Back in June, a paper entitled ‘Climate Change and Trace Gases’ was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society warning that the Earth is rapidly approaching a ‘tipping point’ beyond which climate change would become uncontrollable. The paper was written by six of the USA’s leading climate change scientists, led by James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the group included three of Hansen’s colleagues, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha and Gary Russell, David Lea of the University of California and Mark Siddall of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. Fundamentally, the message from the paper is that the Earth is approaching a point of no return with climate change. They argue that unless effective measures are put in place to control CO2 emissions over the next ten years, the rise in the Earth’s temperature could trigger uncontrollable climate change. The paper states:

Recent greenhouse gas emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures. - Independent

When such an esteemed group of scientists issues a stark warning like this, we should all take notice. The phrase from the paper that I find most worrying is: “If we have not already passed the dangerous level, the energy infrastructure in place ensures that we will pass it within several decades” so we are either already too late or we will be in the near future.

Dr Hansen believes we have 10 years to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, otherwise the rise in global temperatures could trigger rapid melting of the polar ice sheets. The effect of the rise in temperature would be exacerbated by the ‘albedo flip’ as ice melts, the sunlight normally reflected by the white ice is absorbed by the darker sea, causing temperatures to rise further, which in turn causes more ice to melt, which causes higher temperatures.

Now nearly four months later, parts of the Arctic have recorded temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius, a full 15 degrees above the seasonal norm. The high temperature coincided with increased melting of the Arctic sea ice to the lowest level ever recorded. Astonished scientists from Queen’s University in Ontario recorded temperatures of 22 degrees Celsius on Melville Island, one of the coldest places on Earth, well, normally anyway. The melting permafrost on the Island’s hillsides has caused disastrous mud-slides that are literally tearing the landscape to pieces. In other parts of the Arctic, it is unfortunately a similar story. With a much reduced cloud cover accelerating the melting ice, the level fell to 1.65 million square miles, 39% below the average for the period 1979-2000. Could we be at the tipping point already? Dr Meir of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado said:

It's been warm, with temperatures about 3C or 4C above normal for June, July and August, particularly to the north of Siberia where the temperatures have reached between 4C and 5C above average… While the decline of the ice started out fairly slowly in spring and early summer, it accelerated rapidly in July. By mid-August, we had already shattered all previous records for ice extent. - Independent

One of Dr Meir’s colleagues, Mark Serreze said:

We may see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer within our lifetimes. The implications... are disturbing. - Independent

It is becoming increasingly obvious that we need to take drastic action now to reduce the rise in global temperatures. We appear to be sleepwalking into a disaster, with a minority of people trying desperately to pull us back from the brink, while our political leaders talk of action but deliver nothing but empty words. Forget George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ what we need right now is a ‘war on CO2 emissions’. Does the political will exist to take the necessary steps to save the planet? From what is being said and done at the moment, I would have to say no. Maybe one day our political leaders will find the strength and integrity to act on our behalf to save our planet, but I really think this will only happen after it is too late.

Further Reading:

• IPCC Criticised for Underestimations