The Economist Arctic Summit in Oslo

[Jim Hunt]

I've just been promised (only verbally thus far) a press pass to the Economist Arctic Summit in Oslo next week. For further background information on the event please see What will the Arctic resemble in 2050?

In view of the fact that "the Arctic vortex looks to be toast" by the middle of next week I idly enquired if they still had space for an extra speaker at their summit. They haven't got back to me on that one as yet.

This prompts me to ask once again, does anyone by any chance have a spare sofa available in the Oslo vicinity for a night or two next week?

Assuming I do make it over there, (which will involve taking a plane) what does the team suggest I say to them all, in either my "press" or possible "delegate" capacity?

[OldLeatherneck]

Jim,

First, congratulations on getting the invitation to attend the summit.

Have the published an agenda for the summit?  If so, could you post it?  This would help the members of this forum to better frame the questions they would like asked and/or the statements they would like to have made public.

[Jim Hunt]

Thanks for your kind words Old Leatherneck. I haven't got the invitation in writing as yet, however!

See my first link above for some additional details, but here's the agenda.

You can download the conference brochure towards the top right of that page.

[crandles]

PANEL DEBATE: CLIMATE CHANGE - ASSESSING THE RISKS OF A MELTING ARCTIC
The Arctic is acutely sensitive to temperature change. Since 1951 the region has warmed roughly twice as much as the global average. We discuss future scenarios that the world should be prepared for, exploring the consequences for ecosystems. How will melting glaciers affect sea levels? How far and fast will environmental change proceed? We will debate how climate change may impact the Arctic and what can be done about it.

If 87% on Neven's Arctic Sea Ice Forum think we could have seasonally ice free Arctic this decade, surely we don't have any realistic means to protect arctic ecosystems against such rapid change and shouldn't we abandon it to nature and instead be focusing on building dams and flood defenses in mid latitudes where most people and agriculture are based?

[OldLeatherneck]

Thanks for your kind words Old Leatherneck. I haven't got the invitation in writing as yet, however!

See my first link above for some additional details, but here's the agenda.

You can download the conference brochure towards the top right of that page.

If 87% on Neven's Arctic Sea Ice Forum think we could have seasonally ice free Arctic this decade, surely we don't have any realistic means to protect arctic ecosystems against such rapid change and shouldn't we abandon it to nature and instead be focusing on building dams and flood defenses in mid latitudes where most people and agriculture are based?

Jim,
Thanks for posting the agenda.  It looks like you will have an opportunity to participate in a very fascinating conference and hopefully make a difference.  I would recommend that you focus on stressing the following:
1. How rapidly the changes in the arctic are occurring (sea ice loss, glacial retreat, methane emissions, etc.).
2. How severe the global consequences will be, not just by 2100, but within the next few decades.

I realize that you don't have much time to prepare for your trip, but I would scour the many topics on this forum for relevant posts that you could provide either copies of or links to as many people who are willing to listen to you.  I'm amazed at how much credible information that has already been accumulated on this forum in such a reasonably organized manner in just a few weeks.

Use the networking opportunities to meet and talk to as many of the influential and receptive participants as you can.

[Jim Hunt]

I've been a bit of a lone voice over on Twitter up to now:

https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%23ArcticSummit

Things are warming up at long last though. Here's DNV's take:

http://www.dnv.com/news_events/events/2013/Arctic_Summit.asp

DNV suggests that in order to allow for commercial activity in the Arctic, the safety level must be equivalent to – or better than – the best performance in the industry today.

[Neven]

One commenter on the blog called Christoffer Ladstein didn't live too far from Oslo,if I remember correctly. A very jovial person, but I don't know if he has a couch. I haven't seen him on the forum yet either. I'll forward you his mail address, Jim.

[Jim Hunt]

Thanks for the suggestion Neven. An email is now on its way to Norway.

Whilst you're here, do you have any particular points you'd like to raise in Norway if the opportunity arises, above and beyond those mentioned by Crandles and Old Leatherneck?

[OldLeatherneck]

Jim,

We're looking forward to your trip report!

[Jim Hunt]

Hi Old Leatherneck,

To save you the wait (and me the bother!) I've asked if they'd object to me streaming the event live to all of Spaceship Earth (technology permitting of course).

They haven't got back to me on that yet, however.

[Neven]

Thanks for the suggestion Neven. An email is now on its way to Norway.

