Arctic Amplification

The pandemic is clearly our immediate focus. But the effects of climate change are a much bigger, even existential, problem. The ravages of changing storm patterns, migrating-disease carrying insects, drought, flood, coastal erosion – including the recent polar vortex (warmer northern air pushing cold air south) that slammed into the entirety of Texas – mostly happen in ugly moments, explosive surges with scenes of starving agricultural migrants pushing their way into still fertile Europe. We may not completely see the link between conflicts in parts of Africa or the Middle East and climate change, but when you reconfigure those violent and angry disruptions as struggles for dwindling resources in an era of desertification of once arable and productive land, a light bulb should go off. More desertification. More forced migration. More violence. And by the latter half of this century, without significant decarbonization, death tolls that could easily mirror what we are experiencing in the current pandemic.

Our frozen Antarctic and Arctic regions, however, never stop changing, illustrating the most severe constant aspect of climate change. Not only do those regions pump billions and billions of gallons of additional water from melting glaciers, snow and ice – raising ocean waters everywhere – but as that white cold sheet melts away, darker oceans take up a greater proportion of the earth’s surface. White reflects heat; dark absorbs it. Hence a double whammy. Glaciers melt revealing more open sea, and darker open ocean absorbs more heat to melt more glaciers. Faster. This feedback loop has created the harshest temperature changes on earth.

Observations of Yale Professor Mary-Louise Timmermans, Yale News, February 12th: “Climate scientists say Arctic regions are a key indicator of the changes that have already occurred worldwide and those yet to come. The Arctic has already warmed at least 3 degrees C [a nasty 5.4 degrees F] in the past 50 years, more than most other parts of the world. Openings in the ocean ice pack are allowing the sun to directly warm the waters there, causing a warming feedback within the region’s ice cover…

“The iconic images of polar bears straddling small ice floes are dramatic symbolism for our changing planet, and this also resonates with the public…  Changes in the Arctic are big. Scientists even have a term for it: Arctic amplification. If we look at global maps of air temperature changes since pre-industrial times, they show a lot of warming everywhere. But these temperature increases are twice as large in the Arctic compared with other regions. That’s where the term ‘amplification’ comes from…

“With every passing year, the Arctic Ocean is generally showing warmer temperatures, and lower sea-ice extents. While there are regional patterns of air and ocean temperature changes that show year-to-year fluctuations, the overall theme of a warming Arctic continues. Along with reduced sea ice, we’ll see other changes like bigger waves, continued coastal erosion, and possibly increased storminess. Here I’m only talking about changes to the physical system. A whole host of ecosystem changes are also underway in this interconnected system…

“[In] general, the coastal boundaries of the Arctic Ocean basin are notoriously under-sampled. To some extent, these problems are geopolitical with many different exclusive economic zones, and data sharing between nations that is often deficient.” Climate change represents slow strangulation. Nature is unrelenting, and the laws of physics simply respond to mankind’s singular irresponsibility. 

Microsoft founder-billionaire, Bill Gates, has deployed billions of his dollars towards various social policy directives, from fighting malaria and increasing the availability of potable water to impoverished communities to the biggest challenge of them all: climate change. His appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes (February 14th) drove home some most basic points. First, to survive, mankind must fight to achieve net zero emissions on an accelerated basis, requiring a vastly more directed global effort than is currently contemplated. By 2050.

To Gates, it is a combination of efforts across a wide plane. From shifting eating habits away from methane-gas intensive animal protein to simple conservation, we need to accelerate our efforts. But all this, even with a massive shift to alternative energy, will fall short. “Mr Gates' focus is on how technology can help us make that journey.

“Renewable sources like wind and solar can help us decarbonise electricity but, as Mr Gates points out, that's less than 30% of total emissions… We are also going to have to decarbonise the other 70% of the world economy - steel, cement, transport systems, fertiliser production and much, much more… We simply don't have ways of doing that at the moment for many of these sectors…

“The answer, says Mr Gates, will be an innovation effort on a scale the world has never seen before… This has to start with governments, he argues… At the moment, the economic system doesn't price in the real cost of using fossil fuels… Most users don't pay anything for the damage to the environment done by pollution from the petrol in their car or the coal or gas that created the electricity in their home… ‘Right now, you don't see the pain you're causing as you emit carbon dioxide,’ is how Mr Gates puts it… ‘We need to have price signals to tell the private sector that we want green products, he says.

“That is going to require a huge investment by governments in research and development, Mr Gates argues, as well as support to allow the market for new products and technologies to grow, thereby helping drive down prices… [Gates states] he has always supported ‘the basic role of government in terms of roads and justice and education and scientific research.’

“And, on the climate issue, he maintains it will be impossible to avoid a disaster, particularly for those who live near the equator, without governments around the world getting behind the effort… This needs to be a ‘constant 30-year push,’ he maintains. ‘Business just can't change all that physical infrastructure unless the market signals are constant and very clear.’” BBC.com, February 15th. 

But what is particularly interesting, even with conservation, is that Gates does not believe that the expansion of alternative energy, even if widely adopted and deployed, can generate what he sees is required to meet obvious energy demand. His answer? Take a closer look at nuclear power. If we were able to change the technology to reduce nuclear waste and eliminate meltdowns, reactors could be vastly safer. By not requiring extreme heat to create steam that drives turbines, maybe… If liquid sodium chloride, recycled within the system, replaced steam… if operating temperatures could drop significantly. If massive water-cooling systems were not required…

Gates has invested in a new company, TerraPower, that is on the brink of building just such a reactor, with a sizeable government grant. His engineers, he believes have done a ground up redesign of a nuclear reactor (pictured above) that just might fit the bill. But Gates is correct. Climate change must be global priority number one. Every aspect of this existential problem must be tackled at every level. Now. Some of this technology might be feasible today. There will be new systems, including new decarbonization industrial filters, that we have yet to see. We must figure out how to store electricity much more efficiently without using toxic metals in the process. And yes, America, there are millions and millions of jobs that will be created by this effort.

I’m Peter Dekom, and although our attention and resources are distracted at the moment by COVID-19, climate change continues to wreak accelerating damage everywhere on this planet.