There is a wall in Ethiopia, or more precisely the foundation of one, that is bringing a great amount of conflict into the world. This particular structure will eventually soar over 240 meters into the air, blocking off a vast gorge that the Omo River previously flowed through (Greste, 2009). Known as the Gilgel Gibe III hydroelectric dam, this construction project would be the second largest dam on the continent and could restructure the entire Nile region. Such a colossal engineering project is sure to drastically improve the impoverished country’s economic situation by supplying millions with access to water and hydroelectric power. However the effects of interfering with the natural flow of an entire ecosystem can be destructive and unintended consequences often emerge long after the original benefactors are in their graves.
The Nile has presented more disputes over water than any other source in the world. Stretching half a continent and collected from a diverse array of tributaries, the Nile gives life to ten arid countries that would otherwise be uninhabitable. Water supply for countries like Ethiopia and Egypt isn’t a matter of convenience, because blistering droughts or raging floods can cause death on pandemic proportions. Therefore the struggle for control of water resources is highly contemptuous.
Ethiopia is especially involved in conflicts over water resources around the Nile. Over 85 percent of all the water that enters the Nile stream flow is originates in Ethiopia (Shiva, 2002, pg 75). Much to the distain of upstream riparian states, Ethiopia is now planning to use their water resources to become a regional leader in energy exports. Indeed, regional and historical conflicts complicate Ethiopia’s proposed damming projects. During British colonial rule of the Nile region, Egypt reached an agreement with their colonial master that placed them in a position of privilege and power. By allowing Britain to control the Suez Canal, Egypt gained authority to “inspect and investigate” the whole length of the Nile, and the right to veto any construction project that would affect the water flow downstream (Alao, 2007, pg 217). Pointing to this treaty, Egypt recently reasserted their Nile rights. Last month Mohammed Allam, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, stated ominously, "Egypt reserves the right to take whatever course it sees suitable to safeguard its share” (Mutasa, 2010).
In spite of this opposition, Ethiopian government officials stress the necessity of the economic benefits Gilbel Gibe III will bring to the country. “We cannot afford to not have [it],” argued Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. "We need that type of mega-project given the increased domestic energy demand and the requirements of export. And secondly, it enables us to store water and regulate the flooding [downstream in the Omo River]” (Greste, 2009). While these certainly are valid arguments, there are a wide variety of environmental effects that must be taken into consideration as well.
In addition to the obvious effects of relocating people and water resources, reservoirs can increase the prevalence of malaria and other diseases. Malaria is passed through mosquitoes, which reproduce in slow moving water habitats. Therefore, the reservoir shorelines that migrant populations must relocate to are high-risk areas for malaria infection. A study conducted around the Gilgel-Gibe I dam by BioMed Central confirms the direct link between man-made reservoirs and malaria outbreaks (Yewhalaw, 2009). After testing 1,855 children living in high-risk communities close to the Gilgel-Gibe I and other distant control communities, the researchers found that proximity to the dam was the strongest discriminating factor in the prevalence of infections. In fact, children living by the slow moving water were 43% more likely to have a strain of malaria.
Moreover, such large-scale experimentation with water flow always runs the risk of damaging the ecosystem. An ill constructed dam can wreck havoc on nature at the same time that it controls flooding. The High Dam, built hastily by the Egyptians following their independence, provides a useful case study of the unintentional harm a dam can inflict. It is now estimated that as much as fifteen percent of the Nile flow evaporates from baking under the sun in the reservoir backed up behind the dam (Ward, 2002, pg 63). Silt, the soluble mineral deposits that fertilize otherwise barren riverbeds during the flood season, now settle to the bottom of the slow-moving reservoir. The buildup of silt requires near constant dredging and recycling of the water in the reservoir, and also results in a loss of naturally maintained fishery and agricultural zones. Instead of being sustained by silt deposits, these farms now have to use loads of fertilizers that further deteriorate the water quality.
