On February 19-20, the northern most weather station on Earth, Cape Morris Jesup, Greenland, experienced temperatures above freezing (about 45 degrees above normal) for over 24 hours. Around then and far to the west, the extent of the sea ice in the Bering Sea, off Alaska’s West Coast, was the lowest on record. Also, the Eastern U.S. continued to experience some of the warmest February temperatures ever recorded.
So what? It is winter in the Arctic. The sun has not been seen there since last fall, and we have these very unusual conditions, both in the Arctic and here. Couple this with the diminishing land ice, especially the vast expanses in Greenland, Antarctica, and the Tibetan Plateau, the floods, the droughts, and the wildfires, and we must conclude it is time to act more rapidly. We should continuously urge our governments, at all levels, to become much more serious about reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, and increasing production of renewable energy, especially wind and solar.
But there is good news – good jobs and profits are to be had in making the necessary changes.
David Newton
Auburn, AL