Here's an excellent excerpt from a new piece by Kevin McKinney:
Predictably, I loved to read about the explorers: Martin Frobisher, who brought news of the disappointment that the Bay that now bears his name was not, in fact, a straight passage to China. The doomed Franklin, with his elegant dinner service abandoned amid the ice, his quest for the Passage turned to escape attempt, his men dying one by one of scurvy or hypothermia or heartbreak. And eventually, Amundsen, (and even later, the Mounties on the St. Roch) finding a way through the ice fields and intricate passages of the Canadian Archipelago to glory.
Were I to follow in their footsteps, I thought, the Arctic would not be a route to someplace else, but a destination.
These decades later, I've still not been much North of 50 degrees. But I watch the ice with satellite eyes: a high-tech stalker. And I'm losing the Arctic that was.
The ice pack has existed for millions of years, swelling and shrinking as glaciation alternated with warming in a vast, slow cycle. The pack had been growing in recent millenia; the height of post-glacial warming was reached perhaps 8,000 years ago, and the planet had been cooling, gradually and fitfully, yet seemingly inescapably, as the Earth's orbit shifted subtly toward the next glaciation.
But now humans have changed things. We've increased the carbon dioxide 'blanket' in our atmosphere by about 40% in the last century or two, and the planet has been responding—especially in the last four decades. The ice has been shrinking back, giving up land and sea to winds and tides and radiation.
We measure this, of course—measurement is as human as love.
Read the whole thing here. Highly recommended.
Image: Martin Frobisher, by Cornelius Ketel, ca. 1577. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
WOW!!
A nostalgic, even poetic look at history, an informative, yet readable look at the science and a foreboding look at the future.
Thia is a MUST READ!!
Well done Kevin and thanks.
Posted by: OldLeatherneck | August 21, 2012 at 13:49
Wow, in turn! Thanks, OldLeatherneck--and double thanks, Neven!
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | August 21, 2012 at 14:16
Very nice, Kevin. We went North this year, but no further than Anchorage.(To start an Alaska cruise) But we did fly into Anchorage shortly after the sun set and the strange mix of half light and the icy mountains of the Kenai peninsula south of Anchorage was beautiful and spooky enough for me. I don't need exotica.
But it's important to add that we have baser motives for wanting to preserve the Arctic than wanting something beautiful around. That huge expanse of unvarying ice shapes the winds and keeps our weather nice and predictable. Agriculture -- ordinary farming -- depends upon predictability.
Posted by: Jeffrey Davis | August 21, 2012 at 15:05
Thanks, Jeffrey. You are so right; it isn't just about nostalgia. (Though I did mention some practical consequences, too!)
The question of 'what will happen when...' needs to be front-burner; the trouble is that while knowledge on this score is emerging, it looks as if a lot of the learning will be 'in real time,' as the crisis hits.
That said, Neven and I are working on a piece laying out some of the practical issues a little more clearly, so watch for that.
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | August 21, 2012 at 16:40
Really excellent work, Kevin! Thank you!
Posted by: TenneyNaumer | August 21, 2012 at 19:22
Kevin
Should be a great collaboration!
Terry
Posted by: Twemoran | August 21, 2012 at 20:42
This is just delightful. Well done! This is a piece I'll re-read a few times and keep for some time.
Thanks!
Posted by: Noel Ward | August 21, 2012 at 21:13
Thanks, guys!
Also, feel free to link... ;-)
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | August 22, 2012 at 14:06
Just hit 1,000 page views--not much if you're writing about the latest pop star, perhaps, but fantastic by my standards. And ASI readers have helped reach that point the most. Thanks for your interest, everyone!
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | August 23, 2012 at 05:06
In utter depression, I just wrote the following: waynekernochanblog.blogspot.com. My apologies if it's off-topic; I just couldn't find a closer match. - w
Posted by: Wayne Kernochan | August 26, 2012 at 01:47