Sea levels could rise more than a meter by 2100: WWF

Sven Egenter, Reuters 22 Sep 09

GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's seas could rise by more than a meter (3 feet) by 2100 as the melting Arctic has an impact on weather across the planet, the environmental group WWW said in a report on Wednesday.

That projection, roughly twice the sea-level rise cited in U.N. and other research, takes account of the impact of disappearing ice sheets of Greenland and western Antarctica.

Sharply higher seas could also lead to flooding of costal regions, potentially affecting about a quarter of the world's population, the WWF said.

"If we allow the Arctic to get too warm, it is doubtful whether we will be able to keep these feedbacks under control," Martin Sommerkorn, senior adviser for WWF's Arctic program, said in a statement.

"It is urgently necessary to rein in greenhouse gas emissions while we still can,"

The dramatic loss of sea ice resulting from the Arctic's warming at about twice the rate of the rest of the world will affect conditions well beyond the planetary poles, WWF found.

Europe and North America may, for example, experience unusually cold winters, whereas Greenland may experience warmer winters from the sea-level changes and shifted humidity.

Moreover, the warming of the Arctic could itself become an engine for more global warming, it argued.

The Arctic's frozen soils and wetlands store twice as much carbon as is held in the atmosphere.

As warming in the Arctic continues, soils will increasingly thaw and release carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, at significantly increased rates, the report said.

Levels of atmospheric methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, have been increasing for the past two years, probably due to the warming Arctic tundra.

The WWF called the world's leaders to agree on rapid and deep cuts of carbon emissions when they meet in December in Copenhagen for the final round of negotiations for a new global agreement on climate change.

(Editing by Laura MacInnis)

Warming Arctic's global impacts outstrip predictions
WWF 2 Sep 09;

Warming in the Arctic could lead to flooding affecting one quarter of the world’s population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools, and extreme global weather changes, according to a new WWF report.

The Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications report, released today, outlines dire global consequences of a warming Arctic that are far worse than previous projections. The unprecedented peer-reviewed report brings together top climate scientists who have assessed the current science on arctic warming.

"What they found was a truly sobering picture,' said Dr Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change advisor for WWF’s Arctic programme. 'What this report says is that a warming Arctic is much more than a local problem, it’s a global problem.

"Simply put, if we do not keep the Arctic cold enough, people across the world will suffer the effects."

The report shows that numerous arctic climate feedbacks – negative effects prompted by the impacts of warming -- will make global climate change more severe than indicated by other recent projections, including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 assessment.

The dramatic loss of sea ice resulting from the Arctic warming at about twice the rate of the rest of the world will influence atmospheric circulation and weather in the Arctic and beyond. This is projected to change temperature and precipitation patterns in Europe and North America, affecting agriculture, forestry and water supplies.

In addition, the Arctic’s frozen soils and wetlands store twice as much carbon as is held in the atmosphere. As warming in the Arctic continues, soils will increasingly thaw and release carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, at significantly increased rates. Levels of atmospheric methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, have been increasing for the past two years, and it is suggested that the increase comes from warming arctic tundra.

In a first-of-its kind assessment incorporating the fate of the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica into global sea level projections, the WWF report concludes that sea- levels will very likely rise by more than one meter by 2100 -- more than twice the amount given in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 assessment that had excluded the contribution of ice sheets from their projection. The associated flooding of coastal regions will affect more than a quarter of the world’s population.

"This report shows that it is urgently necessary to rein in greenhouse gas emissions while we still can," Sommerkorn said. "If we allow the Arctic to get too warm, it is doubtful whether we will be able to keep these feedbacks under control.

WWF has joined with other NGOs to produce a model climate treaty for Copenhagen that gives the world a blueprint for achieving the kind of emissions cuts needed to likely avoid arctic feedbacks.

"We need to listen now to these signals from the Arctic, and take the necessary action in Copenhagen this December to get a deal that quickly and effectively limits greenhouse gas emissions,” said James Leape, director general of WWF International.

