AIDG Blog [Appropriate Technology, Development, Environment]

Sigh.

From Carbon Equity

The Arctic sea ice is disintegrating “100 years ahead of schedule”, having dropped 22% this year below the previous minimum low, and it may completely disappear as early as the northern summer of 2013. This is far beyond the predictions of the International Panel on Climate Change and is an example of global warming impacts happening at lower temperature increases and more quickly than projected.

From the Executive Summary of their recent report:

• Climate change impacts are happening at lower temperature increases and more quickly than projected.
• The rapid loss of Arctic sea ice will speed up the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet, and a rise in sea levels by even as much as 5 metres by the turn of this century is possible.
• The Antarctic ice shelf reacts far more sensitively to warming temperatures than previously believed.
• Temperatures are now within ≈1°C of the maximum temperature of the past million years.
• Long-term climate sensitivity (including “slow” feedbacks such as carbon cycle feedbacks which are starting to operate) may be double the IPCC standard. A doubling of climate sensitivity would mean we passed the widely accepted 2°C threshold of “dangerous anthropogenic interference” with the climate four decades ago, and would require us to find the means to engineer a rapid drawdown of current atmospheric greenhouse gas.

via Treehugger

Also of interest:
A problem of Florida-sized proportions from Gristmill

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