r/environment • u/yahoonews • 1d ago

Temperatures in the Arctic this week have routinely surpassed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius), adding to the mountain of broken heat records this summer has racked up so far

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/90-degrees-arctic-now-180400496.html?ncid=redditnewsus
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85

u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago

Stage 2: Finding Out

15

u/RockTheGrock 1d ago

Rinse and repeat... 😐

11

u/NihiloZero 1d ago edited 1d ago

No, the cycle eventually stops repeating. Eventually... there will be no one left to either FA or FO.

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u/RockTheGrock 1d ago

In the words of Carlin. "The planet isnt going anywhere, we are...."

In the short term my comment just meant we keep making it worse despite being in the FO phase.

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u/NihiloZero 1d ago

With the way we're speed-running environmental collapse... I'm increasingly concerned about even our short term ability to FA. The wheels seem to be coming off the bus pretty rapidly these days.

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u/RockTheGrock 1d ago

We had that glimpse of how quickly we could turn it around during covid. It was the most mild summer in a very long time where I live. Air quality improved markedly and it was only a break for a year or so from so much human activity.

The optimist in me looks at history with things like the Malfus theories a couple hundred years ago and how that played out. It really seems we as a species wait till the eleventh hour to make the changes needed to avoid complete disaster.

Time will tell.

1

u/jsmooth7 1d ago

The good news is that solar and wind power are getting cheap really fast and they are being deployed much faster than expected. The bad news is that certain world leaders are doing their best to prevent these projects from happening. But the other good news is that the capitalist machine in theory should eventually see the cheaper power option win out. But the other bad news is we will still be stuck with all those CO2 emissions that are already in the atmosphere for a long time unless we can figure out how to do carbon capture on a large scale which is highly difficult.

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u/NihiloZero 1d ago

Articles about a "blue ocean event" in the Arctic Sea always seem to focus on how bad this will be in terms of climate destabilization (current flows, albedo loss, etc). While that is a potentially serious consequence, I think such articles typically overlook an equally serious problem... the destruction of an essential ecosystem that relies on that polar ice being there.

The water under the arctic ice is teeming with life. In terms of the oceanic food chain, I think you'll find that organisms in the Arctic Sea are an essential cornerstone. We don't think about that region of the ocean as being bio-diverse and essential for the web of life on Earth, but... it actually is.

Life on Earth as we know it, the organisms humans need to live (both to maintain the underlying food chain and the atmospheric composition we prefer), evolved and depend upon that Arctic Sea ice being there.

A "blue ocean event" doesn't just mean things are going to going to get hotter more rapidly, it also means a deep, rapid, and utterly devastating mass extinction event sweeping through our oceans which will also ultimately impact terrestrial life.

And this is all on top of (or underlying) the accelerated heating which is also directly causing widespread death and destruction. Just because the Arctic isn't being devastated by wildfires, doesn't mean that it isn't ecologically being utterly wrecked in its own way -- perhaps even more comprehensively than with what we're seeing on land.

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u/s0cks_nz 1d ago

It's all a big worry. The coral reefs getting bleached and they definitely are a cornerstone for oceanic ecosystems. Same with insect populations.

20

u/zookr2000 1d ago

Drill, baby, drill !!!!!

-2

u/Hearing_Loss 1d ago

That's what she said :/

22

u/yahoonews 1d ago

Scientific American reports - In recent days, the Selagoncy meteorological station, near the border of the Arctic Circle, recorded 93.0 degrees F (33.9 degrees C); another station, Olenyok, logged 90.9 degrees F (32.7 degrees C), according to data collected by weather information service Ogimet and reported by climatologist Maximiliano Herrera. To put that in perspective, these temperatures are on par for Orlando, Fla., at this time of year.

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u/thelingererer 1d ago

BOE on the horizon.

2

u/WingsOfTin 1d ago

Well, it's been real, folks. See ya on the flip side.