Granted, the High Dam is a completely different dam than the Gilgel Gibe III. The High Dam was built back in 1971 by another country far upstream from Ethiopia. Regardless of these differences, there are other similarities between the High Dam and the Gilgel Gibe III that should raise concern, or at least consideration. For instance, the High Dam was notorious even before construction began for the urgency and hast put into its erection. Likewise the Gilgel Gibe III has already taken a similar route. Construction began before enough investment capital had even been raised to complete the project. Furthermore, the Italian corporation that initiated the project bypassed the environmental and social impact assessment that the international community usually expects for this type of massive infrastructure projects. Although a study was produced recently, it comes almost two years after construction began. Kenyan ecologist Richard Leaky is critical of this afterthought of a study and suspects, “"The scientists that I've shown [the EIA] to…suggest it is fatally flawed in terms of its logic, in terms of its thoroughness, in terms of its conclusions. [I]t looks like an inside job that has come up with the results that they were looking for to get the initial funding for this dam” (Greste, 2009).
Altogether, the general sense of shortsightedness that has driven the construction of the Gilgel Gibe III should raise serious red flags. This massive dam could lead to serious political, and even violent, conflicts. There could also be extreme changes to the environmental welfare of the Nile river flow, which have an equal potential for harming the quality of life. Ultimately the Gilgel Gibe III appears to a premature venture into damming that has the potential to create more harm than benefits.
References
Alao, Abiodun. (2007). Natural resources and conflict in Africa. Rochester,NY: University of Rochester Press.
Greste, Peter. (2009, March 26). The Dam that divides Ethiopians. BBC News, Ethiopia, Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7959444.stm
Mutasa, Haru, (2010, April 20). Egypt reasserts nile water rights. Aljazeera. Retrieved from http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/04/20104135.html
Shiva, Vandana. (2002). Water wars: privatization, pollution, and profit. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Viala, E. (2008). Making the most of scarcity accountability for better water management in the middle east and north africa. Irrigation & Drainage Systems, 22(2), 189-191. doi:10.1007/s10795-008-9048-4
Ward, Diane. (2002). Water wars: drought, flood, folly, and the politics of thirst. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
Yewhalaw, D., Legesse, W., Van Bortel, W., Gebre-Selassie, S., Kloos, H., Duchateau, L., & Speybroeck, N. (2009). Malaria and water resource development: The case of gilgel-gibe hydroelectric dam in ethiopia. Malaria Journal, 8, 1-10. doi:10.1186/1475-2875-8-21
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Eureka Analysis
Some advertisements manipulate their audience with false associations, distorted images, or emotional appeals, but rarely do all three of these techniques combine to create an effect quite as interesting as in Shell’s 2007 ad campaign Eureka. The minute and a half ad tells ‘a story inspired by real events’ about Jaap Van Ballegooijen, a conflicted Shell engineer who divides his attention between work and family. For work, he travels to exotic locations around the world, ruminating over how to access their oil pockets without destroying the environment. While on the road he also tries in vain to maintain a relationship with his rebellious son. Halfway through ad they have a lukewarm reunion over burgers and shakes, but then the tone suddenly changes. When his son turns a twisty straw upside-down to suck up the remains of his shake, Ballegooijen has a ‘eureka moment.’ The next day at a Shell meeting he presents a model based on the twisty straw for drilling into small oil pockets. Executives receive the idea with fanfare and congratulations, our heroic father and son finally reconcile over soccer, and Ballegooijen’s narration concludes “solutions can be found in the most unlikely places.”
However inspiration the advertisement may be, Shell definitely produced it for a more pragmatic reason. Namely, the ad explicitly addresses the criticism that off shore oil drilling destroys natural beauty. His son voices this position, questioning his father’s occupation harshly. Once reunited, the son asks his father scornfully, “Which beautiful part of the world are you drilling to pieces now?” Understandably feeling hurt by his sons comment, Ballegooijen doesn’t rebuke the pointed question. In fact, earlier in the video, Ballegooijen is flying over a tropical coast with a local passenger. He explains to the passenger, “As far as you can see are thousands of smaller pockets of oil. The trouble is that we’d have to build thousands of other platforms just to reach them. Economically and environmentally that’s just not acceptable.” This comment on the environmental effects of off shore oil drilling presents Shell employees as aware and concerned about the impact their work has on nature, even judging the construction of more oilrigs unacceptable. The action Ballegooijen takes throughout the video reinforces this attitude of concern. Most of the acts the oil entrepreneur engages in consist of researching alternative ways to drill that are more eco-friendly.
