The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports Arctic sea ice extent in January 2012 averaged 13.73 million square kilometers (5.30 million square miles) – the fourth-lowest January ice extent in the 1979 to 2012 satellite data record.

Before 2005 average January ice extent had never been lower than 14 million square kilometers (5.41 million square miles). January ice extent has now fallen below that mark six out of the last seven years.

Large swathes of the Barents Sea and the adjoining Kara Sea – that are normally long frozen by now – are still open. Sea ice concentration maps posted by Neven at Arctic Sea Ice Blog show how unusual 2012 is:

University of Bremen sea ice concentration maps, cropped

The University of Washington’s Polar Science Center reports Arctic sea ice volume for January  2012 was 16,200 km³ , slightly larger than last year (15,800 km³) but 41% lower than the satellite record era maximum in 1979, 28% below the mean and 1.4 standard deviations from the trend.

Total Arctic sea ice volume from PIOMAS.
Shaded areas indicate one and two standard deviations from the mean.

The melting season starts in about a month and a half from now.

Arctic temperatures set a new record high in 2011, beating the record set just the previous year in 2010.

Surface temperature anomaly for the region extending from 64oN to 90oN, from 1880 through 2011, in degrees Centigrade above or below the temperature during the 1951-1980 base period.

The annual mean surface temperature (land and air) for the region north of 64oN (the Arctic Circle is at 66° 33?N) in 2011 was 2.28° C above the 1951-1980 base period, beating 2010?s record of 2.11° C.  Temperatures in the region have been rising rapidly since the late 1970s and have not dropped below the long-term mean since 1992 — nearly 20 years.

Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record – and the warming is especially concentrated in the Arctic.

Annual global surface temperature anomalies, 2011.  The largest and most extensive
warming (indicated in shades of red) was concentrated in the Arctic.
Source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

NASA’s James Hansen expects record-breaking global average temperatures in the next two to three years because solar activity is on the upswing and the next El Niño will increase tropical Pacific temperatures. The warmest years on record so far were 2005 and 2010, in a virtual tie.

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, when the GISS global temperature record begins. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to about 315 parts per million. Today it exceeds 390 parts per million and continues to rise at an accelerating pace.

Rising temperatures are being accompanied by a decline in Arctic ice volume.

Ice volume for December 2011 was 12,230 km³ , 47% lower than the maximum in 1979, 37% below the mean and 1.6 standard deviations from trend. PIOMAS  ice volume for September 2011 was 380 km³ lower than the previous record of 2010, but this difference is within the estimated uncertainty of PIOMAS. The same appears to be true for December 2011 as well – ice volume is lower but within the range of uncertainty – as the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center reports 2011 volume is lower than the previous record of 2010

A Russian research team surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia reports dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean.

The Independent interviewed Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed:

Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we’ve found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It’s amazing. I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them.

In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed. We carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale – I think on a scale not seen before. Some plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere – the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal.

Scientists have calculated there is about 1.7 trillion tons of carbon in soils of the northern regions, about two and a half times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Much of that carbon leaks out in the form of methane rather than carbon dioxide. Methane is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon – but 72 times as potent over 20 years.

Here’s a dramatic video of methane burning from a frozen lake in Alaska.

Some extinction events in Earth’s past have been linked to warming causing methane to be released, leading to even more warming and more methane release in a deadly feedback loop. Once the carbon locked in the permafrost begins to thaw and be released, the process could be impossible to stop.

With the disappearance of the Arctic sea-ice in summer and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire region, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere leading to rapid and severe climate change. Semiletov’s research confirms the Siberian permafrost is already melting.

Semiletov released his findings for the first time last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Are humans really stupid enough to cause their own extinction? Sadly, I’d know where I’d place my bet.

The World Meteorological Organization recently reported global greenhouse gas emissions rose at a record pace in 2010. Now another new analysis by the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists, comes to the same conclusion: emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, the largest amount on record. The combustion of coal represented more than half of the growth in emissions.

The brief pause in the growth of emissions during the recession is over, at least for now. Emissions grew at a rate of ~3% yearly during the last decade. The growth rate in the 1990s was ~1% per year.

The analysis showed developing countries, including China and India, have surpassed the wealthy countries in greenhouse emissions. In 2010, developing countries were responsible for 57% of global emissions. But don’t think that rich countries are off the hook. The fast rise in developing countries has been caused to a large extent by the outsourcing of energy-intensive manufacturing industries. The rich countries have exported some of their emissions while continuing to consume the imported goods.

Meanwhile, the climate talks in Durban are going nowhere. The latest “earth-shaking” news is that China may agree to legally binding emissions reductions – but no earlier than 2020, and only if Kyoto is extended, and only if rich nations kick in $100 billion annually to a nonexistent mitigation fund. The U.S. is saying it isn’t interested, preferring “bilateral agreements”.

The clock is ticking. If the rise in greenhouse gas emissions is not reversed quickly and substantially, by 2020 it will be game over for saving Earth’s human-friendly climate.

Global temperatures in 2011 have likely been warmer than any previous strong La Niña year, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Despite a relatively cool, La Niña influenced 2011, the 10-year running average for the period 2002-2011 ties 2001-2010 as the warmest 10-year period on record.

Even before the climate talks in Durban began on Monday, participating nations were conceding that the chances of reaching any meaningful agreement were zilch. Expectations are low: the best to be hoped for is an agreement to begin negotiations on a global deal that can be implemented by 2020, along with making “some progress” on establishing “financing mechanisms” to help developing nations deal with the impacts of global warming. With western economies in the process of imploding, any agreement on money transfers – no matter how modest – may now be out of reach.

