Faster than ever

The evidence is mounting that climate change will happen much faster than previously believed.

Many computer models had forcast that weather patterns would gradually change over the next 50 to 100 years, and that global warming meant a few degrees warmer in that same time period. But, new research is disputing those projections.

Last week Al Gore, the Global Warming champion, addressed a committee on Capito Hill and said that all of the Artic Ice could be gone during summer within 34 years.

That ice cap is a weather generator. All of that massive ice drives wind patterns, and weather cycles. When it is gone, weather patterns will be changed and farmers will have to adapt in order to continue with agriculture.

Arctic sea ice that has been dwindling for several decades may have reached a tipping point that could trigger a cascade of climate change reaching into Earth's temperate regions, says a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.

Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at CU-Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center who led the study synthesizing results from recent research, said the Arctic sea-ice extent trend has been negative in every month since 1979, when concerted satellite record keeping efforts began. The team attributed the loss of ice, about 38,000 square miles annually as measured each September, to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases and strong natural variability in Arctic sea ice. "When the ice thins to a vulnerable state, the bottom will drop out and we may quickly move into a new, seasonally ice-free state of the Arctic," Serreze said. "I think there is some evidence that we may have reached that tipping point, and the impacts will not be confined to the Arctic region."

A review paper by Serreze and Julienne Stroeve of CU-Boulder's NSIDC and Marika Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research titled "Perspectives on the Arctic's Shrinking Sea Ice Cover" appears in the March 16 issue of Science. The loss of Arctic sea ice is most often tied to negative effects on wildlife like polar bears and increasing erosion of coastlines in Alaska and Siberia, he said. But other studies have linked Arctic sea ice loss to changes in atmospheric patterns that cause reduced rainfall in the American West or increased precipitation over western and southern Europe, he said. The decline in Arctic sea ice could impact western states like Colorado, for example, by reducing the severity of Arctic cold fronts dropping into the West and reducing snowfall, impacting the ski industry and agriculture, he said. "Just how things will pan out is unclear, but the bottom line is that Arctic sea ice matters globally," Serreze said. Because temperatures across the Arctic have risen from 2 degrees to 7 degrees F. in recent decades due to a build-up of atmospheric greenhouse gases, there is no end in sight to the decline in Arctic sea ice extent, said Serreze of CU-Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

These are some of the reports that have been coming out recently about the ever faster change that is befalling our planet. One term that has been tagged to this is "The Quickening". Which means that the rate of Earth Changing Events is increasing, occurring more rapidly.

HOBART (Reuters) - Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are at upper limits of projections, leaving some human population centers already unable to cope, top world scientists say as they analyze latest satellite data.

A United Nations report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February projected sea level gains of 18-59 centimeters (7-23 inches) this century from temperature rises of 1.8-4.0 Celsius (3.2-7.8 Fahrenheit).

"Observations are in the very upper edge of the projections," leading Australian marine scientist John Church told Reuters.

"I feel that we're getting uncomfortably close to threshold," said Church, of Australia's CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research said. Past this level, parts of the Antarctic and Greenland would approach a virtually irreversible melting that would produce sea level rises of meters, he said.

There has been no repeat in the Antarctic of the 2002 break-up of part of the Larsen ice shelf that created a 500 billion ton iceberg as big as Luxembourg.

But the Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, and glaciers are in massive retreat.

"There have been doomsday scenarios that west Antarctica could collapse quite quickly. And there's six meters of sea level in west Antarctica," says Tas van Ommen, a glaciologist at the Hobart-based Australian Antarctic Division.

Doomsday has not yet arrived.

But even in East Antarctica, which is insulated from global warming by extreme cold temperatures and high-altitudes, new information shows the height of the Tottenham Glacier near Australia's Casey Base has fallen by 10 meters over 15-16 years.

MELTING POLES

Scientists say massive glacier retreat at Heard Island, 1,000 km (620 miles) north of Antarctica, is an example of how fringe areas of the polar region are melting.

The break-up of ice in Antarctica to create icebergs is also opening pathways for accelerated flows to the sea by glaciers.

Church pointed out that sea levels were 4-6 meters higher more than 100,000 years ago when temperatures were at levels expected to be reached at the end of this century.

Dynamic ice-flows could add 25 percent to IPCC forecasts of sea level rise, van Ommen said. Australian scientist John Hunter, who has focused on historical sea level information, said that to keep the sea water out, communities would need to begin raising sea walls.

"There's lots of places where you can't do that and where you'll have to put up with actual flooding," he said.

This was already happening in the south of England, where local councils and governments could not afford to protect all areas from sea water erosion as land continued to sink.

About 100 million people around the world live within a meter of the present-day sea level, CSIRO Marine Research senior principal research scientist Steve Rintoul said. "Those 100 million people will need to go somewhere," he said.

Worse, every meter of sea level rise causes an inland recession of around 100 meters (300 feet) and more erosion occurs with every storm. "You can't just say we'll just put sea walls," Hunter said.

Most of this article was taken from other sources which I believe to be reliable. I did this out of a sense of urgency. The red flags are waving. If these catastrophic changes are really coming upon us then you can expect wars and famine to increase just like it has been prophesied in the Bible about what would happen in "The Last Days".

I believe that the best thing that you can do is to strengthen yourself from within with Gods help. He will help us if we ask Him to.

From now on when I write I plan to leave off with an inspirational quip or quote to help us along through the day and to help us get through it all.

A smile, a word, a touch -

And each is easily given,

To rescue someone from despair

Or smooth the way to heaven. - Anon.

posted to ClimateConcern