Moreover, Shell’s protagonist is portrayed in a sympathetic light. Many parents in the audience would relate to the struggles Ballegooijen has with his son. Having previously seen that the father truly is grappling with the logistics of discovering ways to ethically drill, the scorn he faces from his son appears unwarranted. No father enjoys being rejected by his son on the sole basis of vocation, especially when that rejection doesn’t consider the entire range of things that job does. The audience sees that Ballegooijen is not the ruthless decimator his son seems to conceptualize him as. Accordingly, parents in the audience suffer with him when his son lashes out. Perhaps the intended effect of this interaction is to create hesitation about criticizing the oil industry. If Ballegooijen’s son is being unreasonable and unfair with his negative opinions, maybe similar people will become more hesitant in voicing their opinions after the sympathetic ad.
The dramatic relationship Ballegooijen has with his son seems unrelated to the product Shell is trying to sell. An employee’s paternal struggles should have little to do with persuading consumers to purchase a product. Nevertheless, the drama is here, taking up almost half of the advertisement. One can only assume that Shell has a reason for including this. Most likely, it’s there because it gives the audience someone to identify with. The oil industry is frequently demonized for it’s all around destructive role in environmental affairs (not to mention the massive ‘windfall’ profits). So Shell is literally presenting its best face here, a father who not only cares about the environment but also his son. Essentially, Shell is indirectly indicating that they are more concerned with making pathos appeals than demonstrating logical arguments that show their progress in advancing environmental causes. With no actual facts about Shell’s environmental record included in the ad, one can’t help but wonder whether the kind of green values that they are claiming to prioritize actually exist or not.
Shell uses nature in a very deliberate way in the commercial. Extremely beautiful locations are prominently placed in the advertisement. During the helicopter scene in particular, aerial shots of the coast capture the idyllic tropic image generations have admired. The treatment of these tropical images establishes a theme that might be misleading. Shell is sending a dubious message that some places are natural treasures, better left preserved and unspoiled. Even the local culture is honored. A crowd of cattle is herded out into the road Ballegooijen is driving down, and he stops to patiently wait for them to cross. While this respect would resonate with an environmental audience, it seems disconnected from the actual business Shell conducts. They are, first and foremost, an oil company. As such, they need to drill, extract, and transport oil from places like the one in the video in order to stay profitable. Exploiting beautiful scenic imagery to suggest that Shell respects higher values is probably misleading. In reality, the oceans are still being drilled until fossil fuels spew out, the quaint villages are being replaced by rapid transit systems, and the whole oil process intrudes on most aspects of the local biosphere.
Ultimately the ‘Eureka’ ad expresses a clear theme. It wants to convince the audience that oil companies, Shell specifically, take the environment into consideration during their day-to-day operating procedures. Additionally, Shell wants to put a face to their company so that people hesitate before demonizing the work that they do. Ballegooijen puts a personable face onto a vast company. His apprehensive presence and family struggles personalizes the actions of a giant transnational corporation. More narrowly speaking, the ad generates excitement for the new ‘twisty-straw drill’ that can access small pockets from one central oilrig. These goals are all well executed, but the problem with the ad is that Shell’s environmental credentials are doubtful at best. Audience members should rightfully be suspicious anytime oil companies present themselves as a green enterprise.
However inspiration the advertisement may be, Shell definitely produced it for a more pragmatic reason. Namely, the ad explicitly addresses the criticism that off shore oil drilling destroys natural beauty. His son voices this position, questioning his father’s occupation harshly. Once reunited, the son asks his father scornfully, “Which beautiful part of the world are you drilling to pieces now?” Understandably feeling hurt by his sons comment, Ballegooijen doesn’t rebuke the pointed question. In fact, earlier in the video, Ballegooijen is flying over a tropical coast with a local passenger. He explains to the passenger, “As far as you can see are thousands of smaller pockets of oil. The trouble is that we’d have to build thousands of other platforms just to reach them. Economically and environmentally that’s just not acceptable.” This comment on the environmental effects of off shore oil drilling presents Shell employees as aware and concerned about the impact their work has on nature, even judging the construction of more oilrigs unacceptable. The action Ballegooijen takes throughout the video reinforces this attitude of concern. Most of the acts the oil entrepreneur engages in consist of researching alternative ways to drill that are more eco-friendly.
