Stopping the Loss of the Arctic Perennial Ice Sheet:
A New Climate Assessment Standard
The Arctic perennial ice sheet is entering its final phase of break-up. At the current rate of melting, the ice sheet is projected to disappear by 2025 or sooner. NASA is projecting 2013.
A new draft national standard is establishing an Arctic Climate Assessment Framework that for the first time directly addresses the specific pollutants destroying the stability of the Arctic region. The framework provides:
- A detailed list of pollutants, their sources and the areas of the Arctic affected.
- A list of mitigation strategies and projects that could be deployed as soon as 2010.
- An information system that is tracking key pollutants and conditions within the Arctic region.
Tracking the Current Level of Arctic Sea Ice Loss
Tracking the Current Level of Arctic Sea Ice Loss
Likelihood of the Arctic Break-up
In order to establish timely mitigation strategies, it is important to track the likelihood of the breakup. Many existing studies have been looking at the fate of the arctic ice sheet. In essence, the likelihood of the final break-up of the Arctic Perennial Ice Sheet is summarized from several information sources.
Why the Arctic Methane Pulse is a Global Tipping Point?
This arctic methane pulse represents the most likely tipping point. Read the BBC New Article – Methane seeps from Arctic sea bed for more information.
Methane bubbles observed by sonar, escape from sea bed as temperatures rise. Photo credit: BBC News
The break-up of the perennial Arctic ice sheet will result in warming up the Siberian, Canadian and Arctic tundra regions up to 1,000 kilometers inland by 2-3°C. This temperature increase, in turn, is projected to result in the release of methane in amounts equivalent to as much as 20,000 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the once frozen ground into the atmosphere. This is 2 ½-fold increase of GHG pollution since the dawn of the industrial age (from 1850 until now) of 8,000 billion tons.
