Vatican Science Panel Calls Attention to the Threat of Glacial Melt

Posted on February 1, 2012 by cathymoo

Main Rongbuk Glacier, Mt. Everest, 8848 m, Tibet Autonomous Region

Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene: A Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

Last year, the Vatican sponsored an interesting and quite comprehensive report on the effect of climate change on mountain glaciers in the Anthropocene. The report is the work of a group of glaciologists, climate scientists, meteorologists, hydrologists, physicists, chemists, mountaineers, and lawyers from all over the world. Co-chaired by Scripps Climate and Atmospheric Scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan (a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences since 2004), Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, formerly affiliated with Scripps, and Laurent Bengtsson, former head of the European weather forecasting center, the group also included Nobel Laureate Carlo Rubbia, former director general of the CERN Laboratory. Among the rest of the 24 authors are Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, Wilfried Haeberli from Switzerland, Georg Kaser from Austria and Anil Kulkarni from India, considered among the world’s foremost experts on glacial change. Organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican, report authors met at the Vatican in early April, 2011, to contemplate the observed retreat of the mountain glaciers, its causes and consequences.

“We call on all people and nations to recognise the serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other land uses. We appeal to all nations to develop and implement, without delay, effective and fair policies to reduce the causes and impacts of climate change on communities and ecosystems, including mountain glaciers and their watersheds, aware that we all live in the same home. By acting now, in the spirit of common but differentiated responsibility, we accept our duty to one another and to the stewardship of a planet blessed with the gift of life. We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.”

Morteratsch glacier (Alps). Courtesy of J. Alean, SwissEduc

The co-authors of “Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene” list numerous examples of glacial decline around the world and the evidence linking that decline to human-caused changes in climate and air pollution. The threat to the ways of life of people dependent upon glaciers and snow packs for water supplies compels immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to what changes are happening now and are projected to happen in the future.

Three Recommended Measures

The report cautions against a “business-as-usual mode” when it comes to a sustainable future and the continued extraction of coal, oil, and gas. It then goes on to urge society at large to:

“Reduce worldwide carbon dioxide emissions without delay, using all means possible…”
“Reduce the concentrations of warming air pollutants…by as much as 50%”
“Prepare to adapt to the climatic changes, both chronic and abrupt, that society will be unable to mitigate”

And their final summary statement really drives the point home: “The cost of the three recommended measures pales in comparison to the price the world will pay if we fail to act now.”

Read the entire report here including specific findings and recommendations. It’s quite fascinating and enlightening, especially coming from what some might characterize as an unlikely source.

About the Anthropocene

“Aggressive exploitation of fossil fuels and other natural resources has damaged the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we inhabit. To give one example, some 1000 billion tons of carbon dioxide and other climatically important “greenhouse” gases have been pumped into the atmosphere. As a result, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air now exceeds the highest levels of the last 800,000 years. The climatic and ecological impacts of this human interference with the Earth System are expected to last for many millennia, warranting a new name, The Anthropocene, for the new “man-made” geologic epoch we are living in.”

Arctic sea ice reaches minimum 2011 extent, the second lowest in the satellite record

Posted on September 21, 2011 by cathymoo

The blanket of sea ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean appears to have reached its lowest extent for 2011, the second lowest recorded since satellites began measuring it in 1979, according to the University of Colorado Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The Arctic sea ice extent fell to 1.67 million square miles, or 4.33 million square kilometers on Sept. 9, 2011. This year’s minimum of 1.67 million square miles is more than 1 million square miles below the 1979-2000 monthly average extent for September — an area larger than Texas and California combined.

While this year’s September minimum extent was greater than the all-time low in 2007, it remains significantly below the long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, according to scientists involved in the analysis. Most scientists believe the shrinking Arctic sea ice is tied to warming temperatures caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases pumped into Earth’s atmosphere.

“Every summer that we see a very low ice extent in September sets us up for a similar situation the following year,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze, also a professor in CU-Boulder’s geography department. “The Arctic sea ice cover is so thin now compared to 30 years ago that it just can’t take a hit anymore. This overall pattern of thinning ice in the Arctic in recent decades is really starting to catch up with us.”

Serreze said that in 2007, the year of record low Arctic sea ice, there was a “nearly perfect” set-up of specific weather conditions. Winds pushed in more warm air over the Arctic than usual, helping to melt sea ice, and winds also pushed the floating ice chunks together into a smaller area. “It is interesting that this year, the second lowest sea ice extent ever recorded, that we didn’t see that kind of weather pattern at all,” he said.

The last five years have been the five lowest Arctic sea ice extents recorded since satellite measurements began in 1979, said CU-Boulder’s Walt Meier, an NSIDC scientist. “The primary driver of these low sea ice conditions is rising temperatures in the Arctic, and we definitely are heading in the direction of ice-free summers,” he said. “Our best estimates now indicate that may occur by about 2030 or 2040.”

There still is a chance the sea ice extent could fall slightly due to changing winds or late season melt, said Meier. During the first week of October, CU-Boulder’s NSIDC will issue a full analysis of the 2011 results and a comparison to previous years.

NSIDC is part of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences — a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquartered on the CU campus — and is funded primarily by NASA.

NSIDC’s sea ice data come from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder sensor on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program F17 satellite using methods developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

For more information and graphics visit CU-Boulder’s NSIDC website at nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2011/091511.html.

James Balog: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss