The sharp drop in Arctic sea ice area has been matched by a harder-to-see, but equally sharp, drop in sea ice thickness. The combined result has been a collapse in total sea ice volume — to one fifth of its level in 1980.

Arctic sea ice volume in 1000s of cubic kilometers (via Robinson)

Back in September, Climate Progress reported that the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 probe appeared to support the key conclusion of the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center: Arctic sea ice volume has been collapsing much faster than sea ice area (or extent) because the ice has been getting thinner and thinner.

Now the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the UK’s primary agency for funding and managing environmental sciences research, has made it official. In a Wednesday press release, they report:

Arctic sea ice volume has declined by 36 per cent in the autumn and 9 per cent in the winter between 2003 and 2012, a UK-led team of scientists has discovered….

The findings confirm the continuing decline in Arctic sea-ice volume simulated by the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling & Assimilation System (PIOMAS), which estimates the volume of Arctic sea ice and had been checked using earlier submarine, mooring, and satellite observations until 2008.

This should be the story of the day, week, month, year, and decade. As NERC notes, sea ice volume is “a much more accurate indicator of the changes taking place in the Arctic.”

Many experts now say that if recent volume trends continue we will see a “near ice-free Arctic in summer” within a decade. And that may well usher in a permanent change toward extreme, prolonged weather events “Such As Drought, Flooding, Cold Spells And Heat Waves.”

It will also accelerate global warming in the region, which in turn will likely accelerate both the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet and the release of the vast amounts of carbon currently locked in the permafrost.

The findings were published online in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d). In a U. of Washington news release, polar scientist and coauthor Axel Schweiger said:

“Other people had argued that 75 to 80 percent ice volume loss was too aggressive. What this new paper shows is that our ice loss estimates may have been too conservative, and that the recent decline is possibly more rapid.”

Creative tech guru and programming analyst Andy Lee Robinson has made a video of the PIOMAS data

Here is the rest of the NERC press release:

Read more

The unusually powerful blizzard that slammed into New England earlier this month prompted a Boston meteorologist to speak out unusually bluntly on the ties between climate change and extreme weather events.

After being asked about the increase in extreme weather around the world by the interviewer — citing Hurricane Sandy, flooding, the record-breaking drought in midwest — WCVB Chief Meteorologist Harvey Leonard laid out the scientific case for how climate change is driving these recent events:

Climate scientists, most of them who have been working on this issue, that’s exactly what they have been predicting: that over time, we would see more extremes — more drought, more heavy precipitation events, stronger storms….

If you think about that and you go forward, and sea level starts to rise, and we have more population living on the coast, we have more structures on the coast — more in harms way — and then the storms become a little bit worse, and the sea levels higher to begin with, then you could have even worse effects.

Here’s the video, courtesy of Forecast the Facts:

As with a baseball player on steroids, where no one hit can be said to be “caused” by the steroid use, this isn’t about whether global warming “caused” an extreme weather. Instead, the steroid use ups the overall prevalence (and distance) of unusual hits, and global warming does the same for extreme weather events. In the case of the New England blizzard, global warming means temperatures aren’t dropping quite as far below freezing as they did before, and sea surface temperatures specifically are up. That can increase moisture flow into storms, resulting in heavier snowfall.

By pushing up the overall temperature in the planet’s climate system, climate change — spurred by the global warming caused by human carbon emissions — increases the strength of storms, and makes flooding, drought, heat waves, and wildfires all more intense and prevalent. Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer — and thus a firm with an obvious financial stake in properly understanding catastrophic weather events — released a study in 2012 noting an uptick in these events worldwide since 1980, and their entanglement with climate change.

The price tag for extreme weather disasters in 2012 in the United States has been pegged at $188 billion, a taste of the economic damage that’s likely to come.

By Richard Caperton

In the last two years, the biggest extreme weather events cost American families and businesses $188 billion. As we pump more and more greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere, these disasters are only going to become more common.

We must do something now to take action. And, thanks to a bill that was introduced today, United States Senators have the opportunity to take action: They must pass the Climate Protection Act and the Sustainable Energy Act.

Taken together, the Climate Protection Act and Sustainable Energy Act are a comprehensive climate bill, led by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Most important, the package puts a price on carbon, which will make polluters pay for the damage they inflict on all of us while encouraging the transition to cleaner fuels. This $20 fee for each ton of carbon dioxide pollution will reduce emissions to 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

These bills also bring in more than $1 trillion in new revenue over the next decade. The success of any pollution reduction program depends on how new revenue is spent, and these bills spend the money smartly. Broadly speaking, the money goes to three places: consumer protection, clean energy infrastructure, and deficit reduction. Each of these is important.

A carbon fee is just like any other consumption tax in that it inordinately impacts low- and middle-income families. The Climate Protection Act and Sustainable Energy Act create a rebate program to make sure that these families are not harmed. This is modeled after Alaska’s oil dividend, and will ensure that pollution reduction is not a regressive tax.

Reducing dirty energy use is great, but we need to make sure that we replace it with clean energy to power our economy. This package funds the Weatherization Assistance Program, ARPA-E, the production tax credit and investment tax credit, manufacturing for clean energy technologies, worker training, and other programs that will be critical in transitioning to a clean energy future.

Finally, our nation’s budget deficit is a real problem. The Climate Protection Act and Sustainable Energy Act will reduce the debt by $300 billion over the next ten years.

This package is closely aligned with the progressive carbon tax that CAP proposed in December 2012. At that time, we said that any carbon tax must:

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Valentine’s Day is the day to say I Heart Climate Scientists.

