Retreating Ice
Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts
Scientists are unnerved by this summer’s massive polar ice melt, its implications and their ability to predict it.
- The Big Melt: Articles | Video | Interactive Graphic: Sea Ice in Retreat »
On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.
The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.
The greenhouse effect has been part of the earth's workings since its earliest days. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would never have warmed enough to allow life to form. But as ever larger amounts of carbon dioxide have been released along with the development of industrial economies, the atmosphere has grown warmer at an accelerating rate: Since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century.
The latest report from the climate panel predicted that the global climate is likely to rise between 3.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit if the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reaches twice the level of 1750. By 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches, it said, and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come.
A growing array of military leaders, Arctic experts and lawmakers say the United States is losing its ability to patrol and safeguard Arctic waters.
August 17, 2008WorldNewsA new report says the country is brimming with opportunities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, while saving money at the same time.
November 30, 2007BusinessNewsIn its final and most powerful report, an international panel details mounting risks in specific and forceful language, scientists said.
November 17, 2007ScienceNewsIt has been pointed out many times that we are engaged in a titanic global experiment. The further it proceeds, the clearer the picture should become.
February 6, 2007ScienceNewsThe report said warming and its harmful consequences could be substantially blunted by prompt action.
February 3, 2007ScienceNewsScientists are unnerved by this summer’s massive polar ice melt, its implications and their ability to predict it.
We need a farm bill that addresses the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.
January 5, 2009Barack Obama faces conflicting views among his top advisers on the balance between the environment and the economy.
January 3, 2009Researchers say that an abrupt cooling of the Earth about 12,900 years ago may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.
January 2, 2009We need to impose a tax on the thing we want less of (carbon dioxide) and reduce taxes on the things we want more of (income and jobs).
December 28, 2008The ideologues who have been running the E.P.A. for the last half-dozen years have done little for the environment with the weapons Congress gave them.
December 25, 2008Isn’t the chore of vacuuming odious enough without worrying if it is contributing to global warming?
December 25, 2008John P. Holdren, a physicist and environmental policy professor at Harvard, has been tapped to be the science adviser to President-elect Barack Obama.
December 23, 2008Sub-cabinet appointments affirm Barack Obama’s commitment to aggressively address the challenges of energy independence and global warming.
December 22, 2008This month, the Brazilian government introduced ambitious targets for reducing deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions.
December 22, 2008Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado was not the first choice of environmental advocates for the Interior Department.
December 18, 2008Australia announced plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by between 5 and 15 percent by 2020, angering environmental groups that had lobbied for much deeper cuts.
December 16, 2008Few would fault someone who kicks down the front door of a neighbor's empty house to put out a fire. Neither would the law, generally: in Britain, the common-sense defense of ''lawful excuse'' (a variant is known as the ''necessity defense'' in the United States) usually succeeds in precisely this kind of situation. Which leads you to wonder: What acts might the law permit in the name of fighting a threat of global, even catastrophic, proportions? In September, a British jury shook up the world...
December 14, 2008Of all the ideas developed to combat the climate crisis, George Wilson of Australian Wildlife Services may have the least intuitive: eating more kangaroos. In a paper published in June by the U.S.-based Society for Conservation Biology, however, he explains that 11 percent of Australia's total greenhouse-gas emissions come from the methane produced by the rumen of cattle and sheep. ''It's been long known that kangaroos don't produce methane,'' Wilson says, noting that kangaroos' stomachs have d...
December 14, 2008We all contribute to climate change, but none of us can individually be blamed for it. So we walk around with a free-floating sense of guilt that's unlikely to be lifted by the purchase of wind-power credits or halogen bulbs. Annina Rüst, a Swiss-born artist-inventor, wanted to help relieve these anxietes by giving people a tangible reminder of their own energy use, as well as an outlet for the feelings of complicity, shame and powerlessness that surround the question of global warming. So she ...
December 14, 2008The talks concluded Saturday, having seemingly achieved their modest goals: setting the world on the track to a new global climate treaty with a renewed sense of purpose and momentum.
December 13, 2008SEARCH 2268 ARTICLES ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING:
Global warming has felt like breaking news a few times in recent years, but the first big pulse of coverage and public attention came in 1988.
This summer saw a record-breaking loss of Arctic sea ice.
How can we protect the planet for our children? Andrew C. Revkin looked at the latest research on global warming for AARP The Magazine.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report on Feb. 2, which provided a grim and powerful assessment of the future of the planet. The Times' Andrew C. Revkin answered readers' questions and responded to comments.
In a series of articles, a team of Times reporters described how the world is, and is not, moving toward a more secure, and less environmentally damaging, relationship with energy. Several of the writers responded to questions and comments
What should be done to address the world’s future energy needs? Andrew C. Revkin discusses the issues with readers.
Bill Clinton sits down with New York Times reporter Andrew C. Revkin after announcing his new plan to fight global climate change at the Large Cities Climate Summit in New York.
Malawi, India, the Netherlands and Australia will experience global warming in very different ways.
Science reporter Andy Revkin examines the long-term social consequences of rising temperatures and seas around the globe.
Andrew C. Revkin reports on his 2003 trip to the North Pole Environmental Observatory.
Click on a photo to view related article
December 23, 2008
December 22, 2008
December 18, 2008
December 11, 2008
December 4, 2008
December 2, 2008
November 25, 2008
November 21, 2008