Two days into the talks, actions by Canada threaten to torpedo what remains of the global climate process. A rumor surfaced that the government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change before the end of 2011. Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent, commenting on but refusing to confirm the report, referred to the Kyoto agreement as “in the past” and stated that opting into the treaty was “one of the biggest blunders” made by the previous Liberal government.

The “rumor”—coming so early in the climate negotiations—is likely to render the low-held chances for a treaty breakthrough at the Durban talks even more remote.

Time is fast running out if catastrophic climate change is to be averted. Just recently Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and one of the world’s foremost authorities on climate economics, warned:

If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to holding temperatures below 2 ° C will be closed forever.

The thinking that a 2 ° C rise would be “safe” is optimistic, as no climate model currently incorporates the amplifying feedback from methane released by a defrosting tundra. A new study published in Nature titled Climate change: High risk of permafrost thaw finds the permafrost can be expected to releases up to 380 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2100:

Arctic temperatures are rising fast, and permafrost is thawing . . . . Our collective estimate is that carbon will be released more quickly than models suggest, and at levels that are cause for serious concern.

We calculate that permafrost thaw will release the same order of magnitude of carbon as deforestation if current rates of deforestation continue. But because these emissions include significant quantities of methane, the overall effect on climate could be 2.5 times larger.

The new study only looked at the land-based permafrost.  A study published last year warned release of even a fraction of the methane stored offshore in the Eastern Siberian ice shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.

The new study finds:

Across all the warming scenarios, we project that most of the released carbon will be in the form of CO₂, with only about 2.7% in the form of CH₄. However, because CH₄ has a higher global-warming potential, almost half the effect of future permafrost-zone carbon emissions on climate forcing is likely to be from CH₄. That is roughly consistent with the tens of billions of tonnes of CH₄ thought to have come from oxygen-limited environments in northern ecosystems after the end of the last glacial period.

Edward Schuur, lead author of the study in Nature, pleads that we must address the source of emissions from humans if we are to have any chance of keeping Arctic carbon frozen in permafrost rather than going into the atmosphere.

Given what’s going on in Durban – where the best outcome that can be expected is for the rich nations to agree to throw a hundred billion dollars or so as a sop to the poorer nations, rather than actually doing anything to slash emissions – the chances of that coming to pass are approaching zero.

The U.N. World Meteorological Organization reports greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached a new high in 2010 – and the rate of increase has accelerated.

The publication WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin: The State of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere Based on Global Observations through 2010 reports there was a 29% increase in radiative forcing from greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2010.

Globally averaged levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) have reached new highs, with CO2 at 389.0 ppm, CH4 at 1808 ppb, and N2O at 323.2 ppb. These values are greater than those in pre-industrial times (before 1750) by 39%, 158% and 20%, respectively.

CO2 is the single most important man-made greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, contributing about 64% of the total increase in climate forcing by greenhouse gases. CO2 emissions result from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and changes in land-use.

CH4 – contributes about 18% to the overall global increase in radiative forcing. Methane emissions result from human activities such as cattle raising, rice planting, fossil fuel exploitation and landfills. About 40% of methane emissions come from natural sources such as wetlands. After a period of temporary relative stabilization from 1999 to 2006, atmospheric methane has again been rising, likely because of the thawing of the methane-rich northern permafrost and increased emissions from tropical wetlands.

N2O contributes about 6% to the overall global increase in radiative forcing. N2O emissions result from the use of nitrogen-containing fertilizers, including manure, which has profoundly affected the global nitrogen cycle. Over a 100 year period, its impact on climate is 298 times greater than equal emissions of carbon dioxide.

Halocarbons together account for about 12% of the increase in radiative forcing. Some halocarbons such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), previously used as refrigerants, as propellants in spray cans and as solvents, are decreasing slowly as a result of international action to preserve the Earth’s protective ozone layer. However, concentrations of other gases such as HCFCs and HFCs, which have been substituted for CFCs because they are less damaging to the ozone layer, are increasing rapidly. HCFCs and HFCs are very potent greenhouse gases and last much longer in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

While greenhouse gases continue to rise at an increasing rate, the leaders of Earth’s “greatest” nations continue to fiddle. After the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 ended in a debacle, governments pledged to try to sign a new treaty in 2012, when the current provisions of the Kyoto protocol expire. Fiona Harvey at the U.K. Guardian reports that before critical climate talks even begin next week, most of the world’s leading economies are privately admitting that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest – and that even if it were negotiated by then, they would stipulate it could not come into force until 2020.

2020 is too late if catastrophic climate change is to be averted. Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and one of the world’s foremost authorities on climate economics, warns:

If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to holding temperatures below 2 ° C will be closed forever.

While global leaders fiddle, Earth is already beginning to burn (and drown). In an advance draft of the Summary for Policymakers of the upcoming report Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX, the IPCC observes there has been an increase in temperature extremes, extreme precipitation events, and economic losses from extreme weather- and climate-related disasters.

While noting the effects of climate change are already being felt, the IPCC is pulling its punches. Joseph Romm at Climate Progress fumes:

The thing to remember about IPCC reports is that pretty much everyone involved has to sign off on every word, so it is inevitably a least common denominator document. The actual scientific literature from 2011 is far more useful than this report.

Romm in his post discusses and provides links to many recent studies showing the systemic influence of global warming on climate events. Climate change is already here – and will keep getting worse.

Massive die-offs of oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest show ocean acidification from an excess of CO2 emissions has already begun.

