US government scientists reported Monday that the Arctic Ocean’s floating ice cover has shrivelled to its second lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979.
Until this month, only once in the last 42 years has Earth’s frozen skull cap covered less than four million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles).
The trend line is clear: sea ice extent has diminished 14 percent per decade over that period. The Arctic could see it’s first ice-free summer as early as 2035, researchers reported in Nature Climate Change last month.
But all that melting ice and snow does not directly boost sea levels any more than melted ice cubes make a glass of water overflow, which gives rise to an awkward question: who cares?
Granted, this would be bad news for polar bears, which are already on a glide path towards extinction, according to a recent study.
And yes, it would certainly mean a profound shift in the region’s marine ecosystems, from phytoplankton to whales.
But if our bottom-line concern is the impact on humanity, one might legitimately ask, “So what?”.
As it turns out, there are several reasons to be worried about the knock-on consequences of dwindling Arctic sea ice.
– Feedback loops –
Perhaps the most basic point to make, scientists say, is that a shrinking ice cap is not just a symptom of global warming, but a driver as well.
“Sea ice removal exposes dark ocean, which creates a powerful feedback mechanism,” Marco Tedesco, a geophysicist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, told AFP.
Freshly fallen snow reflects 80 percent of the Sun’s radiative force back into space.
But when that mirror-like surface is replaced by deep blue water, about the same percentage of Earth-heating energy is absorbed instead.
And we’re not talking about a postage stamp area here: the difference between the average ice cap minimum from 1979 to 1990 and the low point reported today — more than 3 million km2 — is twice the size of France, Germany and Spain combined.
The oceans have already soaked up 90 percent of the excess heat generated by manmade greenhouse gases, but at a terrible cost, including altered chemistry, massive marine heatwaves and dying coral reefs.
And at some point, scientists warn, that liquid heat sponge may simply become saturated.
– Altering ocean currents –
Earth’s complex climate system includes interlocking ocean currents driven by wind, tides and something called the thermohaline circulation, which is itself powered by changes in temperature (“thermo”) and salt concentration (“haline”).
Even small changes in this Great Ocean Conveyor Belt — which moves between poles and across all three major oceans — can have devastating climate impacts.
Nearly 13,000 years ago, for example, as Earth was transitioning out of an ice age into the interglacial period that allowed our species to thrive, global temperatures abruptly plunged several degrees Celsius. They jumped back up again about 1,000 years later.
Geological evidence suggests a slowdown in the thermohaline circulation caused by a massive and rapid influx of cold, fresh water from the Artic region was partly to blame.
“The fresh water from melting sea ice and grounded ice in Greenland perturbs and weakens the Gulf Stream,” part of the conveyor belt flowing in the Atlantic, said Xavier Fettweis, a research associate at the University of Liege in Belgium.
“This is what allows western Europe to have a temperate climate compared to the same latitude in North America.”
The massive ice sheet atop Greenland’s land mass saw a net loss of more than half-a-trillion tonnes last year, all of it flowing into the sea.
Unlike sea ice, which doesn’t increase sea levels when it melts, runoff from Greenland does.
That record amount was due in part to warmer air temperatures, which have risen twice as fast in the Arctic as for the planet as a whole.
But it was also caused by a change in weather patterns, notably an increase in sunny summer days.
“Some studies suggest that this increase in anticyclonic conditions in the Arctic in summer results in part from the minimum sea ice extent,” Fettweis told AFP.
– Bears on thin ice –
The current trajectory of climate change and the advent of ice-free summers — defined by the UN’s IPCC climate science panel as under one million km2 — would indeed starve polar bears into extinction by century’s end, according to a July study in Nature.
“Human-caused global warming means that polar bears have less and less sea ice to hunt on in the summer months,” Steven Amstrup, lead author of the study and chief scientist of Polar Bears International, told AFP.
“The ultimate trajectory of polar bears with unabated greenhouse gas emissions is disappearance.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
