That's Funny... » global warming http://staff.washington.edu/rec3141 the website of Eric Collins, grad student Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:25:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Reaching the Arctic sea ice annual minimum http://staff.washington.edu/rec3141/wordpress/archives/251 http://staff.washington.edu/rec3141/wordpress/archives/251#comments Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:53:37 +0000 eric http://staff.washington.edu/rec3141/?p=251 It looks like we’ve hit bottom for the year, and it’s not exactly good news. Although we didn’t break the record set in 2007 for Lowest Minimum Arctic Sea Ice Extent In Recorded Human History, we got close. This year’s minimum, about 4.5 million square kilometers, is much nearer to last year’s low than the long term average minimum: 6.75 million square kilometers.

2008 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum

Here’s a news article, in the ‘Local’ section of the Seattle P-I, discussing the issue with some UW scientists: North Pole ever closer to having no ice. Ignatius Rigor says “It’s hard to see how the ice might come back, unless we are able to curb the greenhouse gases.” But even if we stopped emitting tomorrow, the greenhouse gases we’ve already put into the atmosphere have imparted a kind of ‘chemical inertia’ that will take Nature many human generations to be rid of.

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