In Netarts Bay, from 2006 to 2008, oyster larvae began dying dramatically. Elizabeth Grossman, in an article in Yale Environment 360, quotes Netarts Bay hatchery owner Mark Wiegard:

Historically we’ve had larvae mortalities [usually related to bacteria] . . . My wife sent a few samples in and Hales [Burke Hales, a biogeochemist and ocean ecologist at Oregon State University] said someone had screwed up the samples because the [dissolved CO2 gas] level was so ridiculously high.

Taylor Shellfish Hatchery in Washington, the country’s largest producer of farmed shellfish and one of the largest oyster producers, has also reported dramatic losses.  Hood Canal has some of the Pacific Northwest’s highest levels of ocean acidification. Taylor’s hatchery there experienced the loss of about three-quarters of its oyster larvae, losses which are now being mitigated by buffering the high acidity.

Wild oyster beds in the Pacific Northwest are suffering, too.  Wild oysters in Willapa Bay,  Puget Sound, and off the east coast of Vancouver Island have seen reproductive failure because acidic waters have prevented oyster larvae from forming shells. Acidic water sometimes kills oyster larvae outright, so that they fail to survive past the egg stage. At other times the eggs hatch; but the larvae, stressed as they try to forms their first shells, fail after a week or two.

The water now washing ashore in Oregon and Washington actually absorbed its CO2 30 to 50 years ago. Oceans absorb about 50% of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels. Since then, emissions have been rising even more dramatically.

Ocean acidity has increased approximately 30% since the Industrial Revolution and is on track to be 150% more acidic by the end of the century than it has been for 20 million years. Ocean acidification depletes seawater of the compounds that organisms need to build shells and skeletons, impairing the ability of corals, crabs, sea stars, sea urchins, plankton and other marine creatures to build the shells they need to survive. Ocean acidification could destroy all of the globe’s coral reefs by 2050 and threatens the entire marine ecosystem.

2011 has seen new record lows established for Arctic average sea ice extent and area; sea ice volume; and for global sea ice area.

Neven at Arctic Sea Ice Blog reports that the 12 month rolling average for Arctic sea ice extent set a new record in October 2011 at 10.66 million km². The previous record of 10.67 million km² had been set in October 2007.

The record for Arctic sea ice area has also been broken. The October 2007 was again the previous record, standing at 8.39 million km². Annual average Sea Ice Area dropped to 8.34 million km² for the 12-month period ending in October 2011.

Sea ice volumes have been decreasing far more quickly. The previous record value from PIOMAS was 15,075 km³, set in the 12-month period ending in January 2008, a record that held for just 29 months. The 12-month period ending in September 2011 set a new record, averaging 13,140 km³.

Global sea ice area (Arctic and Antarctic combined, as calculated at Cryosphere Today) has also reached its lowest maximum on record, as seen in this graph posted here.

It’s hard to see the new record in the graph above, but Neven posts this chart showing the numbers.

Earth’s cryosphere continues to wither under the assault from global warming.

If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re heading.

So begins the Executive Summary of the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2011.

And where is it we are heading?

We cannot afford to delay further action to tackle climate change if the long-term target of limiting the global average temperature increase to 2°C, as analysed in the 450 Scenario, is to be achieved at reasonable cost. In the New Policies Scenario, the world is on a trajectory that results in a level of emissions consistent with a long-term average temperature increase of more than 3.5°C. Without these new policies, we are on an even more dangerous track, for a temperature increase of 6°C or more.

Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permissible by 2035 in the 450 Scenario are already “locked-in” by our existing capital stock (power plants, buildings, factories, etc.). If stringent new action is not forthcoming by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place will generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035, leaving no room for additional power plants, factories and other infrastructure unless they are zero-carbon, which would be extremely costly.

Unfortunately, we’ve come to learn 450 ppm CO2 is much too high to avoid catastrophic climate consequences.

The conclusion that limiting CO2-equivalent to 450 ppm will succeed in limiting temperature increase to 2°C is based on the assumption that no feedback loops will kick in, an assumption that is already proving unfounded – for example, Arctic amplification is already kicking in and thawing permafrost will further accelerate global warming.

If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current ~390 ppm to at most 350 ppm. To be safe, we’ll likely have to get back to pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm, and rather quickly.

And how are we doing? The European Environment Agency keeps track.

Even under the most optimistic (more accurately, unrealistic) scenarios, it’s looking like the IEA’s outlook is unjustifiably rosy. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now about 390 ppm, however, the concentration of CO2e has already hit 450 ppm.

A 2011 paper by Dr. Minqi Li of the University of Utah lays out the horrible and inexorable consequences of continuing to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere:

It is now widely understood that human economic activities have led to emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels consumption, which contribute to long-term global warming and threaten to bring about global ecological catastrophes.

In 2010, the global average land and ocean surface temperature was 14.6°C, which was 0.9°C higher than in 1880 and 0.3°C higher than in 2000 (NASA 2011).

If global warming rises above 2°C (relative to the pre-industrial time), dangerous climate feedbacks may be triggered, leading to the release of more greenhouse gases from soil and ocean. For this reason, 2°C warming is generally considered by scientists as the “safe limit” beyond which global warming may be out of human control.

A 3°C warming would destroy the Amazon rainforest, leading to a further warming of 1.5°C. Southern Africa, Australia, Mediterranean Europe, and Western US would turn into deserts. Sea level could rise by 25 meters and billions of people could become environmental refugees.

