November 9, 2004
Rapid Arctic Warming Brings Calls for Bush to Reassess Policy
OneWorld US

Monday’s release of a major new report by an international team of more than 300 scientists on the potentially catastrophic warming of the world’s Arctic region has spurred new appeals for Bush to reconsider his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol.

Jim Lobe, OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov 9 (OneWorld) – Monday’s release of a major new report by an international team of more than 300 scientists on the potentially catastrophic warming of the world’s Arctic region has spurred new appeals by independent experts and environmental experts for President George W. Bush (news - web sites) to reconsider his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) and other mechanisms to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

“President Bush (news - web sites)’s response will prove a first test of post-election pledge to work together to protect all Americans, as global warming challenges our security as a nation and as a species,” declared Evelyn Hurwich, president of the Washington-based Circumpolar Conservation Union.

“Climate change is a weapon of mass destruction staring in the face, threatening all of creation. The science is in and the evidence is before us. There is now a moral duty act on it,” she said.

The 140-page report, the ‘Arctic Climate Impact Assessment,’ finds that the Arctic is warming much more rapidly than previously thought, at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world, with consequences, such as a dramatic rise in sea level, that will be global in scope.

Based on five computer models, as well as observations by scientists and six indigenous peoples’ organizations, the report, which will be the subject of a scientific symposium in Reykjavik, Iceland, this week, predicts that at least half of the summer sea ice in the Arctic, along with a significant portion of the huge Greenland ice sheet, will have melted by the end of this century.

Average annual temperatures in the region as a whole over the same period are projected to rise 3-5 degrees Centigrade (5-9 degrees Fahrenheit) over land and up to 7 degrees C (13 degrees F) over the oceans. These increases will come on top of a one degree C (1.8 F) rise in Arctic temperatures since 1900.

The impact on the melting of ice and tundra is low latitudes is certain to be dramatic. Over the past 30 years already, the annual average sea-ice extent has decreased by eight percent, an area larger than Texas and Arizona (or Norway, Sweden, and Denmark) combined, and the trend is accelerating.

Some models predict that, by the year 2100, summer sea ice in the Arctic region may have disappeared completely, resulting in the likely extinction of polar bears and species of seals that are dependent on sea ice for giving birth and nursing. Such changes will also have major, potentially catastrophic impacts on migratory birds and large migratory mammals, such as caribou and reindeer, as well as the cultures and livelihoods of the indigenous peoples who have lived in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia for millennia.

“The scientific evidence shows that the Arctic is in crisis due to global warming,” said Dr. Lara Hansen, chief scientist of the Climate Change Program of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

“Even a slight change in temperature – bringing averages above freezing – can bring about dramatic and rapid changes in an ecosystem that is defined by being frozen with severe consequences for people and all wildlife adapted to the Arctic ecosystem, including polar bears,” she added.

Temperature increases in some Arctic regions have been particularly sharp. In Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, average winter temperatures have increased as much as 3-4 degrees C (4 to 7 degrees F) in the past 50 years and could rise as much as 7 degrees C (13 degrees F) over the next century.

With the melting of the Arctic ice, average global sea level, which already rose by eight centimeters, or three inches, in the last 20 years, will rise at an accelerated pace. During this century, the models predict a rise of between 10 and 90 cms (four inches to three feet), enough, on the higher end, to inundate southern Florida and much of Louisiana.

The eventual melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, will increase global sea level about seven meters, or 23 feet.

In addition to contributing to global sea-level rise, according to the report, ice melt will add freshwater to the ocean, with potential large-scale impacts on ocean circulation and regional climates, according to the report.

Declining salinity in the Atlantic Ocean caused by melting could shut down the ocean current that carries warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, bringing about major plunges in the water and surface air temperatures of northern and western Europe and northeast North America, the report notes.

The sponsors of the study, which include the governments of eight nations with Arctic territory – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the U.S. – are currently debating what policy initiatives they will collectively endorse to address these problems.

They are expected to announce their conclusions later this month, but published reports suggest that the Bush administration, the only government in the group that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for global warming, is holding the line against recommendations that call for mandatory reductions on emissions.

“We support those recommendations that are both consistent with the Administration’s broader climate change policy, and that are appropriate for the unique attributes of the Arctic Council as a regional forum,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher after the report was released.

But Daniel Lashof of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) insisted that the administration needed to reassess its policy. “It is now clear we have to cut the pollution that causes global warming to prevent dangerous changes in the climate,” he said. “The purely voluntary approach taken in the president’s first term will leave the nation and the world in greater danger from the threat of global warming.”

Similarly, Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), who, with Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), has sponsored legislation to impose caps on emissions in the United States, said the report should aid their joint efforts. “The Assessment adds to the already-substantial body of evidence on the impacts of global warming, impacts which members of the Senate witnessed first-hand during a recent visit to the Arctic region.”

He said the Senate Commerce Committee will meet next week to review the study.

The executive director of the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP), Klaus Toepfer, also praised the report, noting that it “confirms worrying predictions and earlier research.”

“The Arctic region,” he noted, “is like an environmental early-warning system for the world. What happens there is of concern for everyone because Arctic warming and its consequences have worldwide implications.”

“With these facts before us,” he added, “we need, more than ever before, a concerted and renewed international effort to combat the climate-change problem, one of the most series threats to humankind today.”

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