news from the north, 4/9/09

Three interesting pieces that I wanted to highlight about news coming from the Arctic regions

Arctic Melting is a Threat to Humanity, via The New Scientist

 

Discussions about the consequences of the vanishing ice usually focus either on the opening up of new frontiers for shipping and mineral exploitation, or on the plight of polar bears, which rely on sea ice for hunting. The bigger picture has got much less attention: a warmer Arctic will change the entire planet, and some of the potential consequences are nothing short of catastrophic.

Changes in ocean currents, for instance, could disrupt the Asian monsoon, and nearly two billion people rely on those rains to grow their food. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it is also possible that positive feedback from the release of methane from melting permafrost could lead to runaway warming.

US sues BP unit over Alaska oil spills, via ENN

 

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, accuses BPXA of illegally discharging more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil from its pipelines in Prudhoe Bay onto the North Slope of Alaska during two major oil spills in the spring and summer of 2006.

The complaint also alleges that BPXA failed to prepare and implement adequate spill prevention measures required under the Clean Water Act.

Ice-free Arctic Ocean Possible In 30 Years, Not 90 As Previously Estimated, via ENN

 

 

While the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange in 2007 assessed what might happen in the Arctic in the future based on results from more than a dozen global climate models, two researchers reasoned that dramatic declines in the extent of ice at the end of summer in 2007 and 2008 called for a different approach.

Out of the 23 models now available, the new projections are based on the six most suited for assessing sea ice, according to Muyin Wang, a University of Washington climate scientist with the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean based at the UW, and James Overland, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.