Saturday, December 21

Tag: arctic

The US Isn’t Prepared To Counter Russia Competition As It Heats Up In The Melting Arctic
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BUSINESS

The US Isn’t Prepared To Counter Russia Competition As It Heats Up In The Melting Arctic

For decades, the frozen Arctic was little more than a footnote in global economic competition, but that’s changing as its ice melts with the warming climate. Russia is now attempting to claim more of the Arctic seabed for its territory. It has been rebuilding Cold War-era Arctic military bases and recently announced plans to test its Poseidon nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed torpedo in the Arctic. In Greenland, the recent election ushered in a new pro-independence government that opposes foreign rare earth metal mining as its ice sheet recedes – including projects counted on by China and the U.S. to power technology. The Arctic region has been warming at least twice as fast as the planet as a whole. With the sea ice now thinner and disappearing sooner in the spring, several countries have ...
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The Arctic Freeze Is Unseasonably Late Where’s The Sea Ice? Why It Matters
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ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

The Arctic Freeze Is Unseasonably Late Where’s The Sea Ice? Why It Matters

With the setting of the sun and the onset of polar darkness, the Arctic Ocean would normally be crusted with sea ice along the Siberian coast by now. But this year, the water is still open. I’ve watched the region’s transformations since the 1980s as an Arctic climate scientist and, since 2008, as director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. I can tell you, this is not normal. There’s so much more heat in the ocean now than there used to be that the pattern of autumn ice growth has been completely disrupted. To understand what’s happening to the sea ice this year and why it’s a problem, let’s look back at the summer and into the Arctic Ocean itself. Siberia’s 100-degree summer The summer melt season in the Arctic started early. A Siberian heat wave in June pushed air temperatures o...
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The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years – and that foreshadows big changes for the rest of the planet
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ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years – and that foreshadows big changes for the rest of the planet

Every year, sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean shrinks to a low point in mid-September. This year it measures just 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers) – the second-lowest value in the 42 years since satellites began taking measurements. The ice today covers only 50% of the area it covered 40 years ago in late summer. This year’s minimum ice extent is the lowest in the 42-year-old satellite record except for 2012, reinforcing a long-term downward trend in Arctic ice cover. Each of the past four decades averages successively less summer sea ice. NSIDC As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history. The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached today’s level – ab...
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Trump greenlights drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but will oil companies show up?
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BUSINESS, VIDEO REELS

Trump greenlights drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but will oil companies show up?

The Trump administration has announced that it is opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development – the latest twist in a decades-long battle over the fate of this remote area. Its timing is truly terrible. Low oil prices, a pandemic-driven recession and looming elections add up to highly unfavorable conditions for launching expensive drilling operations. In the longer term, the climate crisis and an ongoing shift to a lower-carbon economy raise big questions about future oil demand. I’ve researched the U.S. energy industry for more than 20 years. As I see it, conservative Republicans have backed oil and gas production in ANWR since the 1980s for two overriding reasons. First, to increase domestic oil production and reduce dependence on “foreign oil,” a euphemis...
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