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Melt faster than ‘pessimistic models’ Pew study says cost of Arctic meltdown could reach US$2.4 trillion; second study, headed by University of Manitoba’s David Barber, finds Canadian sea ice could be gone in 3 years Gary Park For Petroleum News
Two more scientific reports have added to the sound of alarm bells in the Arctic with the results being presented to the world’s most powerful finance ministers and bank heads who met in Canada’s Nunavut Territory Feb. 5 and 6.
A study prepared for the Pew Environment Group said the global cost of an Arctic meltdown could reach US$2.4 trillion unless there is reversal of current warming trends.
Separately, a circumpolar study group said sea ice in Canadian Arctic waters is melting faster than anyone expected and the sea ice could be eliminated within three years.
They follow similar warnings in the last two months by Canada’s National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and by scientists at the University of Colorado.
Pew study estimates cost The Pew study, released Feb. 5, said the “cumulative cost of the melting Arctic in the next 40 years is equivalent to the annual gross domestic products of Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom combined.”
The report was released as a Group of Seven leaders arrived in the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit.
The Pew Environmental Group urged G-7 ministers to “commission a full economic analysis of the global climate services provided by a frozen Arctic and what losing the planet’s ‘air conditioner’ will cost all of us.”
The study, written by economist Eban Goodstein and Arctic scientist Eugenie Euskirchen, developed the cost estimates by looking at the impact on agriculture, energy production, water availability, rising sea levels and flooding.
For 2010 alone, the study estimated Arctic melting would be “equal to 40 percent of all U.S. industrial emissions, or (be similar to) bringing on line more than 500 large coal-burning power plants.”
Euskirchen said the costs will ultimately be borne by farmers, homeowners, businesses, cities and towns “as they face the consequences of instability.”
Melt happening faster In the second study, University of Manitoba Professor David Barber, the lead investigator of Canada’s largest climate-change study to date, said the rapid decay of thick Arctic ice underscores the rapid changes taking place in the north and foreshadows what will happen in the south.
The melt is happening “more quickly than what our models thought would happen. It is happening much faster than our most pessimistic models suggested.”
The project involved global scientists who spent last winter on the Canadian Coast Guard research ship Amundsen, work which was covered by C$156 million of Canadian government money.
Barber equated the melting sea ice with the disappearance of rain forests, where cutting down all of the trees collapses the ecosystem.
He said the scientists initially assumed the Arctic would be ice-free by 2100; now they expect it will be somewhere between 2013 and 2030, which will mean warm trends will be warmer and cold trends colder.
John Hanesiak, an associate professor at the University of Manitoba, said human actions and the releases of greenhouse gases could result in more frequent summer droughts and more spring floods in southern climates.
Scot Nickels, senior science advisor with Canada’s national Inuit organization, said climate change is already having a significant impact on the lives of people in the Far North, creating a need for economic development such as mineral and oil and gas exploration as those lifestyles disappear.
“It’s a real balancing act that has to be done,” he said. “As we know in the south, that’s not an easy thing.”
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