North Pole Now a Lake

[hedgehog]

Source: Live Science

Instead of snow and ice whirling on the wind, a foot-deep aquamarine lake now sloshes around a webcam stationed at the North Pole. The meltwater lake started forming July 13, following two weeks of warm weather in the high Arctic. In early July, temperatures were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) higher than average over much of the Arctic Ocean, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.

Meltwater ponds sprout more easily on young, thin ice, which now accounts for more than half of the Arctic's sea ice. The ponds link up across the smooth surface of the ice, creating a network that traps heat from the sun. Thick and wrinkly multi-year ice, which has survived more than one freeze-thaw season, is less likely sport a polka-dot network of ponds because of its rough, uneven surface.

July is the melting month in the Arctic, when sea ice shrinks fastest. An Arctic cyclone, which can rival a hurricane in strength, is forecast for this week, which will further fracture the ice and churn up warm ocean water, hastening the summer melt. The Arctic hit a record low summer ice melt last year on Sept. 16, 2012, the smallest recorded since satellites began tracking the Arctic ice in the 1970s.

Read more: http://www.livescience.com/38347-north-pole-ice-melt-lake.html

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Words fail!

[jpak]

1. An ice-free arctic will alter jet stream patterns and produce extreme weather at mid-lattitudes

The polar bears will not be the only ones that will suffer because of this.

yup

[dipsydoodle]

2. Doesn't sound too healthy.

[alfredo]

18. Methane will leak at a higher rate, trapping more heat.

Mr Inhofe can lie about climate change because he knows he will not see the full consequences of his putting political gain above human life.

[NickB79]

24. You mean like we've already been seeing the past two years?

The future is no longer the future; it's NOW.

Welcome to Fuckedville.

[bvar22]

56. The Jet Stream is ALREADY behaving strangely.

I live in Central Arkansas.
This year, we have enjoyed Record Breaking:

*Snow in May (first time EVER)

*Record LOW temps in July

*Last week, we had a pattern of Storms and Squall Lines moving from EAST to WEST.
(This is sooooooo uncommon, that we had to research whether it is possible to have a tornado track from East to West.
It IS, but VERY rare.)

*and we're getting RAIN almost every day
(very uncommon for this area in Mid-Summer)

While we are enjoying sleeping without A/C in JULY!!!!,
and our Veggie Garden is LOVING it,
these patterns are scary.

[99th_Monkey]

3. We are now entering uncharted territory

This cannot be good. :

[Auggie]

4. +1

[Rosa Luxemburg]

41. Yes, sadly

[DCBob]

5. image..

?1374519402

That looks like all water with only a faint view of some ice in the distance. Not good.

[toby jo]

9. Thanks for the pic - will make a great billboard piece 'brought to you by the GOP' & co.

[onehandle]

6. Glad I won't be around to see the latter part of this century.

Soylent Green is people.

[Blue_Tires]

50. Soylent Green ain't fiction; it's a menu, baby!

[eggplant]

7. Am I the only one who read to the bottom of the quote?

Last summer had the *least* amount of melting since the 1970s.

[hedgehog]

8. I believe the writer reversed the data -

The apparent low point for 2012 was reached Sunday, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which said that sea ice that day covered about 1.32 million square miles, or 24 percent, of the surface of the Arctic Ocean. The previous low, set in 2007, was 29 percent.

When satellite tracking began in the late 1970s, sea ice at its lowest point in the summer typically covered about half the Arctic Ocean, but it has been declining in fits and starts over the decades.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/science/earth/arctic-sea-ice-stops-melting-but-new-record-low-is-set.html?_r=0

[GliderGuider]

11. He used "ice melt" improperly. "Ice extent" would be correct. nt

[alfredo]

19. One year's data mean little. One needs to see the long term trends.

[NickB79]

25. Here's the long-term trend, in video form

The Arctic will be ice-free in the summer before 2020, guaranteed.

[alfredo]

57. I keep getting an error

[XemaSab]

31. Interactive chart of ice area since 1979

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

Last year was BAD.

Note well that 2007 was WAY below any previous year, and we've never recovered from it. If you take out 2009, you can see the severity of the problem clearly.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

10. Fuck. Us 20-somethings won't have a planet. nt

[Agschmid]

12. Nope... it's gonna be interesting.

OT: That movie Elysium is coming out soon, you planning on going to see it?

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

13. You betcha.

Excellent plot with an all-star cast? I'm in!

[Agschmid]

15. Me too...

Problem is... realistic plot?