Moreover, Shell’s protagonist is portrayed in a sympathetic light. Many parents in the audience would relate to the struggles Ballegooijen has with his son. Having previously seen that the father truly is grappling with the logistics of discovering ways to ethically drill, the scorn he faces from his son appears unwarranted. No father enjoys being rejected by his son on the sole basis of vocation, especially when that rejection doesn’t consider the entire range of things that job does. The audience sees that Ballegooijen is not the ruthless decimator his son seems to conceptualize him as. Accordingly, parents in the audience suffer with him when his son lashes out. Perhaps the intended effect of this interaction is to create hesitation about criticizing the oil industry. If Ballegooijen’s son is being unreasonable and unfair with his negative opinions, maybe similar people will become more hesitant in voicing their opinions after the sympathetic ad.
The dramatic relationship Ballegooijen has with his son seems unrelated to the product Shell is trying to sell. An employee’s paternal struggles should have little to do with persuading consumers to purchase a product. Nevertheless, the drama is here, taking up almost half of the advertisement. One can only assume that Shell has a reason for including this. Most likely, it’s there because it gives the audience someone to identify with. The oil industry is frequently demonized for it’s all around destructive role in environmental affairs (not to mention the massive ‘windfall’ profits). So Shell is literally presenting its best face here, a father who not only cares about the environment but also his son. Essentially, Shell is indirectly indicating that they are more concerned with making pathos appeals than demonstrating logical arguments that show their progress in advancing environmental causes. With no actual facts about Shell’s environmental record included in the ad, one can’t help but wonder whether the kind of green values that they are claiming to prioritize actually exist or not.
Shell uses nature in a very deliberate way in the commercial. Extremely beautiful locations are prominently placed in the advertisement. During the helicopter scene in particular, aerial shots of the coast capture the idyllic tropic image generations have admired. The treatment of these tropical images establishes a theme that might be misleading. Shell is sending a dubious message that some places are natural treasures, better left preserved and unspoiled. Even the local culture is honored. A crowd of cattle is herded out into the road Ballegooijen is driving down, and he stops to patiently wait for them to cross. While this respect would resonate with an environmental audience, it seems disconnected from the actual business Shell conducts. They are, first and foremost, an oil company. As such, they need to drill, extract, and transport oil from places like the one in the video in order to stay profitable. Exploiting beautiful scenic imagery to suggest that Shell respects higher values is probably misleading. In reality, the oceans are still being drilled until fossil fuels spew out, the quaint villages are being replaced by rapid transit systems, and the whole oil process intrudes on most aspects of the local biosphere.
Ultimately the ‘Eureka’ ad expresses a clear theme. It wants to convince the audience that oil companies, Shell specifically, take the environment into consideration during their day-to-day operating procedures. Additionally, Shell wants to put a face to their company so that people hesitate before demonizing the work that they do. Ballegooijen puts a personable face onto a vast company. His apprehensive presence and family struggles personalizes the actions of a giant transnational corporation. More narrowly speaking, the ad generates excitement for the new ‘twisty-straw drill’ that can access small pockets from one central oilrig. These goals are all well executed, but the problem with the ad is that Shell’s environmental credentials are doubtful at best. Audience members should rightfully be suspicious anytime oil companies present themselves as a green enterprise.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Environmental News Analysis
This article, titled Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts, was a prominent feature for the New York Times in 2007. It ran as part of its series The Big Melt, which discussed “the effects of warming on the environment and on the four million people who live in the Arctic, and scientists' assessments of the inevitability of Arctic melting.” On the newspaper’s digital manifestation, the coverage includes a broad scope of multimedia content. A brief video documentary, an interactive map of the chronology of Arctic ice levels, and several scenic images of the Arctic Ocean accompany the text. Even more, the text runs for 28 paragraphs. The wealth of media content attached to the topic of ice melting seems to indicate that the NY Times valued informing the public about this story.
Although this story fits precariously with the factors that shape the news, the issue is presented in an illuminating way. Contrary to eight factor scheme proposed by Galtung & Ruge, the disappearance of Arctic ice is distant from daily life, highly ambiguous, somewhat expected, slowly developing, and involves few characters (Anderson, 1997, pg 118-119). However, the New York Times coverage counters these problems with imagery. Visual representation of the diminishing ice caps is especially important, because “global warming is very difficult [to cover] because you can’t actually see global warming” (Anderson, 1997, pg 122). The time-lapse graphic is essential for its dramatization of the story.
