“President Bush’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, who, with Democratic Sen.
Joseph Lieberman , 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.”
