Arctic 'tipping point' may not be reached

BBC
Matt McGraff

Scientists say current concerns over a tipping point in the disappearance of Arctic sea ice may be misplaced.

Danish researchers analysed ancient pieces of driftwood in north Greenland which they say is an accurate way to measure the extent of ancient ice loss.

Writing in the journal Science, the team found evidence that ice levels were about 50% lower 5,000 years ago.

They say changes to wind systems can slow down the rate of melting.

They argue, therefore, that a tipping point under current scenarios is unlikely.

While modern observations by ship and by satellite give us a very accurate picture of the recent state of the ice, historic information is limited. The ice comes and goes without leaving a permanent record.

But a Danish team believes it has found an indirect method that gives a clear picture of the ice loss dating back 11,000 years.

Dr Svend Funder from the Natural History Museum of Denmark led several expeditions to inhospitable regions of Northern Greenland. On these frozen shores the Danish team noticed several pieces of ancient driftwood. They concluded that it could be an important method of unlocking the secrets of the ancient ice.

"Driftwood cannot float across the water, it has to be ferried across the ocean on ice, and this voyage takes several years, which means that driftwood is actually a signal of multi-year sea ice in the ocean and it is this ice that is at risk at the moment" said Dr Funder.

Carbon dating was used to determine the age of the wood. And figuring out its origins also yielded important information.

"It's so lovely that drift wood from Siberia is mainly larch and from North America is mainly spruce. So if we see there was more larch or spruce we can see that the wind system had changed and in some periods there was little spruce and in other periods there was lots," he said.

Wind delay?
As well as the driftwood, the scientists mapped beach ridges for 500km (310 miles) along the coast. This proved that at one time the waves had reached the shore unhindered by the ice.

Dr Funder and his team say their data shows a clear connection between temperature and the amount of sea ice. The researchers concluded that for about 3,000 years, during a period called the Holocene Climate Optimum, there was more open water and far less ice than today - probably less than 50% of the minimum Arctic sea ice recorded in 2007.

But the researcher says that even with a loss of this size, the sea ice will not reach a point of no return.

"I think we can say that with the loss of 50% of the current ice, the tipping point wasn't reached."

The idea of an Arctic tipping point has been highlighted by many scientists in recent years. They have argued that when enough ice is lost it could cause a runaway effect with disastrous consequences.

"I don't say that our current worries are not justified, but I think that there are factors which will work to delay the action in relation to some of the models that have been in the media.

"I think the effect of temperature and global warming may cause a change in the general wind systems which maybe will delay the effects of the rapidly rising temperatures a little bit."

The researchers are now set to examine DNA from the fossils of polar bears to try and find out how the animals fared when the temperatures were higher and there was much less ice.

Ice age threat should ease EPA global warming regs

The Washington Examiner
Shannon Goessling

Rather than spiraling into a global warming meltdown, we may be heading into the next ice age.

The U.S. National Solar Observatory, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and astrophysicists across the planet report that the nearly all-time low sunspot activity may result in a sustained cooling period on Earth.

The news has sent global warming theory advocates scrambling to discount and explain away the impact on global temperatures. However, the "news" is not really that new.

Many reputable scientists have been warning for decades that we are nearing the end of the 11,500-year average period between ice ages. And the last similar crash in sunspot activity coincided with the so-called "Little Ice Age" in the 1600s that lasted nearly a century.

Despite increasing evidence that "global warming" climate change is not the unified scientific theory it has been promoted to be, vested interests continue to push for stringent limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

Certain investment banks and trading houses that stand to make billions on so-called "carbon credits," and the environmental sociologists who have as a stated purpose to change our way of life, are a powerful bloc.

In the Obama administration, this cabal has a willing "big stick" in the form the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has enacted draconian measures that will, by President Obama's admission, make energy costs "skyrocket."

The subject of intense litigation, the EPA regulations were enacted this year without congressional approval as required by the Clean Air Act and other laws. Estimates put the economic damage of these regulations at $1 trillion over the next 20 years, with a loss of between four and 10 million jobs.

Ironically, the current rush by global warming advocates to uncouple mounting evidence of global cooling from the global warming regime is not the first time they've backpedaled.

As referenced in ongoing litigation, the EPA admitted that generally applicable regulations would lead to "absurd" results, leading the agency to create a so-called "Tailoring Rule."

For example, global warming alarmists admit by their own calculations that reducing carbon emissions among a sample of large U.S. "emitters" to EPA-required levels might reduce the surface temperature by .00071 degree Celsius -- or 70 times lower than what is detectable.

Annual emission reductions sought would be replaced in 13 days by industrial growth in China. "Absurd" is understatement. So how do we handle "global cooling?"

In the 1970s and '80s, climatologists and astrophysicists were setting off alarms about pending global cooling and "the new ice age." Headlines in major weekly news magazines warned of a cooling catastrophe, with experts like famed astronomer Carl Sagan calling on industrialized countries to produce more carbon dioxide to offset the pending disaster.