With a 4°C warming, the melting of the Arctic permafrost could release massive amount of carbon dioxide and methane. Algae, the main carbon sinker in the ocean, would die out. The world is set for runaway global warming that could lead to additional temperature rises by several degrees.

If global warming rises to 5°C and above, much of the world would cease to be inhabitable and global human population could suffer a catastrophic decline. Table 4 summarizes the potential consequences of various degrees of global warming. It is not exaggerating to say that the very survival of the human civilization for centuries to come is at stake.

* * *

Without any further increase in greenhouse gases, the current level of greenhouse gases already implies a long-term warming of 2-4°C.

Note that Dr. Li, an economist, does not hesitate to point the finger at human economic activity as the cause of climate change.

Naomi Klein emphasizes this same point – that capitalism is the culprit – at The Nation: lowering global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to the “free market” belief system. Climate change is a consequence of unrestrained greed.

The fact that the earth’s atmosphere cannot safely absorb the amount of carbon we are pumping into it is a symptom of a much larger crisis, one born of the central fiction on which our economic model is based: that nature is limitless, that we will always be able to find more of what we need, and that if something runs out it can be seamlessly replaced by another resource that we can endlessly extract. But it is not just the atmosphere that we have exploited beyond its capacity to recover—we are doing the same to the oceans, to freshwater, to topsoil and to biodiversity. The expansionist, extractive mindset, which has so long governed our relationship to nature, is what the climate crisis calls into question so fundamentally. The abundance of scientific research showing we have pushed nature beyond its limits does not just demand green products and market-based solutions; it demands a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded not in dominance over nature but in respect for natural cycles of renewal—and acutely sensitive to natural limits, including the limits of human intelligence.

Climate change is a message, one that is telling us that many of our culture’s most cherished ideas are dangerous and destructive enough to not only imperil human civilization but to ravage the capacity of Earth to sustain life. Averting catastrophic climate change requires nothing less than a radical overhaul of our economy and society. Averting catastrophic climate change requires that the nations of the world abandon their obsession with economic growth and instead focus, above everything else, on slashing fossil fuel consumption.

Beginning like, now. Not next week, next year, next election, next congress, next climate conference. Now.

Like, now. Not next week, next year, next election, next congress, next climate conference. Now.

Fat chance of that happening.

A draft summary of an international climate report says that freakish weather disasters — like the October snowstorm in the northeast U.S. and the record floods in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries — are already occurring more often and that the frequency of extreme  weather events will to continue to increase, at a huge cost.

Jeff Masters at WunderBlog describes the multi-billion dollar damage from the October snowstorm . . .

It’s time to add another billion-dollar weather disaster to the growing 2011 total of these costly disasters: the extraordinary early-season Northeast U.S. snowstorm of October 29, which dumped up to 32 inches of snow, brought winds gusts of 70 mph to the coast, and killed at least 22 people. Not since the infamous snow hurricane of 1804 have such prodigious amounts of October snow been recorded in New England and, to a lesser extent, in the mid-Atlantic states. Trees that had not yet lost their leaves suffered tremendous damage from the wet, heavy snow. Snapped branches and falling trees brought down numerous power lines, leaving at least 3 million people without electricity. The damage estimate in Connecticut alone is $3 billion, far more than the damage Hurricane Irene did to the state. Hundreds of thousands still remain without power a week after the storm, with full electricity not expected to be restored until Monday.

. . . and reports that 2011 has already set a new record for the number of billion dollar plus events, with nearly two months to go before the end of the year:

The October 29 snow storm brings the 2011 tally of U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters to fourteen, thoroughly smashing the previous record of nine such disasters, set in 2008.

Joseph Romm at Climate Progress charts the increase in billion dollar events over the last thirty years.

The IPCC report, to be issued in a few weeks, predicts costs will rise and some locations will become “increasingly marginal as places to live.”

Global warming isn’t only about subtle changes in daily average temperatures. It’s also about the increasing frequency of severe climate-related events that cause economic damage and kill people.

Losses range from 100 to 200 gigatonnes per year, the equivalent to 0.28 to 0.56 mm per year sea-level rise – and the rate is increasing.

This excerpt is from the abstract:

Ice sheets are expected to shrink in size as the world warms, which in turn will raise sea level. The West Antarctic ice sheet is of particular concern, because it was probably much smaller at times during the past million years when temperatures were comparable to levels that might be reached or exceeded within the next few centuries. Much of the grounded ice in West Antarctica lies on a bed that deepens inland and extends well below sea level. Oceanic and atmospheric warming threaten to reduce or eliminate the floating ice shelves that buttress the ice sheet at present. Loss of the ice shelves would accelerate the flow of non-floating ice near the coast. Because of the slope of the sea bed, the consequent thinning could ultimately float much of the ice sheet’s interior. In this scenario, global sea level would rise by more than three metres, at an unknown rate.

The study’s authors suggest loss of the large ice shelves by atmospheric or oceanic forcing would probably lead to collapse of the bulk of the marine ice sheet. Temperature predications for 2100 approach the thresholds of ice-shelf viability in many simulations.

With CO2 emissions increasing by a record amount in 2010, temperatures by the end of the century are likely to be at the top end of or even exceed IPCC predictions. Meeting the 2° target the IPCC warns is necessary to avert dangerous climate change depends on limiting atmospheric CO2 to no more than 450 ppm. We are a little below 400 parts per million now – and heading higher. Recent research has found that the WAIS collapsed and rebuilt multiple times matching the cycle of Northern Hemisphere’s pattern of glaciation and glacier retreat – collapsing much more frequently when atmospheric CO2 hit 400ppm.

