2014 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Sixth Lowest On Record

2014 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Sixth Lowest On Record

Arctic sea ice coverage continued its below-average trend this year as the ice declined to its annual minimum on Sept. 17, according to the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Over the 2014 summer, Arctic sea ice melted back from its maximum extent reached in March to a coverage area of 1.94 million square miles (5.02 million square kilometers), according to analysis from NASA and NSIDC scientists. This year's minimum extent is similar to last year's and below the 1981-2010 average of 2.40 million square miles (6.22 million square km).

"Arctic sea ice coverage in 2014 is the sixth lowest recorded since 1978. The summer started off relatively cool, and lacked the big storms or persistent winds that can break up ice and increase melting," said Walter Meier, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Even with a relatively cool year, the ice is so much thinner than it used to be," Meier said. "It's more susceptible to melting."

This summer, the Northwest Passage above Canada and Alaska remained ice-bound. A finger of open water stretched north of Siberia in the Laptev Sea, reaching beyond 85 degrees north, which is the farthest north open ocean has reached since the late 1970s, according to Meier.

While summer sea ice has covered more of the Arctic in the last two years than in 2012's record low summer, this is not an indication that the Arctic is returning to average conditions, Meier said. This year's minimum extent remains in line with a downward trend; the Arctic Ocean is losing about 13 percent of its sea ice per decade.

End of excerpt

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As this trend continues (and it will continue) as we continue to rapaciously burn fossil fuels thinking we can still do so because we are putting up a few solar panels as if that alone even properly addresses the moral dilemma we face with our addiction- we will see the results of our folly coming full circle within the next 15 years. This is why I scoff at the UN and governments that send their so called "leaders" to speak and speechify telling us about the urgent crisis we face- and then putting forth meager mediocre political measures that do not come close to addressing this crisis.

I could not even begin to document all of the extreme events that have happened globally even within the last month. 450 villages under water in Pakistan/Kashmir. Floods in Spain, Greece, China, Denmark, Australia, Serbia again, (Video here: Serbia flood,the US... severe drought in Central America, Africa, the US with extremes felt on every continent. Heatwaves and floods more severe, more prevalent and daily. World Heritage sites under threat, forests on fire (Amazon fires burning due to deforestation seen from space.) To say we have not passed a tipping point is to be in the deepest denial a human can engage in.

The Arctic is not waiting for politics to catch up with science and for humans on the whole to get beyond their pettiness.

CO2 Emissions Set To Reach New 40 Billion Ton Record High in 2014

You want to continue playing politics with this? You want to continue denying what is happening right in front of your eyes? You want to keep looking at this as only an economic opportunity for a chosen few as opposed to a moral threat to our existence? Well, we don't have anymore time for any of that. The Arctic IS melting. It IS affecting jet stream patterns that are affecting weather events and making them more extreme. The ice IS getting thinner. It is opening up more ocean which is then precipitating more positive feed-backs which increase temperature and moisture in our atmosphere. There is no more time to waste on the art of persuasion on the few who will never change their views.

This is a direct threat to our global water supply (California now knows this well as whole towns are now waterless) as well which then effects agriculture which then effects our ability to survive. We have already set ourselves up to see a 2 -4 degree centigrade rise in temperature by century's end. That will render Earth uninhabitable for humans and many other species.

But hey, I'll post the next report as well and post more pictures and speak more truth about this as politicians, NGOs and AGW deniers who seem to want to do nothing but go at each other continue the bread and circuses routine while getting in their speeches and photo ops continuing to argue and speechify us into non existence thinking money is the only way to solve anything.

This Is What Addiction Looks Like

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Also see:

Arctic Ice Extent Fifth Lowest On Record

Arctic Ocean Leaking Methane At Alarming Rate

Arctic Ice, Oceans, Climate and the Human Condition

Arctic Melting-Tipping Point That Should Matter To All Of Us

And:

Arctic Sea Ice Decline

"In the Arctic, temperature has increased at twice the rate as the rest of the globe, and could increase by another 8°C (14°F) by the end of this century. The warming atmosphere along with new weather pattern extremes is causing Arctic sea ice to melt at an alarming rate—12% per decade—that suggests the Arctic will be ice-free by 2030. The impacts of dwindling ice cover in the Arctic are far-reaching, from species endangerment to enhanced global warming, to the weakening or shut-down of global ocean circulation."