In December 2009, the governments of 191 countries will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the final round of negotiations for a new global agreement on climate change. The first period of the current agreement, called the 'Kyoto Protocol', will end in three years, in December 2012. The negotiations in Copenhagen are supposed to approve a new legal framework for global climate action from 2013 onwards.

According to WWF, this framework must guarantee much deeper and more rapid emission cuts from industrialized countries, and financing to developing countries to enable them also to take climate action.

Arctic thaw threatens much of world: WWF report
Yahoo News 2 Sep 09;

GENEVA (AFP) – Global warming in the Arctic could affect a quarter of the world's population through flooding and amplify the wider impact of climate change, a report by environmental group WWF said Wednesday.

Air temperatures in the region have risen by almost twice the global average over the past few decades, according to the peer-reviewed scientific report.

That is not just down to melting the polar ice pack, a major cooling agent for global weather patterns and reflector of sunlight.

It is also linked to the release of more of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming that are naturally trapped in frozen soil, it claimed.

"What this report says is that a warming Arctic is much more than a local problem, it's a global problem," said Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change advisor on the WWF's Arctic Programme.

"Simply put, if we do not keep the Arctic cold enough, people across the world will suffer the effects," he warned.

The combination of thawing Arctic sea ice and melting ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica was likely to raise global sea levels by about 1.2 metres (four feet) by 2100, more than previously thought, according to scientists commissioned by the WWF for the report.

"The associated flooding of coastal regions will affect more than a quarter of the world's population," the WWF said.

Scientists have expressed concern in recent years about the now visible melting of the Arctic region, to the extent that some have predicted virtually ice-free summers there this century.

The full impact of polar melting has yet to be taken into account by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific reference for world climate predictions, as reliable observations have only started to emerge in recent years.

Sommerkorn said the melting was already having an effect on the weather in the northern hemisphere, such as drier conditions in Scandinavia or the southwest of North America, or more humid Mediterranean winters.

However some climatologists at the World Climate Conference here urged caution about such short-term judgments, while acknowledging the major long-term influence of Arctic melting on the world's climate.

"We see that summer sea ice is likely to disappear by 2060," said Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at Britain's Met Office.

"But I don't think we understand the physics yet," she added, pointing to possible natural variability to account for recent local weather patterns.

The WWF report concluded that melting sea ice and the release of pockets of greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost and methane seeping from the depths of the warming Arctic Ocean -- would also fuel disruption to atmospheric and ocean currents much further afield.

Arctic permafrost stores twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere, acording to the WWF. Some 90 percent of near surface permafrost in the Arctic could disappear by the end of the century, the report found.

That trend could significantly accelerate global warming and force a shift in emissions targets, Sommerkorn told journalists.

"If we allow the Arctic to get much warmer it is really doubtful whether we will be able to keep the Arctic climate feedbacks under control," he said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is due at the conference later this week, on Wednesday urged world leaders to act now to halt global warming, after seeing first-hand its effects in the Arctic during a visit to Norway.

"The Arctic is similar to sending a canary into a coalmine -- this is a danger warning for the global climate," he said.

World leaders will gather at a UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December to try and seal a new international accord on fighting climate change.

On thinning Arctic ice, U.N.'s Ban urges climate deal
Wojciech Moskwa, Reuters 2 Sep 09;

ARCTIC OCEAN ICE SHEET (Reuters) - Standing on increasingly vulnerable Arctic sea ice, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made an impassioned plea for politicians to seal a global climate pact this year.

Ban said the Arctic, where temperatures have been rising faster than elsewhere, was "ground zero" for climate research and a warning to politicians to move fast toward a deal to slash emissions of greenhouse gasses stoking global warming.

"Here on the polar ice I feel the power of nature and at the same time a sense of vulnerability," Ban told Reuters after disembarking from Norwegian coastguard ice breaker "KV Svalbard" to walk on the sea ice and talk to Arctic researchers.

