Climate change not the biggest factor responsible for Arctic ice melting?

Arctic sea ice has been shrinking rapidly in the last few decades, and this has lead to popular belief among many climate change scientists that Arctic region has already passed a climate tipping point, meaning that even bigger loss of sea ice is expected in years to come, and that very soon Arctic ocean could be ice-free during the summer months.

The latest study by Masayo Ogi, a scientist with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokohama, and her colleagues does not question that climate change also played important role in Arctic sea ice loss but that there is one factor that could be even more important in explaining loss of Arctic sea ice. That factor are Arctic winds.

Ogi and her colleagues found that changes in Arctic wind patterns, such as summertime winds that blow clockwise around the Beaufort Sea, seemed to coincide with years where sea ice loss was highest, and that the ice blown out of the region by Arctic winds can explain around one-third of the Arctic sea ice loss trend in the last 30 years.

Arctic winds could be one of the major factors responsible for the loss of Arctic sea ice in the last 30 years.

The power of these winds has increased recently, and this could explain the current trend of decline in the areal coverage of Arctic summer sea ice.

In the last 30 years, the Arctic ice has shrunk by about 10% a decade, which is around 28,000 square miles each year. The ice reaches its minimum coverage each September, when it begins to expand as the freezing Arctic winter takes hold.

According to this study both winter and summer winds could have been responsible for blowing ice out of the Arctic in the last 30 years. Other factors were also responsible for loss of Arctic sea ice, like increased temperatures of air and ocean.

Why humanity won't win a fight against climate change?

James Lovelock, a real legend when it comes to environmentalism, and the founder of the idea that our planet is a giant, self-regulating organism – the so-called Gaia theory, has recently given very simple explanation why humans won't stop climate change, namely because humans are too stupid.

Lovelock said that he doesn't believe how humans have yet to evolve to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change, and that only a catastrophic event of great magnitude (for instance collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level) would be able to persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough.

It is become rather clear that another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report won't be enough to force the world to an immediate action, especially not after the panel was heavily criticized over a mistaken claim that all Himalayan glaciers are likely to melt by 2030.

The number of climate change skeptics seems to be growing lately, and I also believe that world will fail to react to climate change before some catastrophic event of gigantic proportions. The most worrying part in this whole story is that once climate change starts showing its scary face we'll have very limited options to do something about it.

The main problem with the adequate response to climate change is that there are so many different interests involved, especially on global level, and lets face it humanity doesn't exactly have positive experiences about solving matters on global level. If that was the case then hunger and wars would be long forgotten by now.

Humans are indeed stupid, stupid in their selfishness which blinds them to see things from global perspective. Global interests should be above the individual interests, that is common logic, but sadly when it comes to individual interests greed destroys any logic. The Copenhagen failure was the best example of our civilization's immaturity, and things still do not look as they could improve any time now.

Is climate change issue still on top of the world political agenda?

The Copenhagen deal can be characterized as one big failure where world leaders showed to the public that not only do they fail to realize the seriousness of climate change threat but that there is also no cohesion on global level that would create an adequate atmosphere for one big global political decision needed for new climate change agreement.

We'll very soon discover where exactly is the place of climate change issue on the world political agenda as negotiators will in few days time meet in Bonn for the first official talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Since the Copenhagen failure the overall feeling has been gloom and doom and many environmentalists fear that many political leaders have lost will to agree on new climate change deal.

The number of climate skeptics (supported by domestic fossil fuel industries) experienced significant growth in the last few months, especially after some mistakes have been found in official climate change predictions.

The current mission should primarily be focused on how to breathe life into the Copenhagen summit's only positive outcome- the Copenhagen Accord that set the goal of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), and also promised 30 billion dollars (22 billion euros) for climate-vulnerable poor countries up to to 2012, and as much as 100 billion dollars annually by 2020.

Since this accord has no deadline or some kind of guideline for reaching the warming target and its pledges are only voluntary many doubt its value, and politicians will in few days have the chance the prove the critics wrong.

This meeting will be very important as it can either restore the lost confidence in new climate change deal or it can destroy even this slim hope in reaching new climate deal that currently exists.