End of excerpt

Earth Surface During August 2014 Was Hottest Ever Recorded



All I can is, it is going to be a hard fall for humanity.

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Humanity Is The Key

What comes to your mind first when you see this picture? :



Does it make you sad? Does it make you wonder where this child is from? Does it make you wonder why this child is thirsty? Does it make you want to give this child water?

What is the difference then between that picture and this one?:



The answer: Humanity. The difference is that people saw that child above, asked those questions and took the action necessary to see him with the liquid of life. Humanity. So simple, yet so forgotten.

No child should ever have to cry because they do not have water... or food... or shelter... or peace.

I have been taking a break from writing here because I find it hard of late to write because of the current state of our world. Constantly reporting about the climate disasters, lack of water access, state of water and the total lack of adequate attention to it all by those who only use the misery of others for their own gain etc. can take it's toll on a sentient soul. To see that the top picture is more prevalent than the bottom is simply unacceptable in a world where humanity is said to thrive.

I haven't given up, but I look around and see so many children touched by poverty, war, disease, hunger and I feel as though my writing here has then been totally ineffectual. I feel as though it has fallen on deaf ears. I hope I am wrong and I hope that when you look at the picture above it lights a spark within you to turn it into the bottom one. That is all I have ever aimed to do with this blog.

Thank you.

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Brazil Drought Crisis Leads to Rationing and Tensions

Cracked ground in an area which used to be underwater at the Jaguari dam. The dam is part of the Sao Paulo's Cantareira system of dams. Photograph: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images

Brazil Drought Crisis Leads to Rationing and Tensions

From his front door to the banks of the Cantareira reservoir, José Christiano da Silva used to stroll only a hundred metres when he first moved to the area in 2009. Today, amid the worst drought in São Paulo's history, he must now trek a kilometre across the dried-up bed before he reaches what's left of the most important water supply for South America's biggest city.

"It's frightening to look at," says the retiree, standing on cracked mud. "In the past, we'd already be under water here." After the driest six months since records began 84 years ago, the volume of the Cantareira system has fallen to 10.7% of its capacity, raising alarms for the nearby urban population of 20 million people and the most important economic hub on the continent.

The drought, affecting Brazil's southeast and central regions, has prompted rationing in 19 cities, undermined hydropower generation, pushed up greenhouse gas emissions and led to squabbles between states vying for dwindling water resources.

Supplies are usually abundant. Brazil has 12% of the world's freshwater and less than 3% of the world population. Apart from the arid northeastern Cerrado, its cities are normally more likely to be plagued with floods than droughts. With big rivers like the Amazon and Paraná, the country generally meets 80% of energy needs with hydropower.

But this year, the rain fronts that are normally carried south from the humid Amazon have largely failed to materialise and temperatures have been higher than usual, prompting the authorities to scrabble to tap new sources and reduce demand. "It has been a terrible year. The last rainy season was drier than the dry season," Mauro Arce, São Paulo's water resources secretary, told the Guardian. "This is a crisis and we are responding with technical measures and the support of consumers."

In São Paulo city, that has meant financial incentives to encourage residents and businesses to reduce consumption, the reduction of water pressure by 75% at night (which in effect means a cut for those – often the poor – living in high areas) and tapping alternative supplies. In neighbouring cities, like Gaurulhos, more draconian measures are in place with some neighbourhoods only able to get water one day in three.

Tensions have emerged between cities, and between those who want water for energy and those who need it for drinking, food and sanitation.

São Paulo has tussled with Rio de Janeiro over the use of the Rio Jaguari, a river that runs across state borders and is used by the latter for hydropower plants and to dilute sewage in the absence of adequate treatment plants. São Paulo, which is downstream, has tapped this river to partially recuperate the Paraiba reservoir system despite the protests of its neighbour and admonitions from the federal government.

End of excerpt

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California is not the only place on Earth suffering from the effects of climate destruction and the ensuing jet stream changes due to Arctic ice loss along with increasing ocean temperatures. As I also posted here only several months ago the extreme drought in Colombia as well is also causing an environmental crisis with thousands of wildlife deaths. Deaths that are just as important as human deaths and more so because without them we cannot survive. Yet, we don't see these pictures nor hear these stories on our nightly news. Now nightly fear-mongering with new boogeymen and the posturings of men looking to flex their muscles in a show of elevated testosterone are all we now see. All we see as the Earth that sustains us is withering away...