UN Climate Body Struggling to Pinpoint Rising Sea Levels

By Axel Bojanowski

REUTERS

Contradictory Studies

The United Nations' forecast of how quickly global sea levels will rise this century is vital in determining how much money might be needed to combat the phenomenon. But predictions by researchers vary wildly, and the attempt to find consensus has become fractious.

It is a number which will ultimately establish how billions in taxpayer money will be spent -- and it is one which is the subject of heated debate, both among politicians and scientists.

When the next report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is issued in two years, it will include a forecast for how high the world's oceans might rise by 2100. With 146 million people in the world currently living less than one meter above sea level, the forecast will be vital in determining how much money governments must spend on measures to protect people from the rising waters and to resettle those in the most acute danger.

Eighteen scientists from 10 countries are involved in the task, and their first step is to determine which of the myriad studies relating to climate change's effect on ocean levels to consider. In the end, they are to establish a possible range, with the maximum being the most decisive -- and most contested -- number. Even more challenging, the estimates currently differ by almost five meters (16.5 feet).

The last IPCC report, which was issued in 2007, forecast an ocean level rise of up to 59 centimeters by the end of the century. Now, the UN experts must once again sift through hundreds of reports, and the haggling over their findings is not unlike the bargaining for the best price at the bazaar. On the one hand, researchers have published forecasts that are far higher than the result reported in the last IPCC report. On the other, sea level measurements have yet to prove any meaningful rise though there is agreement that they are, on global average, rising.

Outdoing Each Other's Predictions
 
In recent days, the debate over the IPCC forecast has heated up. Some 4,000 experts gathered in Melbourne, Australia last week for a meeting of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). And it seems almost as though they are in competition to outdo one-another's predictions.
NASA climate researcher James Hansen, for example, warns in a paper published this month that sea levels could rise by five meters in the next 90 years -- nine times higher than the maximum cited in the last IPCC report. He insists that he has found indications that sea levels in the future could rise by as much as five centimeters per year.

Hansen, say some climatologists, is risking his reputation with such an extreme forecast. Three years ago, researchers found that a rise of over two meters per century is impossible because so much ice simply can't melt in such a short time. Furthermore, current measurements show a rise of just three millimeters per year.

An additional recent study, written by Jim Houston from the Engineer Research Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi and Bob Dean from the University of Florida in Gainsville for the Journal of Coastal Research, argues that sea levels have risen steadily for the last 100 years -- and that there has been no acceleration at all in recent years.

A reply was not long in coming. In the current issue of the Journal of Coastal Research, Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research argues that Houston and Dean only included sea level calculations beginning in the 1930s. He says that if one chooses a year from the previous century, an accelerated rise can be seen.

Fluctuation
 

Environmental activists occupy Arctic oil rig

The Independent

Cairn Offshore Drilling

Greenpeace activists climbed aboard an oil rig off Turkey today in a bid to prevent it from leaving for Greenland to begin deep-water drilling in the Arctic. 

Eleven activists in rock-climbing gear used speedboats to intercept and then climb on to the Leiv Eiriksson after it had left a port in Istanbul. 

They climbed the rig's derrick, unfurling a banner that read: "Stop Arctic destruction" and "Go Beyond Oil, Choose Clean Energy". 

The platform, bound for Greenland's Baffin Bay, did not stop and was continuing on its course, heading towards the Dardanelles strait with the activists on board, Deniz Sozudogru, a Greenpeace spokeswoman for the Mediterranean region, said. 

There were no Turkish coastguard boats trailing the oil rig, she said. The Dardanelles connects the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean sea. 

Activists from Britain, Denmark, Canada, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Sweden and Turkey were prepared to occupy the rig for days, according to the group. 

It said the oil rig, operated by Scottish company Cairn Energy, has "a very short window in which to drill their four new exploratory wells" due to extreme weather conditions in the Arctic.

Cairn Energy confirmed an "incident" involving Greenpeace off Turkey's coast and said the vessel was continuing "in transit to take part in Cairn's 2011 exploration programme in Greenland." 

The company said it was operating at the invitation of Greenland's government and had successfully drilled three wells there in 2010. 

Officials added: "Wherever it is active, Cairn seeks to operate in a safe and prudent manner. Cairn respects the rights of individuals and organisations to express their views in a safe manner."

Greenpeace wants Cairn to suspend deep-water drilling after the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Freezing temperatures, severe weather and a highly-remote location pose unprecedented challenges to any oil spill response in the Arctic and mean a spill could be impossible to contain and clean up," Greenpeace said. 

Leiv Eiriksson, one of the world's largest rigs, had been exploring possible oil and gas in the Black Sea under a joint venture between Turkey and Brazil's Petrobas.