Scientists are now indicating that there is incontrovertible evidence that the warming in the Arctic Ocean is melting sea ice at an unprecedented rate. This past summer, the area covered by sea ice shrank by more than one million square miles, reducing the Arctic icecap to only half the size it was 50 years ago. For the first time, the Northwest Passage opened for shipping.
But even if the international community were to somehow miraculously slow climate change, warming is still irreversible. Theory predicts that as ice is lost in the Arctic, more of the ocean’s surface will be exposed to solar radiation and will warm up. When the autumn comes and the sun goes down, that warmth will be released back into the atmosphere, delaying the fall in air temperatures.
This feedback process will result in Arctic temperatures rising faster than the global mean. And it is no longer a matter of if, but when, the Arctic Ocean opens to regular marine transportation and exploration of its lucrative natural-resource deposits, exacerbating the problem still further.
The Arctic has always experienced cooling and warming, but the current melt defies any historical comparison. It is dramatic, abrupt, and directly correlated with industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. The results of global warming in the Arctic are far more dramatic than elsewhere due to the sharper angle at which the sun’s rays strike the polar region during summer and because the retreating sea ice is turning into open water, which absorbs far more solar radiation. This dynamic is creating a vicious melting cycle known as the ice-albedo feedback loop.
If this process continues, it will extend the melting season for Arctic ice, delaying the onset of winter freezing and weakening further the whole system. These warming effects are not just restricted to the ocean. Circulation patterns could then move the warmth over land areas.
The prospect of more open water in the Arctic Ocean in summer would be a boon to shipping interests and the prospect of increased shipping for countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are trying to stake their claim to extended territorial waters under the Law of the Sea Treaty to exploit resources believed to lie beneath the ocean floor.
One aspect on which researchers are keeping their eye on is the release of methane and carbon dioxide as permafrost thaws and tundra decomposes.
Already and alarmingly, The Economist published the following on the Maldives: “Losing one’s home is a sadly common experience in these dark economic days, but it normally happens at an individual, rather than a national, level. The residents of the Maldives, however, face collective homelessness as a result of rising sea levels, which are expected eventually to engulf the 1,200-island nation, whose highest point is 2.3 metres above sea level. Faced with this alarming prospect, the country’s new president, Mohamed Nasheed, has come up with an equally dramatic solution: put aside some of the Maldives’ tourism revenues to buy another homeland.”
Beware Bangladesh and Holland. Also a quarter of the heavily populated Nile Delta in Egypt would be underwater. Coastal Vietnam would also be severely affected, as would Mauritania, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, the Bahamas and Benin.
A sea level rise of 36 inches or so would turn about 56 million people in 84 developing countries into refugees, according to a World Bank economist.
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