We heart you, and we’re happy to shout that fact louder than a Japanese husband!

We know that you work long, long hours to bring the best climate data and analysis to our attention in the fervent, if naive, hope that we won’t keep ignoring your increasingly dire warnings (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”).

Yes, haters are gonna hate — and apparently harass and threaten, too — but they are just the fanatical few. The rest of us heart you — and cerebrum you, too!

We know you aren’t doing this for the money because, if you were, you seriously picked the wrong profession. And we know that you aren’t part of an elaborate hoax because as smart as you are, nobody could fool all of the world’s leading science organizations and science journals and governments (well, maybe the governments, but still).

And like all the people we heart, we know — we really, really do know deep down inside — that we should be listening to you and that we are headed toward the biggest “I told you so” in human history.

If you heart scientists, too, share the love on Facebook.

h/t I f’ing love science

To be remembered as a great president, Barack Obama has to address the greatest issue of his time

Sally Jewell accepting Interior Secretary nomination

By Denis Hayes, via Crosscut

By Christine Sanders, Blue Engine Message & Media

The planet is getting warmer. I can feel it, you can feel it, and the winter tourism industry can definitely feel it. At 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, last year marked the hottest year on record in the United States, edging out the previous record by one degree. Climate change is causing shorter winters and less snow, putting intense pressure on ski resorts and small businesses in the winter tourism industry that rely on snow to stay in business and employ thousands of Americans. Consider: This is a problem that’ll take more than zinc oxide to fix.

Last December the Natural Resources Defense Council published a report, “Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the United States,” outlining the ways in which the winter tourism economy is being hit hard by the impacts of climate change. According to the NRDC, 211,900 thousand people are employed nationally by the ski and snowmobile industries, which contribute $7 billion in labor income with $12.2 billion in value added to the economy. Those workers deliver $1.4 billion in revenue to state governments and $1.7 billion in revenue to the federal government annually. In Pennsylvania alone, during the 2009-2010 season, more than $690 million in value was added to the economy. However, experts are warning that if climate change continues at the same rate, “only four out of 14 major ski resorts will remain profitable by 2100 under a higher-emissions scenario.” (Mote et al. (2005) Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 86: 39-49)

Climate change deniers argue that the recession is the reason Americans aren’t hitting the slopes. Truth is there just isn’t enough snow, and the winters are getting shorter due to the carbon pollution that’s being emitted into the air and fueling climate change. According to the EPA, existing power plants are responsible for adding more than 2.3 billion tons of carbon and other toxic pollutants into the air each year. In the past, Washington has done nothing to stop it, even though 54 percent of Americans believe climate change is caused by human activities and 88 percent of Americans want the US to make an effort “to reduce global warming even if it has economic costs.”

The Obama Administration is taking a step in that direction, with the President reiterating his “obligation” to future generations to address climate change during his inaugural speech. Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) recently announced a bi-cameral task force to work with House and Senate leaders on climate change policies. However, the true test of this administration will be if they’re able to withstand pressure from the big polluters who want to delay or block clean air standards, and if they actually take action to finalize the clean air standards that will lessen the impacts of climate change. First on their agenda should be the finalization of the industrial carbon pollution standard for new power plants, and the development of an industrial carbon pollution standard for existing power plants. These two simple acts will drastically reduce the amount of carbon pollution emitted into our air and lessen extreme weather impacts. That will enable the thousands of Americans who depend on the winter tourism industry to continue to make a living, protect public health, and help solidify the President’s climate change legacy.

A new poll from the League of Conservation Voters found 61 percent of Americans say “the effects of climate change are already affecting them personally or will in their lifetime.” [LCV]

Nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) support “the President taking significant steps to address climate change now” including:

• 89% of Democrats, 62% of Independents and 38% of Republicans
• 60% of whites, 76% of Hispanics and 86% of African-Americans
• 70% of voters under 40 and 62% of voters over 40

Bolstering this desire for action is the intensely held value that Americans have a moral obligation to future generations to leave them a planet that is not polluted or damaged. Nearly everyone (93%) agrees with this, and 67% strongly agree.

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will roll out legislation to impose fees on greenhouse gas emissions today. The bill faces grim prospects of becoming law, but is part of a wider push to open political space on the issue. [The Hill]

Shortly after noon yesterday, police began arresting participants in civil disobedience action outside the White House, protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. [WaPo]

Fuels America released a new tongue-in-cheek campaign yesterday, featuring polar bears, birds, and assorted Americans expressing their affection for the oil industry. [Fuels America]

The Environment and Public Works Committee held a briefing on Wednesday, featuring four of the nation’s leading climate scientists, to address the latest findings in climate science research. [Climate Central]

President Obama’s proposed “Energy Security Trust” would alternative energy projects with revenue from oil and gas royalties that the federal government collects from companies that drill on federal land. [NYTimes]

Thirty firms and organizations have written to European policy-makers urging them to vote in favor next week of a plan to support the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, which has sunk to record lows. [Reuters]

Global wheat prices are close to bottoming out, and may rise in coming months due to the lingering drought in the United States, plus smaller crops in exporting countries such as Australia and Russia and Argentina. [WSJ]

According to the European Space Agency’s MetOp weather satellite, the ozone hole over the Antarctic is the smallest it’s been in the last decade. [HuffPo]

Air pollution is the fifth leading cause of death in India after high blood pressure, indoor air pollution, tobacco smoking and poor nutrition, according to the Centre for Science and Environment’s analysis of government data and the Global Burden of Disease report on India. [Times of India]