Ice loss causing Arctic to reflect less heat

bbc.com

25 points·headalgorithm··6 comments

Which leads to more light-absorbing ocean being exposed, raising ocean temperatures. Then microscopic phytoplankton, nature's primary co2 -> oxygen converters die out further raising co2 levels, eventually leading light-reflecting upper atmospheric clouds to form with progressively lower surface areas.

Climate change is going to be a hell of a way to put "feedback loops" in the global cultural dictionary.

Really? I'd expect the water in the Arctic to still over around 32F and for the phytoplankton to be blooming.

Cold Arctic water currents cool equatorial water, so when those currents are warmer equatorial water becomes too hot.

This isn't news...the albedo effect and its implications are long understood.

Yup. Learned about it in EAS (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) college intro lab course.

The planet will heal itself and purge us all through a few thousand / million years.

The planet will be just fine, humanity as species though, will probably have to adapt and migrate.

The news is not the albedo effect and its implications. The news is that the researchers determined which of four factors that were thought to contribute to reduced albedo were actually doing so and which were not.

In particular, as noted in the article:

> Within the scientific community, there had been a considerable level of debate over the role of soot blowing up from urban areas to the Arctic. One view was that it played a significant role in the reduction of the albedo effect in the Arctic because the dark soot would absorb more sunlight, thus increasing warming.

The researchers determined that this soot only had a minimal effect.

Of the factors that did affect albedo,

> They found that sea-ice, snow on top of sea-ice and ice on land contributed equally to the region's albedo effect

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