Total Arctic sea ice at record low in 2010 study

Scientific American has a post on the decline of arctic sea ice - Total Arctic sea ice at record low in 2010: study.

The minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year, researchers said in a study to be published shortly, suggesting that thinning of the ice had outweighed a recovery in area The study estimated that last year broke the previous, 2007 record for the minimum volume of ice, which is calculated from a combination of sea ice area and thickness.

The research adds to a picture of rapid climate change at the top of the world that could see the Arctic Ocean ice-free within decades, spurring new oil exploration opportunities but possibly also disrupted weather patterns far afield and a faster rise in sea levels.

The authors developed a model predicting thickness across the Arctic Ocean based on actual observations of winds, air and ocean temperatures. "The real worrisome fact is downward trend over the last 32 years," said Axel Schweiger, lead author of the paper, referring to a satellite record of changes in the Arctic.

He was emailing Reuters at the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, in the Arctic Ocean between the Norwegian island of Svalbard and the North Pole. "(It fell) by a large enough margin to establish a statistically significant new record," said the authors in their paper titled "Uncertainty in modeled Arctic sea ice volume."

The researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle checked the model results against real readings of ice thickness using limited submarine and satellite data.

The Arctic Sea Ice Blog is a good place to keep up with what is happening in this field.

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More Signs of ‘Peak Us’ in New Study of ‘Peak Oil Demand’

Andrew Revkin at the NYT has an article looking at a study on peak oil occurring due to demand factors rather than supply factors - More Signs of ‘Peak Us’ in New Study of ‘Peak Oil Demand’.

Back in 2010, I asked this question: “Which Comes First – Peak Everything or Peak Us?” My focus was whether humans could use the gift of foresight to curb resource appetites in ways that would avoid having the peak imposed on us by shortages or human-induced environmental shifts like climate disruption.

There are growing signs the answer is yes. First came work pointing to “peak travel.” Then I wrote about a study foreseeing “peak farmland” — an end to the need to keep pressing into untrammeled ecosystems to expand agriculture.

Now comes this fascinating paper in Environmental Science & Technology: “Peak Oil Demand: The Role of Fuel Efficiency and Alternative Fuels in a Global Oil Production Decline.”

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