Wednesday 31 December 2008

Detecting climate change

Today it is snowing outside my office in Geneva, thus lulling me into a false sense of wellbeing about climate change. What is really happening?

The UN reports this week that 2008 was the 10th warmest year on record. Temperatures for 2008 are estimated at 0.31 degrees Celsius (C) or 0.56 Fahrenheit (F), above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14C, or 57.2F, while the Arctic Sea ice volume during the melt season was its lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979.

0.31 degrees Celsius does not seem very much but the World Meterological Organization explains what this means in the Arctic.

"A remarkable occurrence in 2008 was the dramatic disappearance of nearly one-quarter of the massive ancient ice shelves on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. Ice 70 metres thick, which a century ago covered 9,000 square kilometres, has shrunk to just 1,000 square kilometres today, underscoring the 30-year downward trend in Arctic sea ice".

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