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Polar Ice Cap Will Completely Melt

Posted On: 29 September 2005 By: Jay Oatway Filed Under: Climate Burn | Future-Stuff-That-Goes-Ping | Jump the Shark

Good news if you want to open up the Northwest Shipping channel, bad news if you liked winter sports; according to the BBC the
Arctic ice cap is ‘disappearing quickly’:

Though there are significant variations across the region, on average the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, according to a major report released last year.

Open water absorbs a lot of the Sun’s energy, much more than the ice; and what happens then is that the oceans start to warm up, and it becomes very difficult for ice to form during the following autumn and winter.

The idea behind tipping-points is that at some stage the rate of global warming would accelerate, as rising temperatures break down natural restraints or trigger environmental changes which release further amounts of greenhouse gases.

Possible tipping-points include

- the disappearance of sea ice leading to greater absorption of solar radiation
- a switch from forests being net absorbers of carbon dioxide to net producers
- melting permafrost, releasing trapped methane

The future is melting before our eyes.

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