As I stated previously many times water is the lifeblood of this Earth NOT OIL. Waste and misuse are two main reasons why we see it becoming scarcer (both physical and non physical scarcity) but also due to the amplification of the hydrologic cycle through burning fossil fuels which is leading to atmospheric forcings bringing uneven distribution of rain in areas that once knew it (look at changing monsoon in India) and flooding where it does no good to those areas needing it. As this becomes more frequent and severe we will see more water wars as it takes over as the new oil because people will be HUNGRY. People including myself have been warning others as to the consequences of our continued pushing off of this catastrophe thinking water will last forever. It isn't about the total amount of water on Earth- it is about what we are DOING TO IT to change the distribution and quality of and access to it that is the truly urgent matter.

I try very hard to bring this reality and to explain how dire this situation is over and over again. I think as sentient beings we should care about bringing this truth forward and also doing what we can to conserve and preserve the resources that give us life. However, it is getting harder to do so when you see AGW deniers misinforming simply for political reasons- and also see NGOS and others in the so called "climate movement" spreading hope around like candy as if it isn't as bad as it really is. For example: One group is holding one of their "leader trainings" in Rio in Brazil this fall. A training that trainees have to fly to as they stay in the vacation city in the hotels that actually have water... Just once, how about having "training" in a city truly effected by the CO2 emissions of flying - perhaps in Bosnia or Japan? Have the "trainees" stay in a hotel with no amenities and have to deal with the stench of dead cattle all around them and walk on the cracked dry ground where nothing lives- instead of getting to sit in a cozy conference room swooning over the keynote presenter they will finally get to meet as they try to convince themselves they are part of the solution... I know all about this too because I was once one of them and can tell you- it isn't helping... Not when you see more dire reports and reality showing you that much more is needed.

The only thing that will do any good now is each of us taking it upon ourselves to unplug from the fossil fuel machine and to support massive afforestation/reforestation/sustainable agriculture (especially in urban areas) and put humility before ego in all matters regarding this. Of course, that would also mean overcoming greed, selfishness, hubris, ego, corruption and politics and yes, that might be a bit of an inconvenience for some totally attached to their materialistic and egocentric obsessions... God forbid we suffer a little bit of "inconvenience" to provide a habitable world for those to come eh?...Is there also any hope of vanquishing all of that and having that global moral epiphany on a global scale within the next five years? What do you think?

From where I sit I see not only the fossil fuel industry as culpable in this crime against nature and humanity- but also governments that continue to sit on their hands supporting them and those propping them up for political reasons and giving us false hope instead of real action. The Earth is now dying before our eyes. Sitting around a table trying to prove you are smarter or a hero or to prolong this to ensure the highest profit on your "investments" isn't going to save it or us at this point. Water is becoming more scarce and the poor of this world are the most affected by it. The last thing we need now are the rich on all sides making this only about their political aspirations and "green banks" using the same disaster capitalism that brought this upon us to tell us we can fix this while supporting the very industries exacerbating it!

I cry for the people of these countries who now see all they cherish either being dried up to blow away in the wind or carried away in the flood. I am exasperated because I am a citizen of the world who does care but being poor myself can only use my words and my voice to support them and the way I live to ease my burden on this Earth. I am disillusioned and outraged at governments only giving this lip service and agencies that continue to do nothing but talk without doing anything close to substantial to address this global crisis.

If you search this blog you will see entry after entry about the devastation wrecked upon this world by our folly. So if at this point it has not outraged and moved you to understand what really needs to be done beyond all the PR, conferences, politics and soft sell I have one question: What more do you need to see?

Hope is great but we need TO MOVE. No water= no food= agricultural and economic collapse.


This video is dated 2012-and it hasn't gotten any better.

Also see:

Brazil Drought: São Paulo Could Run Dry in Less Than 100 Days

Drought Preparedness In Brazil

Rising Ocean Temperatures Prime Amazon For Fire
Once a century droughts are now 1 in every 5 years.

World Ocean Temps Spike to +1.26 Positive Anomaly as Antarctic Polar Amplification Ramps Up

Dry Planet

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Central California Residents Rely on Bottled Water As Wells Run Dry

Central California Residents Rely On Bottled Water As Wells Run Dry

Extreme drought conditions have become so harsh for the Central Valley community of East Porterville, many of its residents dependent on their own wells have run out of water.