"We must do all we can to preserve this Arctic ice. This is the political responsibility required of global leaders and we count on their commitment," he said late on Tuesday.

The Arctic ice cap has been shrinking faster than scientists expected, as air and water temperatures rise, and may disappear totally during summers before 2050, research shows.

As the reflective ice cap melts, it reveals darker waters which absorb more solar energy and accelerate climate change.

Moving northward through increasingly thick sea ice for nearly two hours, the coastguard vessel met an Arctic research ship some 1,000 km (600 miles) from the North Pole -- a latitude of more than 80 degrees North.

There, researchers showed Ban how they measure the ice's thickness, temperature and other qualities in the hope of finding out why more of it has been drifting out of the Arctic Ocean in past years to melt in the relatively warmer North Atlantic.

To protect against polar bears, spotted in the area hours earlier, guards armed with rifles and flare guns controlled the perimeters of the ice sheet.

DEMONSTRATING LEADERSHIP

Ban said he expected the 100 or so world leaders who will take part in climate talks in New York this month to "demonstrate their leadership" and reinvigorate negotiations before December's main meeting in Copenhagen.

Ban is also fighting to renew his leadership credentials after a scathing memo from a Norwegian diplomat criticized him for weak rule and warned of a potential flop in Copenhagen.

The Copenhagen talks are due to work out a replacement for the Kyoto protocol which limits emissions until 2012. But a deal remains elusive until the world's industrialized countries strike a deal with developing states led by China and India over the scope of emission curbs and how to pay for them.

Ban said he was "working hard" with leaders to agree emission reduction targets for developed nations of at least 25 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. Already announced cuts fall well short of the target.

"We must seal the deal in Copenhagen. That is a must," he said, adding the December 7-18 talks may produce the framework for a climate pact but not resolve all the details.

"I do not expect that we will be able to agree on all details in Copenhagen, time is too short," Ban said.

Melting sea ice does not lead to higher sea levels but warmer Arctic temperatures are also melting glaciers, whose run-offs fill oceans with more water.

"Unless we stop this trend, we will have devastating consequences for humanity," Ban told reporters.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Has runaway Arctic warming already begun?
Fred Pearce, Geneva, New Scientist 3 Sep 09;

Runaway warming of the Arctic threatens to spread climate havoc across the globe in the coming decades, according to a new study by the environment group WWF. But has the process already begun? Climate scientists meeting at the World Climate Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, where the report was launched today, are in two minds.

Some reckon the WWF report may understate future events. The report's author, climate adviser Martin Sommerkorn, reckons 90 per cent of the Arctic's surface permafrost could be lost by 2100. But Jerry Meehl of the US government's National Center for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado, told the conference that unless humans curb their greenhouse gas emissions "there will be zero permafrost by 2100".

Melting permafrost is likely to release huge volumes of methane, accelerating global warming faster than previous predictions, according to many speakers at the conference. Fears of such releases prompted another US government agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this week to start regular research flights over Alaska, sniffing for methane.
What it did last summer

Conversely, the WWF's headline-grabbing claim that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice during summer 2007 was a tipping point in Arctic warming may be wide of the mark. Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at Britain's Met Office, said less ice disappeared in the summer of 2008. And that there had probably been even less melting there this year, though final reports will only come in over the next two weeks.

Met Office scientists reckon they know what really happened in 2007. "High pressure sat over the Arctic, which caused cloudless skies and extra melting," Pope told New Scientist. "It was basically natural variability, and 2007 was an outlier."

One theory discussed at the meeting is that the unusual high pressure was connected to the Pacific climate phenomenon called La Niña. But now its opposite, El Niño, is forming – reducing the chances of an Arctic refreeze next year.

"All this shows that we have to be careful not to assume that everything is caused by climate change," said Pope. But, whatever the short-term swings, the long-term warming will get its way in the end.

Persistent warming has been making Arctic ice thinner. "So when we do get a sunny summer, the effects are much greater than in the past," said Pope. The world, it seems, is skating on thin ice.