1. It was a pretty rough day yesterday for Arctic news. Nothing that, if you were watching closely, you didn't expect But still, it kind of all came at once.
2. I covered the Greenland news. Yes, we know ice losses there, and in Antarctica, are accelerating. But learning that as a result, they're now on the high end sea level pathway -- well, that was new washingtonpost.com/climate-enviro…
3. @afreedma covered the permafrost news for us. Here, you had to did a bit in @NOAA's Arctic Report Card, but it is there -- a suggestion that the global Arctic has now become a significant greenhouse gas emitter washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/1…
4. What does it all mean? Well, look. The Arctic is, as our 2C project data make clear, warming at double, or in some places triple the global average rate. washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…
5. What that means is that, the kind of climate impacts that we get warned about all the time if the Earth reaches 1.5C, 2C -- look, the Arctic is already there. Big changes are therefore what you would expect to see. Systems have already been given a jolt.
6. Some of the mega-changes aren't even widely known. Like how rapid ice losses in the Sea of Okhotsk could be shutting down the pumping of oxygen and nutrients to the Pacific. This, too, is driven by fast Arctic warming, in this case in Siberia. washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…
7. But let's talk about Greenland, and the permafrost. And while the findings are certainly serious, there are at least some details to be filled in, which could moderate the bad news somewhat.
8. For Greenland -- the ice sheet is on a curve that leads to very large ice losses by 2100, but so far, losses only amount to about 1cm of sea level rise.
9. There's no certainty that the ice sheet will keep climbing that steep curve. Saying we're on a high end pathway doesn't mean we've reached the end of it. That leaves room for adapting, and for policymaking.
10. For permafrost -- look, it is a very big deal if we officially affirm that the Earth is worsening our greenhouse gas emissions. Especially at the magnitude suggested by the @NOAA report, which is already comparable to a large (although not top 3) emitting country.
11. Here, though, while you have suggestive data suggesting that these emissions are already here, there's still a lot more to learn before we are sure of the magnitude of the problem. Unlike with Greenland, where ice loss acceleration is firmly established.
12. So, for both of these systems, we really have to watch and see now, over the next decade or so, just what we have already wrought. We need to see if the Greenland losses keep on accelerating. We need more confirmation that the Arctic carbon cycle has fundamentally shifted.
13. Still, I can't say I am going to be surprised if it all continues. It's the Arctic -- the systems have already been hit hard, and the impact on them is going to increase further before it moderates.
14. In the end it's just another confirmation -- big climate changes are already here, if you know where to look. They aren't affecting every corner of the globe yet. But some corners where they've arrived, like the Arctic, affect us all. /end
