is the same for all three offices.

The three clusters have been offset in the vertical axis to visually separate
the three institutes. Roughly 2/3 of the arctic basin melts out each year.

Each institute reports both sea ice area, and sea ice extent. Ice area is the
total area actually covered by ice. Ice extent is somewhat trickier to
understand. Much of the summer ice pack isn't a big chunk of ice, its composed
of many different chunks, and they will break up and merge over time. So many
of the map grid cells are only partially covered by ice. When the fraction of
coverage is greater than a certain threshold, then the entire grid cell is
counted towards "ice extent" \- the amount of ocean that has some ice floes in
it. With that definition in mind, here's the current graph of sea ice extent,
along with some recent historical context:

[https://14adebb0-a-62cb3a1a-s-
sites.googlegroups.com/site/ar...](https://14adebb0-a-62cb3a1a-s-
sites.googlegroups.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/amsr2/grf/basin-extent-
multiprod.png)

One thing of note: The current record year for melting is 2012. You'll note
that the shape of that year's curve is quite a bit different from every other
year's curve. 2012's weather patterns drove a melt that was so substantial
that every year since has followed a different trajectory than the years prior
to 2012, because so much multi-year ice melted out. At this point in the
Summer, several years have had less area and/or extent than the previous
record.

