The Economist (April 29)
“Those who doubt the power of human beings to change Earth’s climate should look to the Arctic, and shiver…. In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice has fallen by half; its volume has fallen by three-quarters. On current trends, the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free in summer by 2040.”
Los Angeles Times (October 4)
“The United States experienced the warmest July in its history, with more than 3,000 heat records broken across the country.” Globally, it was 36th year in a row that temperatures in July have exceeded the average of the 20th century. There’s one good thing about all the heat. “The increasingly powerful evidence of a long-term warming trend is making climate-change denial more difficult to defend.”
Tags: Climate change, Denial, Global warming, Summer, Temperatures, U.S.
The Guardian (September 17)
“Sometimes, the future arrives with alarming speed.” In 2000, scientists warned urgent action was needed; otherwise summer sea ice would disappear from the Arctic Ocean by 2050. The actual results have been “far more dramatic….The summer Arctic could be an open sea within a decade.”
Tags: Arctic Ocean, Climate change, Sea ice, Summer
The Economist (September 24)
Arctic ice is disappearing faster than previously thought. The ice is now estimated to be just half as thick as it was 1979 “and there is probably less ice floating on the Arctic Ocean now than at any time since a particularly warm period 8,000 years ago, soon after the last ice age.” Models had predicted that summer ice would disappear by century end. Instead “at current rates of shrinkage… this looks likely to happen some time between 2020 and 2050.”
Arctic ice is disappearing faster than previously thought. The ice is now estimated to be just half as thick as it was 1979 “and there is probably less ice floating on the Arctic Ocean now than at any time since a particularly warm period 8,000 years ago, soon after the last ice age.” Models had predicted that summer ice would disappear by century end. Instead “at current rates of shrinkage… this looks likely to happen some time between 2020 and 2050.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21530079
Tags: Arctic, Global warming, Ice, Summer
Wall Street Journal (July 1)
Summer jobs have long been a rite of passage for teenagers, but the percentage of 16-19 year-olds working has dropped to the lowest level since records began in 1948. “Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001.” This is due to partly to recession, partly to changing parent expectations, but the Wall Street Journal lays most of the blame on the minimum wage which Congress raised to “$7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007.” As a result, “millions of kids will spend the summer playing computer games or hanging out” instead of “learning valuable job skills.”
Tags: Job skills, Minimum wage, Summer, Teenagers, Unemployment
Guardian (August 12)
“2010 is becoming the year of the heatwave, with record temperatures set in 17 countries.” Among the record setters are Pakistan at 53.5° on May 26, Saudi Arabia at 52.0° on June 22, Russia at 44.0° on July 11, and Finland at 37.2° on July 29.
Tags: Global warming, Record heat, Summer