[alfredo]

20. It's a prequel to WALL-E

[Agschmid]

21. Watch out you'll end up with this...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/spenceralthouse/this-theory-on-pixar-movies-will-blow-your-mind

[alfredo]

28. That's so cool. Maybe I should watch all of them

According to the timeline.

[cstanleytech]

42. Oh cut the drama.

The planet will remain and live will continue, yes there will be consequences to people who live on the coasts as well as altering weather patterns but that in of itself isnt new to the planet but whats really harming the planet is the number of humans.
The population keeps climbing and it just isnt sustainable in the long run even if the weather remained the same as it was 1000 - 2000 years ago.

[NickB79]

48. Life will continue

Yes, just as life continued after the previous mass extinction events that hit our planet over the past billion years, it will recover from this as well.

It's just that we've doomed a good portion of this planet's species to extinction, and likely doomed human civilization to a collapse on a scale never seen before, along with all the horrors that come when nations are forced to fight over dwindling resources.

In a million years, new species will be evolving from the survivors (rats, crows, coyotes, pigeons, etc) and our descendents will be living in mud huts again, hunting with spears and arrows.

[greiner3]

45. So many Evangelical Christians;

Believe that God would never let this crap get TOO far and if they pray hard and long enough everything will be just hunky dorey.

Well, isn't that special?

[madrchsod]

47. that would be the do`t give a fuck evangelical christians

there is a small minority of evangelical christen who believe in the writings that god called on man to take care of the land. of course this was pretty much a universal concept once mankind decided to cultivate the land and domesticate animals.

[Delphinus]

51. No, and I'm

sorry about that.

[Iliyah]

14. Thats not good

The climate deniers will have their own fully overpaid so called scientist debunk that pronto.

[sakabatou]

16. We're fucked

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. I'm waiting for some jerk to claim the North Pole has ALWAYS melted like this.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

22. It's a hoax

The Arctic sea ice is just pretending to melt more each decade,

to get grant money.

[DCBob]

23. Its Obama's fault too.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

36. That goes without saying

as I've said quite often.

[corkhead]

26. merry xmas

[liberal N proud]

27. What about the elves?

But seriously, this is a tragedy that we will all pay for and still there is not enough action to stem the climate change.

[bananas]

35. Every Christmas, NORAD tracks Santa

and they start at Santa's Village.
How are they going to explain this to the kids?

http://www.noradsanta.org/

[They_Live]

43. They don't know how to swim!

Help the elves!

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

29. Watch GASLAND 2 FREE Online to see how we are making it WORSE! (LINK)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023326434

please keep it kicked for exposure

[zonkers]

30. Colonize outer space... or perish.

I think Hawkings said something to this effect.

[Auntie Bush]

32. I feel sorry for the polar bears...they are going to go extinct!

They will starve without enough sea ice.

[NickB79]

39. Followed shortly by millions of humans starving

With the ice cap gone, the jet stream will go haywire. The past few years of more and more extreme weather is just a taste of things to come.

And when the weather goes crazy, the farms we rely on for food will be barren, either from droughts, flooding, or heat waves.

[defacto7]

33. I figured it would get to this

sooner or later. Here it is.

[XemaSab]

34. Sea ice area

[NickB79]

40. Holy fuck. nt

[Heywood J]

49. Uh, I would like to know why that photo is indicating red dots (a ~60% concentration of sea ice)

at the eastern end of Lake Erie. Sea ice (on a freshwater lake) in July would have been nice last week when it was hot.

[XemaSab]

54. Error in the sensors

[hatrack]

55. With two months (more or less) to go . . .

NSIDC's area track is down to the 2 Standard Deviations line, but not yet to 2012 territory.

Still, early times . . .

[daleo]

38. Lake Inconvenient Truth

[blkmusclmachine]

44. Don't worry. Gawd has this. It's 11-Dimensional, environmental rope-a-dope. Just wait. You'll see...

[madrchsod]

46. today it was warmer in the yukon than it was in chicago

this is all about my 2yr old grand kids and the billions of other like them who may never live out their lives as i will.

[PasadenaTrudy]

52. Glad I'm almost 50

and didn't have kids. But this truly is terrifying...

[Socal31]

53. It is a race to see who/what will end up killing the most humans.

Oppenheimer and crew (I still think this will be the winner)

A Fort Dietrich creation

Mikhail Kalashnikov (AK-47)

Internal Combustion Engine/Modern Cattle Farming


Place your bets!