Structurally, the article first presents data suggesting that the ice cap has shrunk to an unprecedented extent and then presents various scientific interpretations of this information. The opening hook, which explains that ice has disappeared so much that new shipping lanes are now open through the Arctic Ocean, catches attention immediately by providing this surprising fact. Considering that “all facts contain an evaluative dimension” and that “interpretations of facts may be influenced by conflicting ideological positions,” it seems fitting that there are so many explanations follow the rather straightforward factual section (Anderson, 1997, pg 51-53).
The article gives voice to eight experts in the field of Arctic studies, although it implies the consultation of many more. These experts are either faculty at universities in the northern region or geographical researchers. In order to increase credibility of these experts, NY Times utilizes hyperlinks so that the reader can simply click on a name to see further information. This nifty feature does much to aid transparency. Another common criticism associated with expert sources—that privileged experts are positioned to give a primary definition of the issue—is minimized in the article. All eight sources are organized with immediacy to each other, often in a way that highlights areas of disagreement and conflict. The journalist presents this structure impartially, allowing the experts to critique and elaborate on each other’s conclusions.
The ultimate effect of this article creates some confusion by attempting to dissect the complex factors associated with melting ice caps. The only concrete conclusion it draws is that somehow the climate is changing, and moreover, most scientists attribute some of that change to global greenhouse gasses. Climate change deniers would likely see this assumption as biased. Through a rational analysis, however, it provides equal weight to the advocates of other scientific explanations, such as wind patterns and increased sunlight. Therefore, I am impressed by the article, which I admire for reporting such a difficult story.
Although this story fits precariously with the factors that shape the news, the issue is presented in an illuminating way. Contrary to eight factor scheme proposed by Galtung & Ruge, the disappearance of Arctic ice is distant from daily life, highly ambiguous, somewhat expected, slowly developing, and involves few characters (Anderson, 1997, pg 118-119). However, the New York Times coverage counters these problems with imagery. Visual representation of the diminishing ice caps is especially important, because “global warming is very difficult [to cover] because you can’t actually see global warming” (Anderson, 1997, pg 122). The time-lapse graphic is essential for its dramatization of the story.
Structurally, the article first presents data suggesting that the ice cap has shrunk to an unprecedented extent and then presents various scientific interpretations of this information. The opening hook, which explains that ice has disappeared so much that new shipping lanes are now open through the Arctic Ocean, catches attention immediately by providing this surprising fact. Considering that “all facts contain an evaluative dimension” and that “interpretations of facts may be influenced by conflicting ideological positions,” it seems fitting that there are so many explanations follow the rather straightforward factual section (Anderson, 1997, pg 51-53).
The article gives voice to eight experts in the field of Arctic studies, although it implies the consultation of many more. These experts are either faculty at universities in the northern region or geographical researchers. In order to increase credibility of these experts, NY Times utilizes hyperlinks so that the reader can simply click on a name to see further information. This nifty feature does much to aid transparency. Another common criticism associated with expert sources—that privileged experts are positioned to give a primary definition of the issue—is minimized in the article. All eight sources are organized with immediacy to each other, often in a way that highlights areas of disagreement and conflict. The journalist presents this structure impartially, allowing the experts to critique and elaborate on each other’s conclusions.
The ultimate effect of this article creates some confusion by attempting to dissect the complex factors associated with melting ice caps. The only concrete conclusion it draws is that somehow the climate is changing, and moreover, most scientists attribute some of that change to global greenhouse gasses. Climate change deniers would likely see this assumption as biased. Through a rational analysis, however, it provides equal weight to the advocates of other scientific explanations, such as wind patterns and increased sunlight. Therefore, I am impressed by the article, which I admire for reporting such a difficult story.
Seeing the direct link to the article doesn't work, I thought I'd provide the text here.
Attributed to the New York Times, 2007
By Andrew Revkin
"The Arctic ice cap shrank so much this summer that waves briefly lapped along two long-imagined Arctic shipping routes, the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia.
