{"id":298,"date":"2012-12-03T14:22:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T19:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-expected-wmo.html"},"modified":"2012-12-03T14:22:38","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T19:22:38","slug":"arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-expected-wmo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-expected-wmo.html","title":{"rendered":"Arctic sea ice melting faster than expected &mdash;WMO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nA major source of the water for the\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/11\/savannah-and-jacksonville-most-vulnerable-to-rising-sea-level.html\">\nsea level rise already affecting Savannah and Jacksonville<\/a>\nis melting Arctic Ocean sea ice.\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wmo.int\/pages\/mediacentre\/press_releases\/pr_966_en.html\">\nWMO Press Release No. 966:\n2012: Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt, Multiple Extremes and High Temperatures<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\n\u201cNaturally occurring climate variability due to phenomena such\nas El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a impact on temperatures and precipitation on\na seasonal to annual scale. But they do not alter the underlying\nlong-term trend of rising temperatures due to climate change as a\nresult of human activities,\u201d said WMO Secretary-General Michel\nJarraud.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThe extent of Arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The\nalarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching\nchanges taking place on Earth&#8217;s oceans and biosphere. Climate change\nis taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a\nresult of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,\nwhich have risen constantly and again reached new records,\u201d\nadded Mr Jarraud.\n<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"center\">\n<a title=\"30 years of Arctic sea ice\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/8241378623\/sizes\/z\/\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none;\" class=\"at-xid-6a0120a58214e4970b017ee5e02de1970d\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8340\/8241378623_4129849a0a.jpg\"\nalt=\"30 years of Arctic sea ice\" \/><\/a>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu\/cgi-bin\/test\/print.sh?fm=09&amp;fd=16&amp;fy=1982&amp;sm=09&amp;sd=16&amp;sy=2012\">\n15 September 1982 vs 16 September 2012<\/a>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>\nThe Arctic reached its lowest annual sea ice extent since the start\nof satellite records on 16 September at 3.41 million square\nkilometers. This was 18% less than the previous record low of 18\nSeptember, 2007. The 2012 minimum extent was 49 percent or nearly\n3.3 million square kilometers (nearly the size of India) below the\n1979\u20142000 average minimum. Some 11.83 million square\nkilometers of Arctic ice melted between March and September 2012.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nWMO noted other effects of climate change outside the arctic, including:\n<\/p>\n\n<!--more-->\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nExtremes: Notable extreme events were observed worldwide, but some\nparts of the Northern Hemisphere were affected by multiple extremes\nduring January\u2014October 2012.\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\nHeat waves: Major heat waves impacted the Northern Hemisphere during\nthe year, with the most notable in March\u2014May across the\ncontinental United States of America and Europe. Warm spells during\nMarch 2012 resulted in many record-breaking temperatures in Europe\nand nearly 15,000 new daily records across the USA. Russia witnessed\nthe second warmest summer on record after 2010. Numerous temperature\nrecords were broken in Morocco in summer.\n<\/li>\n<li>\nDrought: According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, nearly two-thirds of\nthe continental United States (65.5 percent) was considered to be in\nmoderate to exceptional drought on 25 September 2012. Drought\nconditions impacted parts of western Russia and western Siberia\nduring June and July, and Southeast Europe, the Balkans and some\nMediterranean countries during summer. In China, the Yunnan and\nsouthwestern Sichuan province experienced severe drought during\nwinter and spring. Northern Brazil witnessed the worst drought in 50\nyears. The April\u2014October precipitation total, in Australia was\n31 percent below normal&#8230;.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nTropical Cyclones: Global tropical cyclone activity for the first\nten months was near the 1981\u20142010 average of 85 storms, with a\ntotal of 81 storms (wind speeds greater or equal than 34 knots, or\n63 kilometers per hour). The Atlantic basin experienced an\nabove-average hurricane season for a third consecutive year with a\ntotal of 19 storms, with ten reaching hurricane status, the most\nnotably being Sandy, which wreaked havoc across the Caribbean and\nthe USA East Coast. Throughout the year, East Asia was severely\nimpacted by powerful typhoons. Typhoon Sanba was the strongest\ncyclone, globally, to have formed in 2012. Sanba impacted the\nPhilippines, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula, dumping torrential\nrain and triggering floods and landslides that affected thousands of\npeople and caused millions in U.S. dollars in damage.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nThis AP news article makes a useful comparison.\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-205_162-57556153\/arctic-sea-ice-larger-than-u.s-melted-this-year\/\">\nArctic sea ice larger than U.S. melted this year<\/a>,\nbut devolves into the same old lame excuses,\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\n&#8220;We are still in the process of industrialization. We are also\nconfronted with the enormous task of poverty eradication,&#8221; said Wei,\nacknowledging that the country&#8217;s emissions won&#8217;t peak by 2020.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;In order to eradicate poverty, to try to improve the living\nstandards, certainly we need to develop our economy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So\nthe emissions will need to grow for a period of time.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nThat&#8217;s from a member of the Chinese delegation to the Doha talks.\nThat delegation might want to check with the home front.\nJamie Yap wrote for ZDnet\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/cn\/chinas-solar-power-investment-to-hit-39-5b-by-2015-7000004255\/\">\nChina&#8217;s solar power investment to hit $39.5B by 2015<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nChina&#8217;s National Energy Administration said investment in solar\npower generation is expected to reach 250 billion yuan (US$39.5\nbillion), as part of the country&#8217;s 12th five-year-plan spanning 2011\nto 2015.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nChina Daily reported Thursday the government expected some 500,000\npeople to be employed in the solar industry.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nSounds like solar investment in China means jobs in China.\nThere&#8217;s plenty of private money wanting to invest in solar in Georgia,\nonce we get\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/11\/tv-station-gets-it-territoriality-law-prevents-solar-in-georgia.html\">\nthe 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act out of the way.<\/a>\nOh, and Savannah and Jacksonville will be less likely to be underwater.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major source of the water for the sea level rise already affecting Savannah and Jacksonville is melting Arctic Ocean sea ice. WMO Press Release No. 966: 2012: Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt, Multiple Extremes and High Temperatures, \u201cNaturally occurring climate variability due to phenomena such as El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a impact on temperatures [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,14,16,203,8,21,22,73,289,53,55,89],"tags":[1262,8719,1267,8704,8706,8751,8701,170,1264,1268,8702,12,8711,8712,8731,702,8758,1263,1269,8725,8727,8735,1265,1266],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-economy","category-environment","category-florida","category-georgia","category-planning","category-politics","category-safety","category-science","category-sustainability","category-water","category-weather","tag-arctic","tag-climate-change","tag-doha","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-florida","tag-georgia","tag-hurricane","tag-ice","tag-jacksonville","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-safety","tag-savannah","tag-science","tag-sea","tag-storm-surge","tag-sustainability","tag-water","tag-weather","tag-wmo","tag-world-meteorlogical-organization"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-4O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}