Sea level rise is now going up about 3.5 centimeters per decade. A collapse of the marine ice sheet in West Antarctica would raise sea levels by more than three meters over the course of several centuries or less – in the past, sea levels have risen at a speed of up to one meter per 20 years.

It’s bad enough that the Greenland ice sheet is melting: Greenland setting a new melt record in 2010, and Greenland melting in 2011 well above average with near-record mass loss. Now we may be witnessing the start of the destabilization of the WAIS.

Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press reports that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing faster than the worst case scenario outlined just four years ago in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report:

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

Humans emitted about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the atmosphere in 2010 than it did in 2009 – an increase of 6%. Joseph Romm at Climate Progress posts these graphics.

China, the United States, and India are the world’s top producers of greenhouse gases. While the U.S. dithers and does nothing to stop global warming, the power to do so has slipped out of our hands. Earth’s fate now lies largely in the hands of others.

Emissions in developing countries are rising very rapidly and are projected to continue doing so. For example, between 1990 and 2009, among the top 5 emitting countries, China increased its per capita emissions by over two and a half times and India doubled them.

The demand for coal in India is expected to increase rapidly in the future, dominated mainly by the power sector as India’s government aims to double power generation over the next decade. India is currently the third largest producer of coal in the world; and India’s coal imports, which totaled 55 million tons in 2010, are expected to rise to 186 million tons by 2014 and to soar to ~300 million tons by 2016. China’s coal consumption rose to 2.28 billion metric tons of coal in the first nine months of 2011, up 10.3% from 2010. China is projected to more than double its consumption of coal by 2035.

Raymond Pierrehumbert at RealClimate sums up all you ever really need to know about CO2 emissions and climate:

• The peak warming is linearly proportional to the cumulative carbon emitted
• It doesn’t matter much how rapidly the carbon is emitted
• The warming you get when you stop emitting carbon is what you are stuck with for the next thousand years
• The climate recovers only slightly over the next ten thousand years
• At the mid-range of IPCC climate sensitivity, a trillion tonnes cumulative carbon gives you about 2C global mean warming above the pre-industrial temperature.

Pierrehumbert notes we have already emitted about half the trillion-ton figure, so our whole future allowance is another 500 gigatonnes – assuming Earth herself doesn’t kick in. Nehring (2009) estimates that known global economically recoverable coal amounts to 846 gigatonnes, based on 2005 prices and technology. That’s ~634 gigatonnes of carbon, which all by itself is more than enough to bring us well past “game-over.” Proved reserves of conventional oil add up to ~139 gigatonnes C, proved natural gas reserves another ~100 gigatonnes C – and these two energy reserves are so valuable and easily accessible that it’s probably inevitable they will get burned. The carbon associated with the Athabasca oil sands deposit adds up to about 230 gigatonnes; estimates of how much of that will ultimately be economically recoverable vary from 10% to 70%.

And Earth herself is starting to kick in. Drying of northern wetlands has led to much more severe peatland wildfires and nine times as much carbon released into the atmosphere, according to new research led by University of Guelph professor Merritt Turetsky:

Russia, Indonesia and Canada all have abundant peatlands, but they also have been hotspots for intense peat fires in the past decade. Our study shows that when disturbance lowers the water table, that resistance [to fire[ disappears and peat becomes very flammable and vulnerable to deep burning. * * * Currently, peatlands are considered important global stores for carbon. But we’ve shown that human disturbance or climate-induced drying can switch peatlands from sinks to potentially huge sources of carbon, with losses associated with severe burning far outweighing long-term rates of sequestration.

And then there's the shocking conclusion from the study “Amount and timing of permafrost carbon release in response to climate warming” in Tellus by NOAA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):

The thaw and release of carbon currently frozen in permafrost will increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations and amplify surface warming to initiate a positive permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) on climate. . . [Our] estimate may be low because it does not account for amplified surface warming due to the PCF itself. . . We predict that the PCF will change the arctic from a carbon sink to a source after the mid-2020s and is strong enough to cancel 42-88% of the total global land sink. The thaw and decay of permafrost carbon is irreversible and accounting for the PCF will require larger reductions in fossil fuel emissions to reach a target atmospheric CO2 concentration.

There are ~1,672 billion tonnes of carbon equivalent trapped in the form of methane in the Arctic permafrost, about twice as much carbon as currently contained in the atmosphere. Methane is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon – but 72 times as potent over 20 years.While humans continue to fiddle and burn, Earth’s carbon cycle is slipping beyond human ability to control.

Bad news: a new study finds that the prospects for avoiding dangerous global warming are bleak, indeed.

In the study, titled Emission pathways consistent with a 2°C global temperature limit,  the scientists reanalyzed a large set of previously published emission scenarios based on integrated assessment models. They found that in the set of scenarios with a ‘likely’ (greater than 66%) chance of staying below 2°C, emissions peak between 2010 and 2020 and fall to a median level of 44 Gt of CO₂ equivalent in 2020 (compared with estimated median emissions across the scenario set of 48 Gt of CO₂ equivalent in 2010).

Current climate models show if the increase in average global temperatures is to be kept below 2°C (3.6°F), emissions must not only peak by 2020, emissions must fall by almost 10% by 2020  – and then continue to fall rapidly to well under half of current emissions by 2050.

Climate scientist Neil Edwards commented on the study’s findings:

The alarming thing is very few scenarios give the kind of future we want.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently announced global CO₂ emissions decreased for the first time since 1990, due to the 2008-2009 economic crisis – but warned, don’t expect a trend. A large rebound is anticipated in 2010. (Note: a report published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency found that global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions increased by more than 5% in 2010, reaching an all-time high.)