As said before world lacks cohesion on global level so I fear that even this slim hope in reaching new climate deal could be destroyed. Hopefully, I'm wrong on this one.

Humanity is still too shallow for new climate deal

The world still hasn't matured enough when global interests are at stake, and thus we are very unlikely to see new climate deal in any time soon. The differences in opinions between the countries, and lack of political will is making new climate deal impossible to reach, and once again the humanity has showed that our civilization isn't exactly as advanced as many think it is. Well, at least not from ethical, environmental, and logical point of view.

The same old story over and over again. The science says to us please stop emitting so much greenhouse gases, they present us with various reports about what is climate change doing in form of ice melting, droughts, animals disappearing, etc, and then we see some weak public support which in the end results in some false political promise about the necessity of immediate action. Once this promise needs to be fulfilled the politics controlled by powerful oil and other fossil fuel lobbies says that we must wait for better times, and here we go again, one more time spinning in the circle. Over and over again. Will this circle ever be broken?

The money is in the hand of powerful fossil fuel lobbies that control politics. Without politics we can't make any global decision, and politics is always the game of interests, especially on global level. All countries are driven by their own interests instead by supporting global cause. And this global cause isn't some small issue, what we are talking about here is something that could have long-term effect on our planet's health, and the life of our future generations.

But then again this is only environmental issue, and who cares about the environment? Well some of us do, but sadly there are too little of us to make the difference on global level. When it comes to choice between going for money or for something that could actually help our planet the ones with power always choose money. Always. Why? Because greed for money runs in their blood.

In such an atmosphere even the biggest optimists might feel the wind of change drifting the other way. Will this wind ever change direction? I'm the one of those who believe that only some major catastrophe caused by climate change could change the direction of this wind. One huge disaster looks to be the only thing that could make us see through the righteous eyes, where we could be finally able to separate the right from the wrong, and remove almighty dollar from the pedestal of our civilization's values.

This shallow, empty humanity was sleeping for so long that it can only be wakened by some catastrophe of major proportions.

Latest data shows climate change is still on

Despite the recent increase in number of climate change skeptics, the climate change is still on, especially after the latest NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) report which showed that world's combined global land and ocean surface temperature made last month the warmest March on record.

If land and ocean temperatures get separated then the ocean temperatures were the warmest for any March on record and the global land surface was the fourth warmest for any March on record.

Oceans are becoming more and more warmer.

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was 56.3°F (13.5°C), which is 1.39°F (0.77°C) above the 20th century average of 54.9°F (12.7°C).

The report also stated that warmer-than-normal conditions dominated the globe, especially in northern Africa, South Asia and Canada while cooler-than-normal conditions dominated Mongolia and eastern Russia, northern and western Europe, Mexico, northern Australia, western Alaska and the southeastern United States.

Arctic sea ice covered an average of 5.8 million square miles during March which is 4.1 percent below the 1979-2000 average expanse, and the fifth-smallest March coverage since records began in 1979. This was in fact the 17th consecutive March with below-average Arctic sea ice coverage.

NOAA's monthly reports have become traditional source of information about changes in global climate. This report also has practical value as it offers farmers information about what and when to plant, it helps guiding resource managers with critical decisions about water, energy and other vital assets.

Is it possible to completely eliminate CO2 emissions in the next few decades?

A new climate change deal that recently so miserably failed was all about reducing the amount of greenhouse gases (most notably CO2 emissions) in order to stop a further strengthening of the climate change impact. Can world really reduce the amount of carbon emissions in years to come? Well some scientists are even convinced that we can not only significantly reduce the amount of carbon emissions but also to eliminate these emissions completely. Sounds too optimistic for you? Well, you're not the only one.

The scientists from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Columbia University Earth Institute, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and 2030 Inc./Architecture 2030 have said that the global climate change problem becomes solvable only if society deals quickly with carbon emissions from burning coal in electric power plants.

These scientists are also convinced that the United States could completely eliminate carbon emissions from coal-fired electric power plants within 20 years by using technology that already exists or could be commercially available within a decade.