Over all, the floating ice dwindled to an extent unparalleled in a century or more, by several estimates.
Now the six-month dark season has returned to the North Pole. In the deepening chill, new ice is already spreading over vast stretches of the Arctic Ocean. Astonished by the summer’s changes, scientists are studying the forces that exposed one million square miles of open water — six Californias — beyond the average since satellites started measurements in 1979.
At a recent gathering of sea-ice experts at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Hajo Eicken, a geophysicist, summarized it this way: “Our stock in trade seems to be going away.”
Scientists are also unnerved by the summer’s implications for the future, and their ability to predict it.
Complicating the picture, the striking Arctic change was as much a result of ice moving as melting, many say. A new study, led by Son Nghiem at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and appearing this week in Geophysical Research Letters, used satellites and buoys to show that winds since 2000 had pushed huge amounts of thick old ice out of the Arctic basin past Greenland. The thin floes that formed on the resulting open water melted quicker or could be shuffled together by winds and similarly expelled, the authors said.
The pace of change has far exceeded what had been estimated by almost all the simulations used to envision how the Arctic will respond to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. But that disconnect can cut two ways. Are the models overly conservative? Or are they missing natural influences that can cause wide swings in ice and temperature, thereby dwarfing the slow background warming?
The world is paying more attention than ever.
Russia, Canada and Denmark, prompted in part by years of warming and the ice retreat this year, ratcheted up rhetoric and actions aimed at securing sea routes and seabed resources.
Proponents of cuts in greenhouse gases cited the meltdown as proof that human activities are propelling a slide toward climate calamity.
Arctic experts say things are not that simple. More than a dozen experts said in interviews that the extreme summer ice retreat had revealed at least as much about what remains unknown in the Arctic as what is clear. Still, many of those scientists said they were becoming convinced that the system is heading toward a new, more watery state, and that human-caused global warming is playing a significant role.
For one thing, experts are having trouble finding any records from Russia, Alaska or elsewhere pointing to such a widespread Arctic ice retreat in recent times, adding credence to the idea that humans may have tipped the balance. Many scientists say the last substantial warming in the region, peaking in the 1930s, mainly affected areas near Greenland and Scandinavia.
Some scientists who have long doubted that a human influence could be clearly discerned in the Arctic’s changing climate now agree that the trend is hard to ascribe to anything else.
“We used to argue that a lot of the variability up to the late 1990s was induced by changes in the winds, natural changes not obviously related to global warming,” said John Michael Wallace, a scientist at the University of Washington. “But changes in the last few years make you have to question that. I’m much more open to the idea that we might have passed a point where it’s becoming essentially irreversible.”
Experts say the ice retreat is likely to be even bigger next summer because this winter’s freeze is starting from such a huge ice deficit. At least one researcher, Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., projects a blue Arctic Ocean in summers by 2013.
In essence, Arctic waters may be behaving more like those around Antarctica, where a broad fringe of sea ice builds each austral winter and nearly disappears in the summer. (Reflecting the different geography and dynamics at the two poles, there has been a slight increase in sea-ice area around Antarctica in recent decades.)
While open Arctic waters could be a boon for shipping, fishing and oil exploration, an annual seesawing between ice and no ice could be a particularly harsh jolt to polar bears.
Many Arctic researchers warned that it was still far too soon to start sending container ships over the top of the world. “Natural variations could turn around and counteract the greenhouse-gas-forced change, perhaps stabilizing the ice for a bit,” said Marika Holland, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
But, she added, that will not last. “Eventually the natural variations would again reinforce the human-driven change, perhaps leading to even more rapid retreat,” Dr. Holland said. “So I wouldn’t sign any shipping contracts for the next 5 to 10 years, but maybe the next 20 to 30.”
While experts debate details, many agree that the vanishing act of the sea ice this year was probably caused by superimposed forces including heat-trapping clouds and water vapor in the air, as well as the ocean-heating influence of unusually sunny skies in June and July. Other important factors were warm winds flowing from Siberia around a high-pressure system parked over the ocean. The winds not only would have melted thin ice but also pushed floes offshore where currents and winds could push them out of the Arctic Ocean.
