JohnnyRook's Climate Chronicles

University of Utah student, Tim DeChristopher arrived at the BLM building in Salt Lake City last Friday intending to join some 200 other people protesting the Bush administration’s decision to auction oil and gas rights on federal lands near some of our most iconic national parks. Then he had one of those profound insights that change people’s lives forever.

As Tim put it in his online statement:

Anybody who is paying the slightest bit of attention knows that Arctic summer sea ice is melting at a record pace because of warming of the atmosphere and the ocean. It is also accelerating because of feedback loops -- there's less ice to reflect solar radiation back into space and more dark water to absorb it. That means further warming and even more melting of the ice.

Now scientists have found another mechanism that is speeding the melting of the arctic: atmospheric circulation. A recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that since 2001 a significant change has taken place in atmospheric circulation patterns during the Arctic freezing season. Whereas previously the Arctic winds travelled East-West, they are now cycling North-South and allowing warm air further north than ever before. The change helps to account for unusually high arctic surface air temperatures and increased sea-ice melt during the following summer, and points to further evidence that a tipping point has been crossed irrevocably.