Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Guardian wants you to weep for an ice shelf which even they admit didn’t exist back when the Egyptian Pyramids were being constructed. They demand we do everything in our power to prevent the ice melt from uncovering vast deposits of gold and precious minerals, and opening valuable new sea routes.
The Arctic is in a death spiral. How much longer will it exist?
The region is unravelling faster than anyone could once have predicted. But there may still be time to act
At the end of July, 40% of the 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf, located on the north-western edge of Ellesmere Island, calved into the sea. Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf was no more.
On the other side of the island, the most northerly in Canada, the St Patrick’s Bay ice caps completely disappeared.
…
Yet some find opportunities in the crisis. Melting ice has made the region’s abundant mineral deposits and oil and gas reserves more accessible by ship. China is heavily investing in the increasingly ice-free Northern Sea Route over the top of Russia, which promises to cut shipping times between the Far East and Europe by 10 to 15 days.
The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago could soon yield another shortcut. And in Greenland, vanishing ice is unearthing a wealth of uranium, zinc, gold, iron and rare earth elements. In 2019, Donald Trump claimed he was considering buying Greenland from Denmark. Never before has the Arctic enjoyed such political relevance.
…
“It’s got to be both a reduction in emissions and carbon capture at this point,” explains Stroeve. “We need to take out what we’ve already put in there.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/13/arctic-ice-melting-climate-change-global-warming
What can I say – weakest case ever for tackling global warming.
If you don’t act now, and invest enormous resources in ensuring vast deposits of gold and precious minerals remain frozen in the ground, and new prosperity creating shipping routes remain closed, the Caribou might suffer.
My thought: pass the Venison.
Update (EW): Fixed a typo in the first paragraph.
Speaking about glaciers, credits from http://www.icelandguide.is:
The glacier Vatnajökull (note: the 2nd largest ice cap in Europe) began formation 2.500 years ago but three tousand years ago the Ice Age glacier had disappeared altogether. Some glaciers had always been on the highest mountains. At the settlement the glaciers started to retreat and it was considerably smaller that it is today. Glacier snouts have in most places been at least 15 km further inland than now and wild sheep are mentioned on the south side of Esjufjöll. The Northerners-hollow has possibly been without a glacier. During the 13th century it got colder and glaciers advanced. The glaciers culminated around the turn of the century 1900.
So much for the OMG-the-glaciers-are-disappearing hoax
But the glaciers ARE disappearing, cherry pick examples though you will…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49678903
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8819295/Glaciers-surrounded-meltwater-lakes-lose-ice-ten-times-faster-dry-land.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47122641
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20190725-shrinking-glaciers-climate-change-french-alps
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50573623
Not at all. Stress goes on OMG.
Because the tale that is told goes like that: “those glaciers have always been there and we are making them disappear”. Now THAT is a hoax.
If the second largest glacier in Europe was not there 3 kyrs ago, it means that they NATURALLY come and go, shrink and enlarge. Of course they are shrinking now, as they grew unusually large during the LIA. And they have been shrinking for the last 100+ years, way before CO2 from human activities was even detectable.
SO WHAT !!
They are often finding tree stumps or even human artifacts underneath.
Many of these glaciers DIDN’T EXIST before the LIA.,
Why should they remain after it. ??
Do you have ANY EVIDENCE that the highly beneficial warming . out of the coldest period in 10,000 years, is anything but TOTALLY NATURAL.
You might note that in recent years the N coast of Ellesmere Island, where the ice shelf collapsed, has been ice free for most of the summer… a worrying new development…
Meanwhile here’s your update on the arctic sea ice at over 1 month since minimum: still 1200km of open water from the ice edge to the Russian coast… extent and area at lowest for this date.
SO WHAT. !!
Most of those ice shelves didn’t exist before the Little Ice Age
Why is it that you think COLD, INHOSPITABLE, NO life Arctic is better?
The RECOVERY of sea ice back slightly towards Holocene norms after the EXTREME HIGHS of the LIA and late 1970s has been an absolute boon for Arctic wildlife
Not only is the land surface GREENING, but the seas are also springing BACK to life after being TOO COLD and frozen over for much of the last 500 or so years (coldest period of the Holocene)
The drop in sea ice slightly toward the pre-LIA levels has opened up the food supply for the nearly extinct Bowhead Whale, and they are returning to the waters around Svalbard.
https://partner.sciencenorway.no/arctic-ocean-forskningno-fram-centre/the-ice-retreats–whale-food-returns/1401824
The Blue Mussel is also making a return, having been absent for a few thousand years, apart from a brief stint during the MWP.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683617715701?journalCode=hola
Many other species of whale are also returning now that the sea ice extent has dropped from the extreme highs of the LIA. Whales cannot swim on ice. !
https://blog.poseidonexpeditions.com/whales-of-svalbard/
Great thing is, that because of fossil fuels and plastics, they will no longer be hunted for whale blubber for lamps and for whale bone.
Hopefully the Arctic doesn’t re-freeze too much in the next AMO cycle, and these glorious creatures get a chance to survive and multiply.
Why do you HATE Arctic wildlife that you want to see it continue to SUFFER because of extreme sea ice levels ?
CAGW is a death cult.
Looking at life they see only death.
fred250, I said it before, grifter is now a forum-flea. Should be scratched off….
“a worrying new development…”
WHY ??
It would have been ice free for most of the last 10,000 years..
No problem.
NOTHING to worry about
Get some REALITY and PERSPECTIVE , and stop being a climate change denier, griff.
“extent and area at lowest for this date.”
While Beaufort is at its 2nd HIGHEST since 2006,
Greenland Sea is 3rd highest since 2006.
You know the drop off Siberia is because of a WEATHER event, don’t you.
Or are you STILL totally confused about WEATHER and climate.?
“a worrying new development”
Yes, it might even become home to fish and other marine life again like it was 4.000 years ago. Catastrophic.
https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/view/65982/49896
The Arctic is doing just fine but the death spiral is in a death spiral.
By the time that the Arctic is next ice free, human beings will have no little toe.
Our chins will be noticeably receded compared to now.
We (our distant descendants) will also have lost our appendix.
And because will all be autistic-savant, social problems will be much reduced with no more idiotic pseudoscience scares such as this climate scam.
I am going for it is a natural change. Wonder what is under Antarctic ice cap.
And here was me thinking that Caribou eat and grow fat on vegetation, not ice.
For a lot of the year they subsist on lichens.
That’s why they’re radioactive.