“Arctic … in a Death Spiral” – declares lead scientist
Dr. Mark Sereze, is a leading expert about the Arctic, and Director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, based in Boulder, Colorado. (NSIDC http://nsidc.org/) In a story this week by Stephen Levy of IPS, Sereze states,
I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover. I hate to say it but I think we are committed to a four- to six-degree warmer Arctic, he continued. (that is Celsius; 8 – 11 degrees F)
Dr. Sereze is held in very high regard by his peers. https://nsidc.org/about/people.html
To put this in perspective, when I first heard Mark’s presentation in 2006, he said that he really had been doubtful about some of the assertions about global warming at the start of the decade. He recalled that around the turn of the century, he still thought that we must not jump to conclusions based on just a few years’ data, saying that perhaps this was just an unusual example of natural cycles.
It was clear to me that Mark was a methodical, cautious scientist, not one about to jump to some conclusion about global warming, or anything else, for that matter. He had a healthy scientific skepticism.
But in that presentation in August 2006, he said that he now had changed opinion. He told us that he could no longer explain what he saw in the Arctic each year as some natural cycle. Something different was at work. That was 4 years ago.
The unambiguous content and tone of his statements this week are ominous. It is worth reading the article, that I am quoting. It’s quite short and not particularly technical or scientific. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52896