The IEA’s findings are contained in a free document which contains highlights from CO₂ Emissions from Fuel Combustion 2011, an IEA statistics publication which will be released in November 2011. The document, which contains all the latest information on the level and growth of CO₂ emissions, has been released to inform the upcoming UN climate negotiations in Durban. Key findings include:

1. Two-thirds of global emissions for 2009 originated from just ten countries, with the shares of China and the United States far surpassing those of all others (combined, these two countries alone produced 41% of the world’s CO₂ emissions).
2. Between 1990 and 2009, CO₂ emissions from the combustion of coal grew from 40% to 43% and natural gas from 18 to 20%, while CO₂ emissions from oil fell from 42% to 37%.
3. Two sectors – electricity and heat generation and transport – produced nearly two-thirds of global CO₂ emissions in 2009, up from 58% in 1990.

In their study, the climate scientists found only three of the 193 scenarios examined would be very likely to keep the warming below the danger level – and all of those require heavy use of energy systems that actually remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. That would require, for example, both creating biofuels and storing the carbon dioxide from their combustion in the ground. Edwards put it this way:

What we need is at the cutting edge. We need to be as innovative as we can be in every way.

In the statement quoted above, Edwards is assuming that the objective is to preserve the energy-intensive economic growth paradigm. But he paradigm is the problem. Every day it is becoming increasingly clear that cutting edge technology and innovation are not the answer.

One example: many Oregonians across the political spectrum, including Governor John Kitzhaber, have promoted forest biomass as a energy source, thinking woody debris from thinning, brush clearing and removing dead trees could could help the state meet its renewable energy goals while at the same time restoring forest health and providing jobs in rural communities. But not so fast, say OSU researchers: managing forests for biofuel production will increase carbon dioxide emissions from the forests by at least 14%. The OSU press release quotes co-author Beverly Law:

Until now there have been a lot of misconceptions about impacts of forest thinning, fire prevention and biofuels production as it relates to carbon emissions from forests. If our ultimate goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, producing bioenergy from forests will be counterproductive. Some of these forest management practices may also have negative impacts on soils, biodiversity and habitat. These issues have not been thought out very fully.

Looking to technology and innovation to enable humans to continue to pursue the economic growth that is consuming the very ecosystems that sustain us is just the denial of an addict. What is necessary is that we acceptance: growth is destructive and must be reversed. We must welcome and embrace the collapse of our current economic system, and learn to live within an economic system that conserves rather than consumes the larger systems of which it is a part.

Arctic sea ice is disappearing much faster and more dramatically than expected, according to new research by the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI). Consequently, the Arctic Sea could be free of ice in the summer in ten years, rather than the 50 to 100 years previously estimated.

Here’s the abstract from “Thinning of Arctic sea ice 1990-2010 as observed by upward looking sonars – or why the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer in less than ten years“:

Time series of sea ice thickness observed in Fram Strait by moored sonars show a 35 percent reduction in multiyear (MY) modal ice thickness since 2005. The MY mode reflects the thickness of level ice which has survived at least one melt season, and is hence a reflection of the thermodynamic equilibrium. During the 1990s the late winter MY modal thickness was 3.4+-0.4 m. Following excessive export of MY ice during the winter of 2005, late winter MY modal ice thickness dropped to 2.2 +-0.1 m, which persisted until the end of our record in 2010. The reduced MY modal ice thickness is a result of the Arctic sea ice cover entering a new state, where dynamic and thermodynamic effects appear to have combined to shift the equilibrium towards thinner ice.

This new state includes a dramatic reduction in the fraction of ridged sea ice, compared to the 1990s. The vast fields of ridged ice thicker than 5 m, constituting 28 percent of the winter Arctic sea ice cover during the 1990s, is nearly gone. At the end of winter in 2010, ice thicker than 5 m constituted only 6 percent of the total ice mass observed. The combined effect on late winter mean ice thickness is a reduction from 4.3+-0.4 m during the 1990s to a record low value of 2.0 m in late winter 2010. We speculate that increased ocean heat flux plays an important role in the thinning of the thick ice. With the thickest ice nearly gone and the MY level ice thicknesses close to thicknesses typical for first year sea ice, we are approaching a state where favorable conditions could melt most of the Arctic sea ice cover during one summer. 

This graphic provided by the U.S. Navy shows how little older, thicker ice is left – just a thin band along the northern edge of the Arctic Archipelago and the north coast of Greenland.

The graphic here is animated – you can watch the older ice flowing out of the Arctic Sea through the Fram Strait.

While emissions from OECD countries have been decreasing, emissions from developing countries – especially China and India – have been soaring.

Atmospheric CO2 levels now exceed 390 ppm, far above the 350 ppm which could trigger catastrophic and irreversible climate change. Methane levels have begun to increase more rapidly, too, as seen in this chart from NOAA.

Global average abundances of the major, well-mixed, long-lived greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, CFC-12 and CFC-11 – from the NOAA global air sampling network are plotted since the beginning of 1979. These gases account for about 96% of the direct radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases since 1750.

Increased radiative forcing is already having climate impacts, here in the U.S.

Impacts include more than just high temperatures. As Joseph Romm says, global warming means Hell and high water.

During 2011 to-date, extreme precipitation amounts have been present across the southern and the northeastern United States. Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas all had their driest January-August periods on record, while Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were record wet during the same period.

