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Numero Uno - Penguin The First here. Not that many of you can tell the difference - don’t they all pretty much look the same?

Well this post is going out to all our friends up North. Where the ice is shrinking faster than the humans expected. And that can’t be good news.

Thanks to Guiseppi for sending us this article from the New York, New York Times. “Analysts See ‘Simply Incredible’ Shrinking of Floating Ice in the Arctic.” Just in case you think this is just another instance of penguin propaganda, you can check out Andrew C. Revkin’s article for yourself.

The area of floating ice in the Arctic has shrunk more this summer than in any other summer since satellite tracking began in 1979, and it has reached that record point a month before the annual ice pullback typically peaks, experts said yesterday …


William L. Chapman, who monitors the region at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and posted a Web report on the ice retreat yesterday, said that only an abrupt change in conditions could prevent far more melting before the 24-hour sun of the boreal summer set in September. “The melting rate during June and July this year was simply incredible,” Mr. Chapman said. “And then you’ve got this exposed black ocean soaking up sunlight and you wonder what, if anything, could cause it to reverse course.”

A few moments after Guiseppi weighed in, Melinda from Minneapolis emailed Penguin5 to check out the climate scientists at realclimate.org. By the way, considering we all look alike, why is it that Penguin5 gets so much more email than the rest of us?

Anyway even though the realclimatologists speak science - an odd dialect of English - we thought you’d be interested in some of what they have to say on the subject:

A few people have already remarked on some pretty surprising numbers in Arctic sea ice extent this year (the New York Times has also noticed). The minimum extent is usually in early to mid September, but this year, conditions by Aug 9 had already beaten all previous record minima. Given that there is at least a few more weeks of melting to go, it looks like the record set in 2005 will be unequivocally surpassed.

Penguin 6 was convinced a minima was an Italian racecar until Guiseppi set him straight!
Back to the science:

Just to give a sense of how dramatic the changes have been over the last 28 years, the figures below show the minimum ice extent in September 1979, and the situation today (Aug 9, 2007).

The reduction is around 1.2 million square km of ice, a little bit larger than the size of California and Texas combined.

The comments were very interesting. Andy Revkin wrote:

One thing that’s important is to track what someone is measuring. Chapman/Walsh at UIUC focus on ice AREA while NSIDC estimates ice EXTENT. That’s one reason they have different findings at the moment.


But everyone I talked to yesterday (Claire Parkinson, Mark Serreze, Walsh/Chapman, etc) agreed we’re in for a remarkable year. Polar bears and Arctic shippers beware.

Some more science. Lawrence Coleman wrote:

The re-freeze each winter will result in the ice depth getting thinner
and thinner and also the edges of the polar region to shrink as well.
From the 1960-1980 the rate of ice loss each decade was on average 1.4%, now in 2007 it is 7.8%. It is safe to assume that in the coming decade the loss of ice will escalate to 30-40%. So that probably well within 20 years we will have no permanent ice at all in the polar region.

Calling all polar bears. We’re talking major problem. These scientists are saying no permanent ice in 20 years.

So how about some sirens. Alarms. Some red flares. SOS.

A presidential press conference. The Incredible Shrinking Ice!!! Polar Bear Alert!!!!

But wait. This just in. A new poll from the United Kingdom - we’re talking England. Here’s the headline from the Guardian newspaper: “Millions say it is too much effort to adopt greener lifestyle.”

David Adam writes:

Millions of people across Britain think their behaviour does not contribute to climate change and find it too much effort to make green changes to their lifestyle, a government survey suggests.

About a quarter of people polled agreed with statements such as: “It takes too much effort to do things that are environmentally friendly” and “I don’t believe my behaviour and everyday lifestyle contribute to climate change”. About half the people disagreed with the statements.

Calling all polar bears. We’re talking real big major major problem!

Here’s more:

The results of the survey of public attitudes and behaviour were released yesterday by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. About 3,600 people were asked about issues such as transport, waste recycling and buying habits. It follows five similar surveys over the past 20 years, the last in 2001.

Of the issues people think the government should address, the environment was the fourth most commonly mentioned, behind crime, health and education. But fewer people placed the environment as a priority, down to 19% from 25% in 2001. Crime came top as an issue, mentioned by 49%, up from 30% in 2001. Some 18% of people cited immigration, the first time it has featured significantly.

Who writes these poll questions?

How about making it a bit simpler? What about something like this: “If you could keep a polar bear from drowning would you take a bus one day a week?”

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