Although we've mentioned this before, it's grim news that bears repeating. Global heating caused by human industry is melting glaciers and sea ice all around the world — but nowhere more dramatically than on and near Antarctica.
Sea ice that covers the ocean around Antarctica hit a record low surface area in the winter, a preliminary analysis of US satellite data shows, and scientists fear the impact of climate change is increasing at the southern pole.
“This is the lowest sea ice maximum in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record by a wide margin,” said the NSIDC, a government-supported programme at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
At one point this year, sea ice had dropped to 1.03 million sq km, far smaller than the previous record low and an area of loss roughly the size of Texas and California combined.
“It’s a record-smashing sea ice low in the Antarctic,” NSIDC scientist Walt Meier said in comments published by NASA.
The excerpt above is from a news story published at Al Jazeera.
Over at Medium, an article by Ricky Lanusse goes into more depth on the subject, and concludes with this heartfelt lament...
It’s been 33 years since the first IPCC report on climate change. Three-plus decades of climate negotiations and disappointment: emissions soaring, climate denial, on-paper optimism, and ‘net zero, but not in my term’ speeches.
Now, the northern summer of 2023 is officially the hottest on record, pushing global sea temperatures to record highs and disrupting ocean ecosystems. Over 3.8 billion people — almost half the world — felt the wrath of human-induced extreme heat between June and August.
You don’t grab buckets or towels when your bathtub overflows, ignoring or denying the problem. You turn off the tap. Climate change isn’t a future problem; it’s here. And you might think it won’t affect you, but as temperatures climb, more will face such dire choices. The question is not if but when.
Antarctica’s struggle isn’t a far-off concern; it’s a glaring reminder that climate change is here and spares no place on Earth.
So here's the deal: We currently have 2,522 (and counting) followers on Twitter, and we want to exceed that on Mastodon before our Editor-in-Chief @alexip718 heads to Colorado for ScienceWriters23 conference in one month. Can you help us get there?
Flower that thrives in Death Valley may hold secret to heat adaptation: Insights into how Death Valley’s Tidestromia oblongifolia tolerates such high temperatures could help researchers to engineer crops that can survive global warming https://archive.is/0I9Vn
What is “Earth's Energy Imbalance” and why does it matter?
Earth's climate is determined by a delicate balance between how much of the Sun's radiative energy is absorbed in our atmosphere and at the surface, and how much thermal infrared radiation Earth emits back into space. A positive energy imbalance means the Earth system is gaining energy, causing the planet to heat up, while a negative energy imbalance will cause the planet to cool down.
Two years ago, in June 2021, NASA issued a report warning that “Earth's Energy Imbalance Has Doubled” over the period from 2005 to 2019. The report was noticed by practically no one except diligent climate scientists and a few so-called doomers.
A few weeks ago, Leon Simons, a climate researcher in the Netherlands, stated at Xitter that the 2021 NASA report estimated that Earth's energy imbalance would soon decrease due to La Niña and with a negative PDO (that’s Pacific Decadal Oscillation, an ocean circulation pattern).
But the opposite happened. Even with La Niña (which ended very recently) and with a negative PDO, there was an overall continued increase in global heat uptake. Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI) remained positive, meaning heat was accumulating.
That was NOT supposed to happen.
One possible explanation, according to Simons…
In January 2020 new shipping regulations came into effect, decreasing the maximum amount of sulfur in shipping fuels from 3.5% to 0.5%. Then in 2020 we saw a rapid increase in the amount of solar radiation being absorbed by the ocean in major shipping lanes.
If this trend continues, that could mean that the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes (where many of us live) will warm much more rapidly. It could also impact global and regional weather systems, like the monsoons. More extreme weather is likely.
He wrote the above in March of this year. Since then, we certainly have been experiencing extreme weather.
All indications are that the EEI — Earth's Energy Imbalance — is on the upswing, increasing at a dangerously fast pace.
On Friday, Simons posted an image that he calls “the most important graph in the world.” You can see it below.
He also said this…
♦️ July surface air temperatures are the highest for any month on record!
♦️ Global sea surface temperatures running record high for 5 months now and might continue for 10 more!
♦️ Global sea ice has been shattering record lows for two months now!
♦️ All at the same time!
We are rapidly entering a climate state not seen for millions of years.
The only sensible action is to STOP burning fossil fuels. No more half measures, no more Business As Usual.
Amazingly, there are people — many, I'm afraid, in positions of power and influence — who continue to assert that technology will surely save us and that capitalism can find the answers.
Uh-huh. And how's that going so far?
Although most climate scientists, when asked privately or off the record, admit they now expect a global temperature rise of 3°C to 4°C or even higher before the end of this century (see https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/109642315870697356) a few happy optimists are always ready to assure us that while a “temporary overshoot” beyond 1.5°C might occur, it won’t last because, um, because magic will happen!
That's not quite what they say, but it's almost as bad since they’re asking us to depend on carbon dioxide removal (CDR), a hopeful fantasy that we can someday cheaply and effectively remove gigantic amounts of carbon from the air and put it back in the ground.
Instead of, you know, just doing what we should have done in the first place — leave it in the ground!
Here is the truth: To avoid catastrophe, to prevent the collapse of civilization, to avert the possible extinction of the human race — we MUST stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere. This requires urgent, immediate emissions cuts, phasing down to full ZERO (not phony greenwashed "Net Zero") within a matter of years.
The science is unequivocal. The messages we are receiving from Gaia could not be more clear. If we don't change our ways, and quickly, it's game over for civilization.
Sick of hearing about record heat? Scientists say those numbers paint the story of a warming world: With a summer of extreme weather records dominating the news, meteorologists and scientists say records like these give a glimpse of the big picture: a warming planet caused by climate change. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-sick-scientists-story-world.html