Report: Arctic feedback loops will worsen climate change

As the Arctic melts and warms, feedback effects will hasten the likelehood of global disaster increases, a new report from the World Wildlife Fund warns. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

People who like to watch horror films will enjoy a new report by the environmental organization, the World Wildlife Fund, which looks at how climate change in the Arctic is expected to affect the entire planet.

The WWF’s 100-page report “Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications,” predicts a warming Arctic will create a set of feedback loops that could accelerate the rate of global warming well beyond what is now predicted.

The report was released Sept. 2.

The report’s authors say feedback effects between warmer water, land and air temperatures, and glacial melt in the Arctic are likely to lead to severe flooding, damage to humans, fish and wildlife, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and extreme global weather changes, all of which will all occur faster than earlier projection suggest.

We will feel the “full power,” of these consequences, warns Martin Sommerton, co-editor of the report.

If the Arctic is not kept cold enough, people around the world will suffer the effects, the WWF cautions, saying world leaders must reach an emissions reduction deal in Copenhagen later this year.

“We have no time to lose,” Sommerton said in an interview prior to the Sept. 2 release date of the WWF report.

The governments of 191 countries will meet in Copenhagen this December.

“People here in Canada and around the world are going to see significant negative change if we don’t act quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Gerald Butts, president and CEO of WWF-Canada said in a news release.

“This is why our federal government needs to be a leader in Copenhagen because the future of the Arctic is the future of Canada.”

The report can be viewed at http://www.panda.org/arctic.

The WWF report focuses on six elements of climate change in the Arctic, which are likely to contribute to feeding even more dramatic climate changes.

These include feedbacks from:

• Continued increases in air temperatures and more precipitation in the Arctic;
• Greenland ice sheet melt, which has increased in recent years and is more rapid than was projected;
• Arctic Ocean surface warming and ice-cover melt, as declining sea-ice cover allows the water to absorb more heat from the sun;
• Changes in ocean circulation and chemistry, which can alter fisheries, weather patterns, and global air temperature— this factor is “one of the greatest threats to Earth’s climate: It presents a possibility of large and rapid change,” says the report;
• Permafrost warming and thawing in the Arctic, which are “significantly affecting wetlands;”
• Methane release, linked to melting permafrost, which puts more methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The WWF reports warns methane release may have “major climatic repercussions,” because Arctic lands and waters will no longer soak up methane and store methane deposits.

If the Arctic climate continues to warms, methane deposits, which now lie frozen in the ground and underwater, can be destabilized to the point that huge amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gas will flood into the atmosphere, the report says.