This rather haunting image is from a Norwegian archipelago which is melting rather faster than previously. One of the articles the image was used in is here at the Mail Online which is not normally "climate change friendly."
Well, it's a bit more dramatic than the usual "Virgin Mary on a pretzel" image, no?
A more detailed discussion on the Arctic is here at one of the top climate blogs (Joe Romm's) under the title
Human-caused Arctic warming overtakes 2,000 years of natural cooling, “seminal” study finds
It discusses a new scientific paper to be published today in Science today which shows that global warming has been cancelling out the (very) long term natural cooling trend as we head towards the next ice age in a few 10s of thousands of years.Now, it might seem that cancelling out the natural cooling trend is a good thing but unfortunately our excess greenhouse gas emissions have been so large that we had already overshot what would have been a desirable atmospheric equilibrium by around 1980. We have overwhelmed the natural trends in spades. Had we cut back hard on emissions then, we could have stabilised temperatures safely.
Enough talk - it's time for action. My next post will show how we can do something locally.
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