Arctic and Glacial Ice melting like Igloos in the Sahara

It's always a little bit difficult to tell whether odd weather can be attributed to climate change, or just nature being weird. Ice, however, has been a consistent canary in the proverbial coal mine for climate change scientists.

Two major ice benchmarks, arctic ice, and glacial ice, have been showing continued signs of massive deterioration.

The BBC reports that recently released data from NASA indicates that even though the overall surface area of ice covered in the Arctic is thicker this year than in years past, the volume of ice in the Arctic continues to melt away at alarming rates. The overall ice crust is thinning dramatically as years-old ice deep below the surface liquefies.

What annoys me is that not all of the media sources are reporting the data accurately. Some are reporting the surface area of ice as an "increase" in Arctic ice, contrary to the facts presently. The truth is, despite the media spin, there is less ice in the Arctic. Much less.

This summer should see another Arctic thaw similar to last year making for another ship-navigable Arctic. Don't be fooled though, this news is not good. It's likely that melting Arctic ice will severely impact the ocean's currents, leading to massive weather pattern shifts all over the globe.

Scientists project at current rates that the Arctic will be ice free by 2040.

Glaciers are receding rapidly as well. The graph above is data released from the Glacial Monitoring Service which takes samples from 80 glaciers all over the world. The number decreasing is the average of the size of the glaciers, taken at similar times during the year every year.

Climate change isn't waiting for us to clean up our acts. It's steamrolling ahead. Consider whether there's a project you can implement this month to help reduce your carbon footprint.

Comments

[Blake]

You gotta love how the traditional media is presenting these issues....not.

I was watching some program on PBS, and they showed a graphic showing the size of the arctic in 1970-something compared to now; that was eye-opening. Completely gone by 2040? Seems nuts, but I believe it. Good post!