Washington and Oregon were the only states across the lower 48 to have below-average summer temperatures.

Extreme weather isn’t helping global food prices. Food prices remain near all-time highs, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization.

The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 231 points in August 2011, nearly unchanged from July and 26 percent higher than in August 2010. The FFPI hit its all time high of 238 points in February.

This year’s warming-driven extreme weather- along with the conversion of agricultural land to biofuel production – is likely to help keep food prices high for a while longer.

Alerting message from the Arctic: The extent the Arctic sea ice has reached on Sep. 8 with 4.240 million km2 a new historic minimum (Figure 1). Physicists of the University of Bremen now confirm the apprehension existing since July 2011 that the ice melt in the Arctic could further proceed and even exceed the previous historic minimum of 2007. It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Directly, the livehood of small animals, algae, fishes and mammals like polar bears and seals is more and more reduced.

The University of Bremen’s ice map shows the Northwest and Northeast passages are simultaneously ice free
This happened for the first time in 2008 – it did not happen in 2007, the year that saw the record minimum ice extent.

The daily sea ice maps of the University of Bremen are based on observations of the Japanese microwave sensor AMSR-E, in orbit on board the NASA spacecraft Aqua since 2002. The institute receives the data from two servers in the US and Japan and produces the maps based on the ASI (ARTIST Sea Ice) algorithm using the 89 GHz channels of AMSR-E. Other retrieval algorithms like NASA Team or Bootstrap may find slightly different sea ice extent values.

To wit: the National Snow and Ice Data Center has just called the yearly minimum Arctic sea ice extent, finding it the second lowest in the satellite record.

Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its lowest extent for the year. The minimum ice extent was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007, and continues the decadal trend of rapidly decreasing summer sea ice.

Please note that this is a preliminary announcement. Changing winds could still push ice flows together, reducing ice extent further. NSIDC scientists will release a full analysis of the melt season in early October, once monthly data are available for September.

* * *

The last five years (2007 to 2011) have been the five lowest extents in the continuous satellite record, which extends back to 1979. While the record low year of 2007 was marked by a combination of weather conditions that favored ice loss (including clearer skies, favorable wind patterns, and warm temperatures), this year has shown more typical weather patterns but continued warmth over the Arctic. This supports the idea that the Arctic sea ice cover is continuing to thin. Models and remote sensing data also indicate this is the case. A large area of low concentration ice in the East Siberian Sea, visible in NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery, suggests that the ice cover this year is particularly thin and dispersed this year.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) also pegs 2011 as the second lowest year for Arctic sea ice extent.

If September 9 holds up as the date of minimum ice extent, that’s the earliest date of minimum extent in years – and earlier than the average date (September 10) over the period of satellite records, which began in 1979.

While the absolute sea ice extent values might vary slightly from one method to the other – and even the day of the absolute minimum might vary slightly – all methods find consistently that all minima since 2007 have been lower than all minima before, i.e. the last four minima (2007-2011) are the four lowest on record.

And there’s little doubt that 2011 saw new record for Arctic sea ice volume . . .

. . . and area.

Global warming and climate change have already come to the Arctic. The full consequences of this new reality have yet to be seen.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports Arctic sea ice extent averaged for August 2011 reached the second lowest level for the month in the satellite record, tracking near the record lows of 2007.

Arctic sea ice extent will likely reach its minimum extent for the year sometime in the next two weeks. If ice stopped declining in extent today, it would be the second-lowest minimum extent in the satellite record.

Both the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea route appear to be open – for the fourth consecutive year.

Sea ice is now almost completely gone from the channels of the Northwest Passage, with the exception of a small strip of ice across a stretch of the Parry Channel. The southern route (Amunden’s Route) is ice free. According to the Canadian Ice Service, sea ice extent in the western Parry Channel is now the lowest at this time of year since record keeping began in 1966 and very little multi-year ice remains.

The fabled Northwest Passage opened for the first time in 2007. Now, it’s become routine. In 2008 the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route were open simultaneously for the first time. This, too, seems now to be the new normal.

This chart from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) shows sea ice area approaching the record low set in 2007.

The area of sea-ice cover can be defined in two ways, sea ice “extent” and sea ice “area.” Sea ice “extent” is defined as the areal sum of sea ice covering the ocean (sea ice + open ocean), whereas sea ice “area”  counts only sea ice covering a fraction of the ocean (sea ice only). Thus, the sea ice extent is always larger than the sea ice area.

A new study confirms the minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year (2010) – but this year has already broken that record, as seen in this PIOMASS graph from the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center.

The decline in volume is even more apparent from this graph posted at Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice blog.

Sea ice volume in 2011 is already below last year’s record low. 2011 has already seen a new record minimum volume – and the melt season is not yet over.

Scientists have produced the first map of ice motion over the entire continent of Antarctica. From the air, the Antarctic continent appears a featureless, static icy remnant of the past. However, the new satellite-based pole-to-coast map reveals sinuous, river-like streams of ice and their speed of discharge from central Antarctica into the ocean.

The map is published online by Science magazine (subscription only). The visualization reveals the extent of the sinuous, river-like streams of ice and the speed of discharge from central Antarctica into the ocean. It’s available from BBC News (better yet, from the European Space Agency (ESA), without the commercial). The new findings should shed new light on the contribution of Antarctic ice sheets  to sea-level rise.

The map incorporates billions of radar data points collected between 1996 and 2009 by satellites belonging to Europe, Canada and Japan; and includes data from East Antarctica which has never before been available. While the broad picture of how the ice drains from the center of Antarctica to the edges has been reasonably well understood, the map reveals a number of previously unrecognized features, including a ridge that splits the 14 million square km landmass from east to west.