But another factor was probably involved, one with roots going back to about 1989. At that time, a periodic flip in winds and pressure patterns over the Arctic Ocean, called the Arctic Oscillation, settled into a phase that tended to stop ice from drifting in a gyre for years, so it could thicken, and instead carried it out to the North Atlantic.
The new NASA study of expelled old ice builds on previous measurements showing that the proportion of thick, durable floes that were at least 10 years old dropped to 2 percent this spring from 80 percent in the spring of 1987, said Ignatius G. Rigor, an ice expert at the University of Washington and an author of the new NASA-led study.
Without the thick ice, which can endure months of nonstop summer sunshine, more dark open water and thin ice absorbed solar energy, adding to melting and delaying the winter freeze.
The thinner fresh-formed ice was also more vulnerable to melting from heat held near the ocean surface by clouds and water vapor. This may be where the rising influence of humans on the global climate system could be exerting the biggest regional influence, said Jennifer A. Francis of Rutgers University.
Other Arctic experts, including Dr. Maslowski in Monterey and Igor V. Polyakov at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, also see a role in rising flows of warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia, and in deep currents running north from the Atlantic Ocean near Scandinavia.
A host of Arctic scientists say it is too soon to know if the global greenhouse effect has already tipped the system to a condition in which sea ice in summers will be routinely limited to a few clotted passageways in northern Canada.
But at the university in Fairbanks — where signs of northern warming include sinkholes from thawing permafrost around its Arctic research center — Dr. Eicken and other experts are having a hard time conceiving a situation that could reverse the trends.
“The Arctic may have another ace up her sleeve to help the ice grow back,” Dr. Eicken said. “But from all we can tell right now, the means for that are quite limited.”"
Attributed to the New York Times, 2007
By Andrew Revkin
"The Arctic ice cap shrank so much this summer that waves briefly lapped along two long-imagined Arctic shipping routes, the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia.
Over all, the floating ice dwindled to an extent unparalleled in a century or more, by several estimates.
Now the six-month dark season has returned to the North Pole. In the deepening chill, new ice is already spreading over vast stretches of the Arctic Ocean. Astonished by the summer’s changes, scientists are studying the forces that exposed one million square miles of open water — six Californias — beyond the average since satellites started measurements in 1979.
At a recent gathering of sea-ice experts at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Hajo Eicken, a geophysicist, summarized it this way: “Our stock in trade seems to be going away.”
Scientists are also unnerved by the summer’s implications for the future, and their ability to predict it.
Complicating the picture, the striking Arctic change was as much a result of ice moving as melting, many say. A new study, led by Son Nghiem at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and appearing this week in Geophysical Research Letters, used satellites and buoys to show that winds since 2000 had pushed huge amounts of thick old ice out of the Arctic basin past Greenland. The thin floes that formed on the resulting open water melted quicker or could be shuffled together by winds and similarly expelled, the authors said.
The pace of change has far exceeded what had been estimated by almost all the simulations used to envision how the Arctic will respond to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. But that disconnect can cut two ways. Are the models overly conservative? Or are they missing natural influences that can cause wide swings in ice and temperature, thereby dwarfing the slow background warming?
The world is paying more attention than ever.
Russia, Canada and Denmark, prompted in part by years of warming and the ice retreat this year, ratcheted up rhetoric and actions aimed at securing sea routes and seabed resources.
Proponents of cuts in greenhouse gases cited the meltdown as proof that human activities are propelling a slide toward climate calamity.
Arctic experts say things are not that simple. More than a dozen experts said in interviews that the extreme summer ice retreat had revealed at least as much about what remains unknown in the Arctic as what is clear. Still, many of those scientists said they were becoming convinced that the system is heading toward a new, more watery state, and that human-caused global warming is playing a significant role.
For one thing, experts are having trouble finding any records from Russia, Alaska or elsewhere pointing to such a widespread Arctic ice retreat in recent times, adding credence to the idea that humans may have tipped the balance. Many scientists say the last substantial warming in the region, peaking in the 1930s, mainly affected areas near Greenland and Scandinavia.
Some scientists who have long doubted that a human influence could be clearly discerned in the Arctic’s changing climate now agree that the trend is hard to ascribe to anything else.