Whilst you're here, do you have any particular points you'd like to raise in Norway if the opportunity arises, above and beyond those mentioned by Crandles and Old Leatherneck?

I'll let you know if I think of something. Mind is a bit blank at the moment.

[Jim Hunt]

My first brief trip report from Oslo, especially for Old Leatherneck.

I took the opportunity to go to the Fram Museum today, with a few of my fliers in my rucsack. First I handed one to a photographer of the famous., who is going to be having dinner tomorrow with Rear Admiral Jonathan White.

Then as I was taking the attached photograph a man asked me if I was a big fan of Colin Archer. It transpired he's one of the moderators of tomorrow's Arctic Summit. We got along like a house on fire until I questioned the Economist's continuing emphasis on economic growth as the solution to all the Planet's problems. Even so, he did say if I wave my hand in the air at some point tomorrow he'll give me a chance to say my piece.

Finally I had a chat to Anders Bache from the Fram Museum, who assured me some friends of his are planning to kayak to the North Pole this summer. Anders also told me there's much debate in Norway at the moment about whether to pump oil out of the Lofoten Islands or not.

More from me in due course!

[OldLeatherneck]

My first brief trip report from Oslo, especially for Old Leatherneck.

Thinking of how to thank you for your 'trip report' reminded me of a quote:

"Share Your Knowledge.
It's a Way to Achieve Immortality."
................................Dalai Lama

[Jim Hunt]

Here's a few more piccies from the Fram Museum for you OLN:

http://tinyurl.com/fram2013

In conclusion, for tonight at least, here's an interesting anomaly for you to consider. For reasons known only to themselves the US Navy stopped updating their Arctic sea ice thickness forecast on March 5th:

http://econnexus.org/projects/the-distributed-arctic-sea-ice-model/#future

Why do you suppose that was?

[OldLeatherneck]

Here's a few more piccies from the Fram Museum for you OLN:

http://tinyurl.com/fram2013

In conclusion, for tonight at least, here's an interesting anomaly for you to consider. For reasons known only to themselves the US Navy stopped updating their Arctic sea ice thickness forecast on March 5th:

http://econnexus.org/projects/the-distributed-arctic-sea-ice-model/#future

Why do you suppose that was?

Great pictures.


Since the model hasn't updated since the 5th, I doubt the problem is hardware related.

Jim, since you're the programmer, what are the probablities that one of the algorithms 'choked' on the data it was given?  In other words, have they measured something happening in the arctic, that was considered beyond the realm of possiblities when the algorithms were designed?That's just a question on my part.  My experiences working with programmers and modelling was many years ago and not even closely related to this.

If it's not one of the above, the data is being withheld from the public for reasons yet unknown.

Let's hope for 'glitch.'

[Jim Hunt]

@OLN - As you say, probably not hardware related. I'm a born optimist, and generally subscribe to the "cockup" theory of history, rather than the "conspiracy" theory.

In the animation you can see those big cracks open up in the Beaufort Sea. Then all of a sudden there's large expanses of mauve off Barrow and Banks Island. Things are bad in the real world, but not THAT bad as far as I know.

In the absence of further evidence to the contrary I'll settle on "model glitch => Big Red Button" for the moment.

[Jim Hunt]

I'm now online from the Hotel Bristol, sat at a table with some people from the Economist, and some people from the Canadian Embassy.

More soon, but James Astill said "The Arctic is not forgiving of complacency", which seemed to strike a reasonable opening note!

[Jim Hunt]

Stefan' Rahmstorf's headline at the Arctic Summit. - Arctic Meltdown! Why Care? His answer. A potential 7 metres rise in sea level as the Greenland ice sheet melts!

[OldLeatherneck]

Stefan' Rahmstorf's headline at the #ArcticSummit. - Arctic Meltdown! Why Care? His answer. A potential 7 metres rise in sea level as the Greenland ice sheet melts!

Arctic Meltdown! Why Care?......My Answer

Policy makers have the capability of changing the trajectories of both the increasing economic costs and the societal impacts of AGW/CC.  While nothing may be done to halt the eventual Sea Level Rise of 1 meter, good decisions and policies might be able to prevent or significantly delay a rise of 3 meters.

[Neven]

Great stuff. Thanks for the updates, Jim!

