Predictable Chaos

Often what appears chaotic depends on the template.

Tom Englehardt asks: has the Age of Chaos begun?

Much of this is spurred from an American Geophysical Union report highlighted by the Guardian:

...Satellite pictures show that the extent of Arctic sea ice this month dipped some 20% below the long term average for September - melting an extra 500,000 square miles, or an area twice the size of Texas. If current trends continue, the summertime Arctic Ocean will be completely ice-free well before the end of this century.

Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the Colorado centre, said melting sea ice accelerates warming because dark-coloured water absorbs heat from the sun that was previously reflected back into space by white ice. "Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold. We could see changes in Arctic ice happening much sooner than we thought and that is important because without the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean we have to expect big changes in Earth's weather."

The Arctic sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent each September at the end of the summer melting season. On September 21 the mean sea ice extent dropped to 2.05m square miles, the lowest on record. This is the fourth consecutive year that melting has been greater than average and it pushed the overall decline in sea ice per decade to 8%, up from 6.5% in 2001.

Walt Meier, also at the Colorado centre, said: "Having four years in a row with such low ice extents has never been seen before in the satellite record. It clearly indicates a downward trend, not just a short term anomaly."

Surface air temperatures across most of the Arctic Ocean have been 2-3C higher on average this year than from 1955 to 2004.

The notorious northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic from Europe to Asia - where entire expeditions were lost in earlier centuries as their crews battled thick ice and bitter cold - was completely open this summer, except for a 60 mile swath of scattered ice floes. The northeast passage, north of the Siberian coast, has been ice free since August 15.

Springtime melting in the Arctic has begun much earlier in recent years; this year it started 17 days earlier than expected. The winter rebound of ice, where sea water refreezes, has also been affected. Last winter's recovery was the smallest on record and the peak Arctic ice cover failed to match the previous year's level...

Just Sayin'.