Updated May 2017
With President Trump signing an executive order that rolls back the Obama Administration's climate change policies and looking like he will also withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, recent data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center is particularly interesting. The Energy Independence Executive Order puts an end to the "war on coal" by curtailing the Environmental Protection Agency's regulations restricting greenhouse gas emissions sourced from coal-fired power plants. The EPA has been directed to formally consider repealing the Clean Power Plan, the centrepiece of the Obama Administration's 2015 plan to cut the power sector's 2005 level carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent by 2030 as shown here:
With President Trump signing an executive order that rolls back the Obama Administration's climate change policies and looking like he will also withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, recent data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center is particularly interesting. The Energy Independence Executive Order puts an end to the "war on coal" by curtailing the Environmental Protection Agency's regulations restricting greenhouse gas emissions sourced from coal-fired power plants. The EPA has been directed to formally consider repealing the Clean Power Plan, the centrepiece of the Obama Administration's 2015 plan to cut the power sector's 2005 level carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent by 2030 as shown here:
"Review of the
Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan" and Related
Rules and Agency Actions. (a) The Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency (Administrator) shall immediately take all steps necessary to review the
final rules set forth in subsections (b)(i) and (b)(ii) of this section, and
any rules and guidance issued pursuant to them, for consistency with the policy
set forth in section 1 of this order and, if appropriate, shall, as soon as
practicable, suspend, revise, or rescind the guidance, or publish for notice
and comment proposed rules suspending, revising, or rescinding those rules. In
addition, the Administrator shall immediately take all steps necessary to
review the proposed rule set forth in subsection (b)(iii) of this section, and,
if appropriate, shall, as soon as practicable, determine whether to revise or
withdraw the proposed rule."
Coincidentally, the
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) just released its analysis
of sea ice conditions in the Arctic. Here is a summary of
their findings.
Arctic sea ice appears to
have reached its winter season maximum on March 7, 2017, the lowest maximum in
the 38-year satellite record. The maximum extent was 14.42 million square
kilometres (5.57 million square miles), 7.8 percent smaller than the 1981 to
2010 average maximum of 15.64 million square kilometres (6.04 million square
miles). This year's maximum is also 97,000 square kilometres (37,000
square miles) smaller than the previous lowest maximum which occurred on
February 25, 2015.
Here is a map showing the
Arctic sea ice aerial extent on March 7, 2017 compared to the median extent for
the years between 1981 and 2010 as shown on the orange line:
Here is a graph showing
the Arctic sea ice extent (the area of the ocean with at least 15 percent sea
ice) for the past 6 years as well as the median for the period between 1981 and
2010:
Let's now look at Arctic sea ice volume. Not only is the sea ice less
aerially extensive, it is thinner as shown on this map from the Polar Science Center which
shows thicker than normal ice in red and thinner than normal ice in blue:
Sea ice is thinner over
much of the Arctic, particularly in the region north of Greenland and Ellesmere
Island, a region that has historically had the thickest ice in the Arctic.
Obviously, reduced ice
thickness and reduced ice aerial extent will have an impact on the total volume
of Arctic sea ice. The volume of Arctic sea ice volume is calculated
using the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) from
the Polar Science Center. Ice volume
anomalies for each day are calculated relative to the average volume over the
period between 1979 and 2016 for that day of the year; This removes the
annual cycle of ice volume growth and shrinkage. According to PIOMAS, the
model mean annual of sea ice volume over the years between 1979 and 2016 ranges
from 28,000 cubic kilometres in April to 11,500 cubic kilometres in September.
Here is a graphic showing the Arctic sea ice volume from PIOMAS:
Please note that the
areas shaded grey on the graphic represent the one and two standard deviation
of the residuals of the anomaly from the trend as shown with the blue line.
In February 2017, Arctic ice volume was measured at 17,400 cubic
kilometres, the lowest volume on record and 42 percent below the maximum
February ice volume in 1979. As well, it was 30 percent below the 1979 to
2016 mean and nearly 2000 cubic kilometres below the previous record set in
2013.
While a significant
percentage of Americans believe that climate change is a hoax, and in the case
of Donald Trump, a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, what if climatologists are
right and the world is changing? The changes in Arctic sea ice areal
extent and volume may just be the "canaries in the climate change coal
mine" that are telling us that something is changing. What happens when it's too late to make the changes that will prevent further damage to the delicate ecology of the oblate spheroid that humans (and other beings) call home?
Your a total moron if you don't think the climate is changing. The climate though has never been stable ever. It was both much warmer and colder in the past. The world goes through constant climate change. It went through changes when there were no people to affect the change at all. Now my belief is while obviously humans have had an effect on the planet, the amount of effect in my mind is completely up for debate.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's up for debate. But the evidence that human activities are causing rapid and severe climate change is completely overwhelming, to the point that even the oil companies agree that we need to address the crisis.
ReplyDeleteAnthropogenic or not, let's move the debate on to something more productive: how can we best mitigate climate change without destroying our standard of living.