Roughly 300 homes have received a three-week supply of bottled water after Tulare County officials discovered their wells had gone dry.

In all, county officials distributed 15,552 1-gallon bottles of water, and have been filling a 2,500-gallon tank with nonpotable water so residents can flush toilets and bathe.

And the problem could be worse because many believe the number of people whose wells have gone dry is "grossly underreported," said Michael Lockman, manager of Tulare County's Office of Emergency Services.

If it wasn't for a local nonprofit group, county officials probably wouldn't have known that the residents were in dire need of water because they didn't ask for help, said Denise England, senior administrative analyst with the county's Water Resources Department.

"It was really surprising," she said.

County officials say East Porterville residents are typically very private, and for whatever reason, distrust the government.

Lockman said some residents fear their landlord will evict them because their well went dry or are afraid the county's Department of Child Support Services will take their children away because they no longer have water -- a rumor the county has been working to dispel, he added.

End of excerpt


A section of Lake Oroville is nearly dry on August 19, 2014 in Oroville, California.(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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So it begins...The bottled water companies stealing this water in the first place must be LOVING THIS. Now look at all the extra plastic people can contribute to the oceans! All because they couldn't accept the truth of the situation before them and CONSERVE their water.

I am more concerned for our ecosystems and the animals that live in these locations now than the selfish consumptive humans who think that now that they have sucked it all out through wastefulness because they ignored the warnings they can rely on bottled water that was sucked out from someone else's aquifer. Again, how many Hollywood celebrities still have their huge Olympic sized pools filled with water? How much fracking continues to go on?

Mark my words, this will come to shots being fired somewhere along the way. People just do not seem to have what it takes to care about anything but themselves. This is a very sad situation that could have been avoided. People don't want to hear things like that though because they think you are just fear-mongering or over dramatizing. To them I would say - open your eyes!

The very events predicted years ago regarding the effects of climate destruction juxtaposing with waste and apathy are now happening. The Ogalalla aquifer is also running out fast. Within the next twenty years we will see a dire dire situation regarding water access in the US if we don't get our heads out of our __ and do something.

Fracking is killing us and yet politicians in both politcial parties continue to support it - and the kicker in all this is that those very people now using bottled water because their wells have run dry will actually still vote for these very politicians supporting the actions killing their water and climate. Absolute insanity.

Water police on patrol in drought-scarred Los Angeles



Car 54 where are you? Watch out for the Water Police now... unless of course you are a fracker working for an oil company that gives political donations to the Governor or a multi-national food company that steals it for profit...

Also see:

Drought Monitor- Sept 2, 2014

Severity Of California Drought In Disturbing Photos

Scientists: The American Southwest Faces A Mega-drought

Fracking Is Making California's Drought Worse

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Massive Glacial Melt and Sea Level Rise-Antarctica

It’s All About Fresh Water — Rapid Sea Level Rise Points To Massive Glacial Melt in Antarctica

It’s all about fresh water. In this case, massive freshwater outflows from the vast glaciers covering Antarctica.

This week, a new scientific report published in the Journal Nature found that from 1992 through 2012 freshwater outflow from Antarctica’s massive glaciers exceeded 400 gigatons each year. An immense flood of cold, fresh water. One that helped push sea levels rapidly higher around the Antarctic continent.

But with glacial melt on the rise and with mountains of ice now inexorably sliding seaward, these freshwater flows may just be the start of even more powerful outbursts to come. And such prospective future events have far-ranging implications for sea level rise, global weather, sea ice, human-caused climate change, and world ocean health.

Flood of Fresh Water Drives More Sea Level Rise Than Expected

The researchers discovered the tell-tale signature of this vast freshwater flood through chemical analysis of the seas surrounding Antarctica. The analysis pointed to a broad and expanding fresh water layer over-riding a warmer, saltier current issuing in from the Southern Ocean.

Since fresh water is less dense than salt water, the freshwater layer expands at the ocean surface causing sea levels to rise more rapidly. Meanwhile, the heating of the deep ocean surrounding Antarctica is thought to result in additional thermal expansion of the water column.

Snip

More Evidence of Large-Scale Melt

The study comes on the back of other recent findings showing that warm water invasion at Antarctic glacier bases had led to more rapid than expected melt and destabilization. In May, two NASA studies showed that a broad section of West Antarctica had destabilized and was sliding at an ever more rapid pace toward the ocean (see reports here and here). These findings held stark implications for global sea level rise as large ice regions of Greenland and West Antarctica, containing enough water to raise seas at least 15 feet, are likely already in a state of irreversible collapse.

