a blog about the changing world we live in
NORMALLY, THE ICE IN THE ARCTIC grows in the cold of the winter months and shrinks in the warmth of the rest of the year. But that ain’t happening in the winter of 2020-2021. The article “This Year’s Arctic Sea Ice Is Failing to Form, Raising a Huge Red Flag” tells us that the ice still hasn’t refrozen since last winter. [Read more] “this season’s arctic sea ice ain’t forming”
THERE’S AN OCEAN WHERE THERE USED TO BE ICE. The article that caught my attention was “Stretched Thin on Thin Ice.” It included the threatening sub-title, “With the Arctic melting and northern coast guards struggling to keep up, the next disaster is a matter of when, not if.” [Read more] “there’s an ocean where there used to be ice”
HOW MANY TIMES ARE WE GOING TO READ that climate change is happening “faster” than expected before we change our expectations—or, at least, our definition of fast? “Stretches of the Arctic’s oldest ice, and its thickest—the last refuge ice that should survive even when the Arctic Ocean technically becomes ice-free in summers later this century—are now disappearing twice as fast as the rest of the Arctic icecap. [Read more] “oldest arctic ice melting faster than the rest of the icecap”
WINTER HAS EXTENDED ITS GRIP on the Arctic, dropping a curtain of darkness on the top of the world. But at least one part of the Arctic is resisting its grasp. In what’s becoming an unfortunately common story, sea ice growth is stalling out in one of the gateway seas leading to the heart of the Arctic Ocean. [Read more] “something is not right at the highest latitudes of the globe”
A LIKELY DOOMSDAY SCENARIO is presented by Emily Atkin in the article “The Blood-Dimmed Tide” for the New Republic (September 16, 2019). “It’s the year 2100. Many of the world’s major powers have spent the last several decades focusing on themselves. Borders have closed. International investments in education and technology have declined. [Read more] “by 2100, earth passed the safe threshold of warming mark”