Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Novel Graphic on Arctic Sea Ice Extent

From "Changing state of Arctic sea ice across all seasons," Julienne Stroeve and Dirk Notz, Environmental Research Letters, Vol 13, N 10, 24 Sept 2018 (open access).


(click to enlarge). The world is now emitting about 40 Gt CO2 per year (including land use changes), so we'll get to the first threshold, about 700 Gt CO2 (RCP 2.6) relative to today, in about 18 years.

(Since 1850 the world has emitted about 2,200 Gt CO2, about 70% from burning fossil fuels and 30% from land use changes.)

5 comments:

David in Cal said...

I audited a fascinating class at Stanford U today, taught by Leslie Field. Leslie has invented a way to make thin ice more reflective and thus preserve it longer. She uses tiny silica balls light enough to float or to sit on top of an ice layer. Her goal is to reverse the loss of Arctic sea ice.

Cheers

Marco said...

In my opinion it would have been (visually) better to have the months on the x-axis. This is where time scales are usually shown.

Maybe just me, though?

David Appell said...

David, did she give any estimates for the cost?

David in Cal said...

She mentioned some figures, but I don't recall them. Her method is in testing stage now. Her team has used a modified seed spreader to spread these tiny balls of 3 football fields of area. But her idea seemed to me to be pretty affordable.

David Appell said...

Marco: Probably. But climate scientists are notoriously inconsistent about their plots. Sometimes time even goes backward as the abscissa value increases....