Arctic meltdown?

Question

An article in Scientific American about the role of soot in Arctic warming:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=impure-as-the-driven-snow

Pielke with a comment: http://climatesci.org/2008/06/06/new-report-on-the-role-of-soot-on-the-climate-in-the-higher-latitudes-and-on-global-warming/

Thoughts?

Answer 1

I just want to back Rick up and tell you all to really look at the images he provided they show two things. The first being that the Arctic Ocean Ice does indeed extend further this year than last year. And the other thing I noted is that the Caribbean is cooler this year than last year at this time.

Here's the link to the site if you don't trust where he got his images from:

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/ss...

Answer 2

Less Ice this year in Artic???

Can you see the ice in these satellite pictures?

Compare side by side Images for 6/7/2007:

http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite...

Image for 6/9/2008:

http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite...

I see more ice now than last year - do you?

Watch for Alarmists thumbs down - lol

Answer 3

We know that the Arctic region is warming much faster than the global average. And the current ice melt rate is faster than last years record, so we may see a new low by September.  This report shows yet another path to anthropogenic caused climate change.

Answer 4

During other warm periods that the Earth went through life thrived.

What is the problem?

Answer 5

Interesting.  You might want to check this out.  It's a "review article", one that looks at several studies.  And, instead of just considering the effect on arctic ice, it considers the effect on global warming in general.  Their conclusion was that soot was second to CO2 as a cause of global warming.  The IPCC considered soot to be a player, but estimated its' effects as maybe 1/3 of what Rasmussen says in the article.

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science...

Full text available here, if you register:

http://www.nature.com/search/executeSear...

FWIW, my personal opinion is that truth is somewhere between what the IPCC says and what Rasmussen says, but that's just a guess.

Answer 6

Yeah, soot definitely plays a significant role in global warming.  The good news is that most of it comes from the same sources as CO2.

"roughly 80 percent of polar soot can be traced to human burning"

So by reducing our emissions we're killing both of those birds with one stone.

Answer 7

Did soot replace water vapor as the new bugaboo?  Wait, 30 years ago soot was causing us to slide into another ice age.  The burning of hydrocarbons was BLOCKING the sun, at least that was what we were told.  My, how chemical properties change!  Weird eh?