Blowing The Lid Off The Earth

The Catlin Arctic Survey has analyzed the data from its unique trip to study Arctic ice conditions:

Scientists are busy analysing data from the Catlin Arctic Survey. The data will provide important new evidence for the crucial climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

The Catlin Arctic Survey team returned this May with unique new measurements of the thickness and extent of sea ice in the Arctic. The University of Cambridge’s Polar Oceans Physics Group is currently analysing the data, with initial results already suggesting that the sea ice is newer and thinner (and therefore more liable to melt) than expected. The results will help climate scientists around the world to understand how quickly the dwindling summer sea ice will melt and to predict more accurately the effect this will have on the global climate.

WWF are providing funding to help the research team speed up their analysis. It’s crucial that the results are available in time for the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, as they will strengthen WWF’s calls for a strong global climate deal. Governments must take action urgently to keep global temperature rise below 2°C, the threshold beyond which most scientists predict climate change could become catastrophic.

“Climate change is happening now and nowhere is it more evident than in the Arctic,” said WWF’s head of climate change, Keith Allott.

“Sea ice is a critical part of Earth’s climate system and the loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is happening decades ahead of most predictions. We cannot predict all of the effects of this ice loss, but scientists foresee severe disruption to the natural world on both a local and a global scale.”

(Catlin Arctic Survey, emphasis added). The group of top Arctic scientists travelled through the Arctic for months during their study.

Let's hope the Copenhagen talks get real and break free from the death trance governments have now, planning for triage rather than for healing remedies.

Properly caring for the earth is the first lesson the human species must learn if the species is to become fit to survive in the cosmos.