It seems the folks over at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado have this little bet going. Will the summer sea ice at the north pole melt this year. While the prospects are rather dire there may be an upside to this which may give everyone a bit of a respite, albeit likely a short one. Of course then there is the downside to follow.
With the reduction of sea ice, this opens up the water surfaces to the atmosphere which is already fairly saturated with carbon dioxide. Since water absorbs 50x the amount of carbon dioxide as air, I would suspect that in the short run we should see a gradual reduction in carbon emissions as new waters which may not circulate with the Atlantic and Pacific ocean currents start to accumulate carbon dioxide.
The downside is two fold: 1) Ocean acidity, which is already on the rise, should increase dramatically as the pH levels of those waters currently circulating and those that circulate very little start to equalize. And 2) once these waters saturate, this will be the last big body of ice not land based that prevent the oceans and air to reach an even equilibrium across the globe. In short, once the arctic waters saturate, there will be no holding back carbon dioxide increases from that point forward.
Sure will will have water runoff from Greenland and Antarctica. But in general those waters should be close to saturation anyways being as they are in constant contact with the atmosphere. Kinda makes you wonder if anything is benefiting currently from the carbon dioxide increase. The giant sequoias maybe? – K
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