Heated Ice

Heated Ice

Climate Change Factoid – Earth's Ice (#6 of a series)

Do you know what “Heating Potential” means? As it relates to climate change? If not, you should know that your future may be wound up in its explanation. It's not terribly complicated but you will need to read all the way to the bottom of the page in order to get all of it.

Every year, in summertime, as sunshine returns to the polar cap and the temperature begins to warm, a thin layer on the top of that winter's snowfall melts very slightly. Later in the year, as it begins to cool again, the melted layer freezes forming a thin crust on the surface. The crust visibly separates each year's snowfall from the year before. Much the same as the rings in a tree. Knowing that, an expedition of climate researchers traveled to the coldest place on earth in 1999, Vostok, Antarctica. There, they drilled, and then withdrew, a 10 inch diameter, 3 kilometer long, core of ice from the polar cap. Three kilometers of this ice contains a year by year history of the polar cap going back 450,000 years. Radioactive isotopes are used by the researchers to extract from the bubbles of air frozen into the ice, an annual record of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and also the air temperature at the time when the snow fell. Here's what they discovered.

Atmospheric CO2 increases and decreases, naturally, in cycles that take roughly 130,000 years to complete. When you look at the ice core graph (it's on the website) it almost looks like an electrocardiograph of earth's heartbeat. When the natural level of CO2 is at its lowest point in the cycle, there are 180 parts of CO2 contained in every million parts of atmosphere. Then it begins to increase slowly, over 20,000 years to its highest natural level of 280 parts per million (ppm) of CO2, a 100 ppm increase. Then, it starts its decline back to the 180ppm lowest level taking about 100,000 years, or slightly more, to get there. Because earth has a greenhouse effect, as those CO2 levels rise and fall, so does the temperature Over the entire 450,000 years covered by the study, the rise and fall of 100ppm (difference between 180 and 280) the temperature rises and falls 10ºC. That's an important number.

The Vostok ice cores also include the most recent 200 year period, which is the same time period during which burning fossil fuels became popular. That's where the surprise was. During that short period of time, the CO2 levels increased from their naturally achieved high level of 280 ppm to a new high level of 380ppm, an increase of an additional 100 ppm. As mentioned above, when CO2 levels increased 100 ppm in the past, the temperature has risen 10ºC. But, at the time of the study, temperature had just begun to increase. That means the 100 ppm held what might be called an “unrealized potential” to heat the atmosphere by 10ºC. The heat increase is a direct reaction to an increase in CO2, so it will follow in its own time but, as long as that new CO2 level of 380ppm is sustained, it contains 10ºC of “heating potential.” 

As of 2009, some of that unrealized heating potential had been realized and world temperature had risen 0.6ºC or, 6% of the full heating potential of 10ºC. Even though a small portion of the full potential, the effect on earth's ice had already become profound. That smallish percentage of the total “heating potential” had caused earth's temperature to steadily and continuously rise for almost two decades. Then, about 15 years ago researchers also began reporting that the volume of ice on the planet had begun to decline because the annual snowfall was inadequate to replace the ice being melted by the growing heat. 

Man made CO2, once introduced to the atmosphere, is expected to remain there for thousands of years. That means the decade and a half long trend of increasing heat and declining ice volume should be expected to continue indefinitely. If that is so, then “realizing” just 6% of the total “heating potential” has proven sufficient to assure us that every last scrap of ice on the planet is going to melt and we can't stop it if we reduce our carbon footprint to zero – tomorrow.

 (Peer reviewed research, supporting the claims made in this factoid, can be found at the website)

About the Author

Rich Albertson is a retired lawyer, author, builder, building designer, carpenter and long time amateur naturalist. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Albertson's most recent book (2009), “The Sky is the Limit – A Brief and Easy Explanation of Climate Change for Present and Future Voters” (134pp), is an explanation of the science, economics, politics and a discussion of the future of climate change written for people of average experience. Climate Change Factoids are drawn from the book. His first book (1978), “The Bio-Conversion of Waste to Resource” (4 Vols, 2624pp), was a treatise on methods for the sustainable management of solid and liquid waste in urban society. More about the Sky is the Limit book can be found at http://www.thecircleworks.org

As a Naturalist, Albertson's primary interest is to understand and then explain the conflicts that result from modern human practices that interfere with the operation of the natural world on a planetary scale.

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Ice $10 Ice

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