Melting Arctic Sea Ice and Its Impact on Marine Shipping

During the first half of April 2018, scientists at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), together with NASA climate researchers, reported that Arctic sea ice had reached its annual maximum extent. Yet, as in the preceding years, the ice-covered area remained well below the average of earlier decades. [source]

The source notes that the four lowest annual maximum extents then observed in the satellite record had all occurred during the previous four years, continuing a roughly decade-long decline in Arctic sea-ice coverage and surrounding waterways.

Both annual maximum and minimum Arctic sea-ice extent had declined over the approximately forty years of satellite observations discussed in the article. The proportion of thick multi-year ice had also fallen substantially. This retreat and thinning created new opportunities for marine navigation while simultaneously raising serious environmental concerns. [source]

The 2018 winter maximum

A map in the original article shows average Arctic ice concentration around March 17, when the ice reached its annual maximum. The source gives the extent as approximately 14.48 million square kilometres. Lighter and white regions represent areas meeting the satellite-based threshold of at least 15 percent ice concentration used to define the ice-covered extent.

The Cheapest and Easiest Response to the Drought Crisis

Dr. Newsha Ajami of Stanford University, speaking at the second Water Management Workshop held at Sharif University the previous summer, argued that although many solutions had been proposed for water scarcity, conservation is the cheapest and most readily available response.

Ajami noted significant climatic and meteorological similarities between Iran and California. California was the fiftieth U.S. state, she observed, meaning that when its modern water systems were developed, much of the engineering knowledge for water control, transfer, and canal construction was already available. The state therefore built highly advanced infrastructure for managing and moving water.

Yet much of that infrastructure had become outdated and required renewal. Systems designed about fifty years earlier for roughly 15 million people were serving a population of about 38 million, with projections cited in the talk placing California near 50 million by 2050.

Ajami argued that drought and climate-related changes were gradually altering public behaviour. Citizens should increasingly become part of decision-making and solution development, as had also happened in water-rich parts of Europe. This not only involves society in addressing water scarcity but changes management from a one-way process into a two-way relationship.

Californians, she said, were increasingly recognizing that preventing pollution of small local water sources could preserve clean water for others. In this view, usable clean water is not limited to reservoirs behind dams. Expensive and difficult options such as seawater desalination should therefore come later in the hierarchy of responses.

At the same time, some consumers were willing to pay dramatically more for bottled water—even when its source was not particularly transparent—while resisting the cost of maintaining public water infrastructure. The talk cited substantial energy use associated with transporting, treating, and moving water in California and emphasized that every unit of water conserved also reduces those associated costs.

Water Myths in Iran

On January 11, 2016, a seminar entitled “Water Myths” was held at Sharif University of Technology, presented by Dr. Kaveh Madani. The seminar examined misconceptions that, in Madani's view, had become embedded in Iran's water-resource management system and in public discussion. His central argument was that misleading assumptions can prevent experts, decision-makers, and citizens from developing comprehensive, scientific, and practical solutions. Attempting to solve water problems without understanding their roots, he argued, can itself produce serious consequences for Iran and its environment. [source]

Climate Change

Take a look at this striking animation, which depicts humanity's treatment of Earth over the preceding 100 years and presents a view of what the planet could look like over the next 100 years if the existing trend in greenhouse-gas emissions continued.

As the animation explains, the article argues that we are already unavoidably exposed to disruptive effects of climate change and therefore have no choice but to adapt to those changes. What matters, however, is that alongside adaptation to existing conditions, we must also try to reduce the factors intensifying those changes—mitigation.

One possible approach described in the source is to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions enough that the increase in Earth's average temperature by the end of the century is limited to about 2°C. The author argues that this is achievable and depends on our collective effort: greenhouse-gas emissions must be reduced.

To keep the rise in Earth's average temperature below 2°C by the end of the century, the source states that humanity could emit only another 250 billion tonnes of carbon during the remainder of the twenty-first century. At the time, it says, approximately 10 billion tonnes of carbon per year were being added to the atmosphere.

At that rate, the article concludes, the remaining allowance would be exhausted in only about 25 years—around Solar Hijri year 1417—and emissions beyond that amount would imply still greater warming and greater exposure to its harmful effects.