“We used to argue that a lot of the variability up to the late 1990s was induced by changes in the winds, natural changes not obviously related to global warming,” said John Michael Wallace, a scientist at the University of Washington. “But changes in the last few years make you have to question that. I’m much more open to the idea that we might have passed a point where it’s becoming essentially irreversible.”
Experts say the ice retreat is likely to be even bigger next summer because this winter’s freeze is starting from such a huge ice deficit. At least one researcher, Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., projects a blue Arctic Ocean in summers by 2013.
In essence, Arctic waters may be behaving more like those around Antarctica, where a broad fringe of sea ice builds each austral winter and nearly disappears in the summer. (Reflecting the different geography and dynamics at the two poles, there has been a slight increase in sea-ice area around Antarctica in recent decades.)
While open Arctic waters could be a boon for shipping, fishing and oil exploration, an annual seesawing between ice and no ice could be a particularly harsh jolt to polar bears.
Many Arctic researchers warned that it was still far too soon to start sending container ships over the top of the world. “Natural variations could turn around and counteract the greenhouse-gas-forced change, perhaps stabilizing the ice for a bit,” said Marika Holland, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
But, she added, that will not last. “Eventually the natural variations would again reinforce the human-driven change, perhaps leading to even more rapid retreat,” Dr. Holland said. “So I wouldn’t sign any shipping contracts for the next 5 to 10 years, but maybe the next 20 to 30.”
While experts debate details, many agree that the vanishing act of the sea ice this year was probably caused by superimposed forces including heat-trapping clouds and water vapor in the air, as well as the ocean-heating influence of unusually sunny skies in June and July. Other important factors were warm winds flowing from Siberia around a high-pressure system parked over the ocean. The winds not only would have melted thin ice but also pushed floes offshore where currents and winds could push them out of the Arctic Ocean.
But another factor was probably involved, one with roots going back to about 1989. At that time, a periodic flip in winds and pressure patterns over the Arctic Ocean, called the Arctic Oscillation, settled into a phase that tended to stop ice from drifting in a gyre for years, so it could thicken, and instead carried it out to the North Atlantic.
The new NASA study of expelled old ice builds on previous measurements showing that the proportion of thick, durable floes that were at least 10 years old dropped to 2 percent this spring from 80 percent in the spring of 1987, said Ignatius G. Rigor, an ice expert at the University of Washington and an author of the new NASA-led study.
Without the thick ice, which can endure months of nonstop summer sunshine, more dark open water and thin ice absorbed solar energy, adding to melting and delaying the winter freeze.
The thinner fresh-formed ice was also more vulnerable to melting from heat held near the ocean surface by clouds and water vapor. This may be where the rising influence of humans on the global climate system could be exerting the biggest regional influence, said Jennifer A. Francis of Rutgers University.
Other Arctic experts, including Dr. Maslowski in Monterey and Igor V. Polyakov at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, also see a role in rising flows of warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia, and in deep currents running north from the Atlantic Ocean near Scandinavia.
A host of Arctic scientists say it is too soon to know if the global greenhouse effect has already tipped the system to a condition in which sea ice in summers will be routinely limited to a few clotted passageways in northern Canada.
But at the university in Fairbanks — where signs of northern warming include sinkholes from thawing permafrost around its Arctic research center — Dr. Eicken and other experts are having a hard time conceiving a situation that could reverse the trends.
“The Arctic may have another ace up her sleeve to help the ice grow back,” Dr. Eicken said. “But from all we can tell right now, the means for that are quite limited.”"
Where did all the ice go?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/earth/02arct.html
Recently stumbled upon this interesting article from the NY Times about the dramatic retreating ice-caps on the north pole. The most disturbing thing about it is that it was published almost 3 years ago. I wonder how much this has changed since.
Over the weekend I'll be composing a more comprehensive analysis of the news article and providing insights into the reliability of the journalism.
Friday, March 5, 2010
She's just being Miley?
So apparently someone wants America to wake up from environmental appathy and mindless consumption. And that person is none other that the tween mega-superstar Miley Cyrus. I wonder what effect this message has on the millions of tweenage girls all over America.
Is Miley Cyrus creating a new generation of green activites?
Was this whole videa her idea at all, or just some corporate PR scheme?
Does she really not understand what the terms 'global warming' and 'going green' mean?
How does this activism fit in with her heartland girl/Hollywood starlet branding?
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