Ice velocities on the new map range from just few centimeters per year near places where the ice divides into different paths, to kilometers per year on fast-moving glaciers and the ice shelves that float out from the edges of the continent. Ice flow is fastest at the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers in West Antarctica. Recent survey work has revealed that Pine Island is thinning rapidly; its surface has been dropping by more than 15m per year.

The ESA confirms both Arctic sea routes are once again open at the same time, for the fourth consecutive year.

The long-sought Northwest Passage opened for the first time in 2007. Now, it’s routine.

In 2008 satellites saw that the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route were open simultaneously for the first time since satellite measurements began in the 1970s – and now it has happened again.

While the Northern Sea Route above Russia (also known as the Northeast Passage) has been open to shipping traffic since mid-August, recent satellite data show that the most direct course in the Northwest Passage now appears to be navigable as well.Located in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Northwest Passage can be a short cut for shipping between Europe and Asia – but with the opening of the sea route comes the potential for both sovereignty claims and marine species migration across the Arctic Ocean.

In 2007, Arctic sea ice hit a record low since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years before. That same year, the historically impassable Northwest Passage opened for the first time.

Unusual weather contributed to 2007’s record ice loss: skies opened over the central Arctic Ocean and wind patterns pushed warm air into the region, promoting a strong melt.

Weather patterns have been different this year, but the early opening of the passages indicates that we could be about to hit a new record low in ice cover.

Leif Toudal Pedersen, senior scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, explains:

The minimum ice extent is still three to four weeks away, and a lot depends on the weather conditions over the Arctic during those weeks. Whether we reach an absolute minimum or not, this year again confirms that we are in a new regime with substantially less summer ice than before. The last five summers are the five minimum ice extent summers on record.

It’s now undeniable that humans will be living with a new and different Arctic – and Antarctic, too.

2011 is the fourth consecutive year – and the fourth time in recorded history – that both Arctic shipping routes have become open to navigation.

Arctic ice extent is declining at a brisk pace, but melt is slightly behind the pace set in 2007, the record low year – as seen in this image at the IJIS Web site provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports weather conditions in late July spread the ice out, but that conditions are now again such that sea ice extent may decline rapidly:

During early summer, a high-pressure cell persisted over the northern Beaufort Sea, promoting ice loss. This weather pattern broke down toward the end of July, slowing ice loss but spreading out the ice pack, making it thinner on average. The weather has now changed again, bringing another high-pressure pattern. Winds associated with this pressure pattern generally bring warm temperatures, and tend to push the ice together and reduce overall extent. In the Kara Sea, the combination of a high-pressure cell with low pressure to the west has resulted in strong northward ice movement, pushing the ice pack away from the coast and reducing ice extent. The same weather pattern is also increasing the movement of ice out of Fram Strait, between Greenland and Spitsbergen.

Right now, there is a record divergence between area and extent, as Neven reports at Arctic Sea Ice Blog. The difference is often substantial, as can be seen by comparing the graph of sea ice extent, above, with that of sea ice area, below, posted by Joseph Romm at Climate Progress.

The ratio of sea ice area to sea ice extent is now at a record low, as seen in the graph below.

NSIDC also reports that Arctic sea ice volume is now showing record lows. Through July 20 this year, the ice surface was melting faster than the underside of the ice. As the Arctic days grow shorter surface melt will slow – but ocean waters warmed during the summer will continue to melt the ice from below, reducing ice thickness and extent into September.

The University of Washington’s Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) model projects that this year’s minimum volume in September will very likely finish below 2007, reaching a new record low volume.

Even more import than ice extent, Arctic sea ice volume is showing record lows.

The University of Washington’s Polar Science Center reports monthly averaged ice volume for July 2011 was 51% lower than the mean over the 1979-2010 period, 62% lower than the maximum in 1979, and 2.5 standard deviations below the trend.

New research from MIT finds that Arctic sea ice is thinning, on average, four times faster than the models used in the 2007 IPCC Forth Assessment Report indicate – and it’s drifting away twice as rapidly. The Fourth Assessment Report forecast an ice-free Arctic by 2100; we now expect it to happen several decades earlier.

Joseph Romm at Science Progress says we can expect Arctic sea ice to crash by two thirds by the 2030s and then collapse to near-zero shortly thereafter — unless we cut global GHG emissions about 60% to 70% almost immediately and then follow up with more cuts. That simply is not going to happen.

Not only will humans continue to spew GHG emissions. Mother Nature is starting to kick in, too.  Sea ice is just the canary in the coal mine.

Carbon emission (in billions of tons of carbon a year) from thawing permafrost.

In assessing the global warming impacts of melting permafrost, the NSIDC study that resulted in the graph above doesn’t even incorporate the CO2 released by the permafrost as feedback into its warming model, and further assumes that all of the permafrost carbon would be released as CO2 and none as methane. Methane is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon, but 72 times as potent over 20 years.   The study warns:

The thaw and decay of permafrost carbon is irreversible and accounting for the PCF will require larger reductions in fossil fuel emissions to reach a target atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Setting atmospheric CO2 target – any target, no matter how inadequate to avert climate catastrophe – is no longer even on the international political agenda, is no longer even imaginable as part of the U.S. political agenda. Actually doing anything, voluntarily, to achieve any such target is inconceivable, as that would require that we begin to dismantle industrial civilization.

We’re approaching the end of the play. Time for the deus ex machina.