We welcome back Axel Clavier, 8th grade “Inconvenient Youth” member, for his second guest post explaining the findings of The Climate Project. This month, Axel explains the melting of the ice caps and how ice-free summers spell out danger for everyone. Be sure to check out his first post on the impact of human interference on the global climate.
The North Pole sea ice extent is comparable to a human heart. It expands as the cold waters of the north freeze over and contracts as some of the ice melts in the summer. Summer sea ice is ice that perseveres through the summer and into winter. Because the North Pole is completely turned away from the sun during the winter, we won’t see a complete melting of the winter sea ice for a long time. But when all of the summer sea ice, or older ice, is finally gone, we’ll know we’re in trouble. Since 1980, we saw a massive decline in the extent of summer sea ice and then, in 2007, the numbers fell off a cliff, as seen in the graph and the two images below.
The image on the left below represents the North Pole in year 1881 while the right represents the same pole in 2007. In 1881, there’s a lot of older ice, ice that was more than five years old, depicted in red. In 2007, there is almost no sea ice older than five years.
“Arctic sea ice extent averaged over December 2010 was 12.00 million square kilometers (4.63 million square miles). This is the lowest December ice extent recorded in satellite observations from 1979 to 2010, 270,000 square kilometers (104,000 square miles) below the previous record low of 12.27 million square kilometers (4.74 million square miles) set in 2006 and 1.35 million square kilometers (521,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.” National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Even though the ice will keep coming back in the winter, the dramatic loss in summer sea ice is a gigantic neon sign that depicts: DANGER. The melting of the North Pole changes sea currents, which ends up changing the climate in certain regions of the world, like Europe. Europe has a warm sea current to thank for its temperate climate, despite the fact that it is at the same latitude as Canada. Also, many animals, including the polar bear and the walrus, depend on the sea ice as a habitat, and are slowly going extinct because of the loss of the ice. Scientists are debating whether they will make it.
Ice-free summers are practically unavoidable at this point: “The loss of summer sea ice over decades is one of the firmest predictions of climate models: Given the current patterns of fossil fuel use and the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, sea-ice-free summers in the arctic are a virtual certainty by the end of century, and possibly much sooner” concludes Wired Science after taking a survey of scientists’ opinions on the matter.
The melting of the ice caps is a warning and a clear sign that global warming is real. And it will only get worse. In fact, this effect sets such an unbalance in motion that it is comparable to a line up of falling dominoes. What this means is that when you melt sea ice, more water is exposed and therefore heated (water is much more absorbent than ice). And in turn, this increased heat goes to melt other sea ice, which continues on in an endless feedback loop. It will be hard to stop this loop once it is set in motion, but it is not impossible, if we make up our minds to do it.
Axel Clavier
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“The melting of the ice caps is a warning and a clear sign that global warming is real. And it will only get worse.”
Global warming is real. The ice caps reached all the way down to the lower 48 states only 20,000 years ago, they have been melting and sublimating back to where they are ever since. Therefore global warming is real, it’s been warming globally since the last glaciation. Being in grade 8 you are fully aware of this. Saying it will only get worse is misleading. Instead of “it will only get worse” you should say ‘it will only continue” (at least until we start back toward the next glaciation).
Great article! Last time I was mentioning these statistics along with current facts of the melting ice to a friend of mine who does not “believe” (as if this were a religion!) in climate warming he kept on insisting that our planet has been through the same scenario thousands of years ago. However I have never found such evidence. Have you?
On another note I am going to show this to my 9th grader son. He will be impressed by your in-depth analysis!
Well written, Axel. I learned something new. I’d like to see a follow up on how we can make practical everyday changes in our habits to help reduce GW.
Article très intéressant et clair
merci Axel
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