2012 Hype or Hope?  End of the world or new era? Get the facts and decide for yourself!

I’ve done two commentaries before this on global warming and since this is a topic that’s not going to go away but maybe be a major component of life on earth leading up to 2012, let’s call this global warming # 3. Personally, I know much of what Al Gore has written is hype, or at least not entirely true; however, there we can’t dismiss it all. There’s enough room for everyone at the table. Have a seat.

My last post was on the plight of the penguins. Now, on to their home life.

Their latest modeling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years. That would be like 2012. Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss. Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.

Using supercomputers to crunch through possible future outcomes has become a standard part of climate science in recent years. Professor Maslowski’s group, which includes co-workers at NASA and the Institute of Oceanology,Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), is well known for producing modeled dates that are in advance of other teams.

Other teams have variously produced dates for an open summer ocean that, broadly speaking, go out from about 2040 to 2100. But the Monterey researcher believes these models have seriously underestimated some key melting processes. In particular, Professor Maslowski is adamant that models need to incorporate more realistic representations of the way warm water is moving into the Arctic basin from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

It is has become apparent in recent years that the real, observed rate of summer ice melting is now starting to run well ahead of the models. The minimum ice extent reached in September 2007 shattered the previous record for ice withdrawal set in 2005, of 5.32 million square km.

This isn’t small stuff here.

The long-term average minimum, based on data from 1979 to 2000, is 6.74 million square km. In comparison, 2007 was lower by 2.61 million square km, an area approximately equal to the size of Alaska and Texas combined, or the size of 10 United Kingdoms.

World- we have somewhat of a problem here- before 2012!