It's good to hear that Stefan Rahmstorf is there too. I sent him my piece on consequences last August and he promised to put it on his blog. One of Skeptical Science's German translators then translated the piece for me and put it on SkS (you know, you can click the little German flag for the German version). At that point Rahmstorf no longer wanted to publish my piece, because he only published original work on his blog, which was rather unfortunate. Silly scientists. 

[Jim Hunt]

I just offered Stefan the glamorous post of pro bono DASIM modeller. He said unfortunately he is not a sea-ice modeller. However he did say that he's a "lurker" on the Arctic Sea Ice Blog. Whether he will put virtual pen to paper either there or here remains to be seen!

[Jim Hunt]

I had a long chat with Nina Jensen from WWF Norway before lunch, not realising she would be speaking just after lunch.

Nina told the assembled throng:

The ice & snow cover in the Arctic is a protective shield. Without it uncontrolled, escalating warming is inevitable.

[Jim Hunt]

I spoke to Rear Admiral Jonathan White earlier about the Navy's Arctic sea ice forecasts that seemed to have got stuck. He said it was his responsibility, and he wasn't aware that the forecasts had stopped.

Whether this is coincidence or not I don't know, but there is now a model run for March 11th available in the snapshot archive. The animation is currently still stuck in the past though.

P.S. Post coffee, I'm assured that "a server was down". Hardware rather than software then, and "cockup" not "conspiracy"!

[SteveMDFP]

For reasons known only to themselves the US Navy stopped updating their Arctic sea ice thickness forecast on March 5th:

http://econnexus.org/projects/the-distributed-arctic-sea-ice-model/#future

Why do you suppose that was?

Almost certainly, the budget sequester.  Budget cuts are concentrated in the defense department.  This is the kind of activity that DoD would have to be cut in order to keep all those foreign military bases open.

[Jim Hunt]

More from me on all this when I'm back in Blighty, but for the moment here's the headline numbers. The moderator asked the "Climate Change" panelists to put their careers on the line by predicting when the Arctic would be "ice free in summer". After further debate on what exactly that meant, and with the proviso that this wasn't science, it was just guesswork:

Stefan Rahmstorf said 2040

Rear Admiral Jonathan White said 2023

Ellen Baum said 2027

Jan-Gunnar Winther said 2023-2033



@Steve - The Navy's sea ice model seems to be back up and running smoothly now. Jon White said that properly modelling Arctic sea ice is "a tough problem" that would require more data and about 10 years more work to solve. He didn't mention how budgetary constraints might have affected that estimate!

[TerryM]

Jim


Following your excursion with interest. While all the guestimates are higher than my own prediction for a single ice free summer day, they're also so much lower than almost anyone had only a few years ago.


Can't help but wonder what classified data the Admiral is privy to.


Terry

[ritter]

Can't help but wonder what classified data the Admiral is privy to.

The US military is taking this seriously, if quietly so.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, in an interview at a Cambridge hotel Friday after he met with scholars at Harvard and Tufts universities, said significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen … that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

“People are surprised sometimes,” he added, describing the reaction to his assessment. “You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/09/admiral-samuel-locklear-commander-pacific-forces-warns-that-climate-change-top-threat/BHdPVCLrWEMxRe9IXJZcHL/story.html

[gfwellman]

I say this with caution, given that Stefan Rahmstorf is a true expert, but I think Admiral White is going to have the closer guess.

Er, what definition of "ice free in summer" did they settle on?  If they went with <100k km2 for 6 weeks, then Rahmstorf could be closer.

[Jim Hunt]

What definition of "ice free in summer" did they settle on?

Listen for yourself. As Jan-Gunnar pointed out it was all rather unscientific. Jon White specified a period of a month rather than a day, but didn't quantify precisely what he considered counted as "largely ice free".

https://soundcloud.com/water-connects-us/ice-free-summer-arctic-numbers

[Jim Hunt]

Stefan Rahmstorf was first to the podium amongst the scientists at the summit. He started off by saying things like:

Sea ice volume has shrunk by 80% compared to 1979.... This loss of sea ice is disturbing the weather patterns.

Then he discussed the findings from his recently published paper on the subject of "Quasiresonant amplification of planetary waves and recent Northern Hemisphere weather extremes"

He finished by saying:

Why should we care about Arctic climate change? We know there is enough ice in Greenland to raise global sea level by 7 metres. We also know that the Greenland Ice Sheet has a critical warming threshold beyond which it will decay due to some kind of "vicious circle", so I think we should all care about the Arctic, and about stopping global warming as fast as we can"