Snip

This intensifying glacial melt and associated freshwater cap expanding out from the pole has implications — not just for sea level rise, but for sea ice, weather, and world ocean system health.

Impacts For Sea Ice

Large outflows of glacial fresh water may well be involved in the recent observed expansion of sea ice in the zone surrounding Antarctica (see recent related study). Fresh water serves as an insulative cap on the ocean surface preventing warm water from entering the top layer from below. The warm, salty water, in the Antarctic instead pools near the bottom or at the base of the great ice sheets.

Fresh water also freezes at a higher temperature than salt water. So sea ice in an expanding freshwater zone around Antarctica would have naturally higher resiliency even to the rising temperatures now occurring due to human-caused warming. Eventually, however, human heat forcing would overwhelm the ice, but not before a period of related, localized negative feedbacks.

Snip

For global weather, such events have major implications. Regional cooling in the zone of freshwater outflow would juxtapose regional warming in the southern hemisphere meridional zones. This temperature differential would increase with the strength of the fresh water outflow and the rising intensity of the human-driven warming. The result would be a powerfully intensified storm track. Both the intensified storm track and increased atmospheric moisture loading due to human warming would result in much more powerful weather events than we are currently used to and the potential for catastrophic storms would drastically increase.

End of excerpt

Also see:

Antarctic glacier loss appears unstoppable

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One of the main red herrings used by the AGW denier crowd now is that Antarctica ice is increasing which means global warming is a hoax. It is a glaring example not only of their political predisposition to misinform but also their total lack of understanding of science and how the Earth works. The current condition of planet Earth is dire. Our continued preoccupation with political back and forth to defend the greed, arrogance, ignorance and hubris of humanity is suicide. It is no small task that we must now undertake to secure even a few years of human survival beyond this century if that.

Hope is a light that is fading though still glimmering. However, as a species we continue to squander every chance we get to prove we are above ego, pettiness and selfishness. The water of our world is now over-fished, over polluted, radiated, toxic and in many places unfit for human consumption or consumption by other species. The continued use of fossil fuels only makes the challenge all the more harder to overcome.

This is about a collective shift in consciousness. However, is that possible now? Even with the dire news that continues to be made known about the effects of our consumption the globe as a whole sits and waits... and denies. The message Mother Earth is sending us is one of urgency. She is warning us of the calamity unfolding before our eyes as we continue to wear blinders.

We can no longer afford to answer the warnings with business as usual measures. Doing the same things expecting a different result is indeed insanity. It is also the stubbornness of humanity in thinking we are not the problem. Desperate times call for drastic measures. This is not the time for one day marches with glitter signs that seek no specific and necessary demands. This is not the time for the same "leaders" who exacerbated this crisis to control the "solutions." People need to rise up in great numbers and be willing to take this to the source of the crisis. Us and our drug dealers.

There have also been reports that "Peak Oil" is not as peak as was once thought. This would then mean if true that the predisposition of humans to be lazy, visionless and slaves to comfort and convenience will certainly be the end of us. The continued fracking of our water, the burning of fossil fuels, destructive agriculture and the continued warmongering of those who are being charged with caring about our environment dictate unequivocally that a new political and economic model is essential to our continued survival on this planet. However, without that shift in us there is no model that can be sustained.

As the Arctic and Greenland continue its melt march and Antarctica continues to exemplify the effects of human ignorance and arrogance we see humanity on a collision course with itself. These events are not just about the physical limitations of our Earth but the moral limitations of the human spirit taking hold. It will surely be a sad epitaph if we continue to ignore these warnings simply because we are too proud to look in the mirror.

Zero Emissions Day

This is what I will doing on September 21st as thousands continue to support the fossil fuel agenda by flying and busing to a march in NYC that is little more than a street fair in the fight for this planet. This also does not have to be just one day. It isn't for me. Make a pledge to yourself as well as a sentient human being who cares about this world and those species that live on it to make this something you do more than one day. It can be done. It must be done. We must transcend politics. We must be responsible and those who continue to destroy the ecosystems of our world must finally truly be held accountable.

Also see:

Collapse Of Parts of West Antarctica Ice Sheet Has Begun

Satellite Data Shows Sea Level Rise

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