Their strategies in achieving this include elimination of subsidies for fossil fuels, putting higher prices on carbon emissions; major improvements in electricity transmission and the energy efficiency of homes, commercial buildings, and appliances; replacing coal power with biomass, geothermal, wind, solar, and third-generation nuclear power; and after successful demonstration at commercial scales, deployment of advanced (fourth-generation) nuclear power plants; and carbon capture and storage at remaining coal plants.

These strategies definitely sound good on paper but I would like to see them in real life. Are people ready to pay extra high energy prices, are renewable energy sources capable to replace coal in the next few decades? I believe the answer to both of these above questions is no, and therefore I do not see how we could transform this strategy into a real life.

Don't get me wrong, I would gladly pay higher energy prices, and would be more than happy if renewable energy technologies could mature enough in the next few decades to become cost-competitive with fossil fuels but I just don't see this coming.

Renewable energy can be considered only as some form of long-term solution to climate change problem. Many would say how come long-term solution since many energy experts predict dominance of renewable energy even before the end of this century so we are only talking about 50 years or so? 50 years or so is sadly very long lifespan given the current pace of climate change, and if current climate change predictions are true we don't have luxury of the next 50 years at our disposal to make things happen.

Therefore our only chance is some breakthrough science discovery that would somehow turn fossil fuels into clean energy sources, or that would somehow enable us an extremely rapid development of certain renewable energy source(s). I seriously doubt that anything else can really help us against climate change. In real life, that is.

Climate change - Artificial clouds as the solution?

One of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates, is funding research into devices that would be able to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards which would enable the creation of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth thus preventing the further warming of our planet. This technology is called sunshielding technology, and the first trials to test this technology are already being planned.

Given that the new climate deal doesn't look very likely to be agreed in the next few years it is very realistic to expect that carbon emissions will continue to rise which means that science has to consider every possible action to tackle climate change. When it comes to sunshielding technology then many scientists will tell you that this is probably the most benign of all geoengineering technologies (different artificial methods to cool our planet).

Last year's study has revealed the potential of sunshielding technology and according to the results of this study a fleet of 1,900 ships costing around $7 billion could stop the rise in temperature by criss-crossing the oceans and spraying seawater from tall funnels to whiten clouds which increases their reflectivity.

Sunshielding technology or as some called it "whitening the clouds" looks to be much less hazardous to use compared with other geoengineering methods because the worst thing it can do is to alter rainfall, and the effects of this would end after machines were shut down. Other geoengineering techniques usually include long term effects, and are thus more hazardous compared to sunshielding.

The trial test will include ten ships and 10,000sq km (3,800sq miles) of ocean, and it would be very interesting to see the outcome of it. Many scientists are still anything but convinced in geoengineering solutions seeing them as very expensive and also hazardous methods that could result in unwanted consequences.

After world leaders failed to deliver new climate deal science must step up its efforts, and find other solutions to tackle climate change. If currently dominant scientific predictions about climate change are true then we really have very little time to act meaning that we could be soon forced to try the unorthodox solutions like geoengineering. I mean what other options do we have? Waiting for miracle?

Is Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change still trustworthy?

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) definitely lost some of its authority after some mistakes, most notably the statement that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, were discovered as this gave plenty of ammo to climate change sceptics and fossil fuel lobbies.

Media was very quick to react on this, and these mistakes are certainly one of the reasons why the number of climate change skeptics has somewhat increased in the last couple of months or so.

Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, recently admitted this error by naming it "human failure" that shouldn't have happened. Some media has already labeled IPCC's reports as "grey literature" describing them as something that doesn't have the necessary scientific background, and is more subject of speculation rather than actual science.

Mistakes can always happen we all know that but this was rather big mistake that has come in the totally wrong time. Why? Because world still needs to agree on new climate deal, and any doubt about climate change will be heavily used by politicians and fossil fuel lobbies to further delay this necessary agreement.

The damage has been done, and we are talking about significant damage, and from now on many will question IPCC's reports despite the fact that overall looking glaciers are indeed in serious decline.

IPCC has to make sure there are no more mistakes of such magnitude because one more mistake like this and this once very respected body can kiss its authority goodbye. Climate change is very delicate political issue, and science needs to be conclusive, comprehensive, and of course free of speculations.