Africa and Middle East in spotlight as group launched to tackle homophobia
September 11, 2011 No Comment
Days after men executed in Iran for homosexuality, activists from around the world come together to lobby for change An international pressure group is to be launched in Britain on Tuesday to tackle the rise in homophobic violence around the world, with a focus on Africa and the Middle East. The UK’s three main political parties have declared their support for Kaleidoscope, an independent group campaigning for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, after a series of high-profile attacks on sexual minorities in developing countries. In January, the Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death after he was pictured on the front of the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone alongside the headline Hang Them. Last week three men were executed in Iran for homosexuality. According to Kaleidoscope, more than third of all countries still have laws against consensual homosexual acts and 38 of the 54 members of the Commonwealth criminalise homosexuality. Bisi Alimi, a Nigerian gay rights activist who fell foul of the authorities after being the first person in his country to come out on a national television, is among the founding members of the organisation. “I was attacked, tied up and beaten in my own home in Lagos. For the first time in my life I not only saw a gun but I felt it right against my head. I was forced to leave my country. My dream is that others like me will be free to stay and be happy, surrounded by the love of their friends and families,” he said. Despite some progress for gay rights in the US and Latin America — such as the abolition of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US military and the legalisation of same-sex marriage in New York and Argentina — the global campaign for the rights of sexual minorities has experienced a series of setbacks in recent years. In May, the UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, warned that hate crimes against LGBT communities were on the rise around the world. Speaking from Uganda, Francis Onyango, the lawyer representing several other gay activists also named by Rolling Stone, said not much had changed since Kato’s death. “The danger is always there. All activists mentioned in that newspaper still face death threats by religious fanatics in their so-called war on homosexuality, and stigmatisation remains widespread. But international pressure can play an important role.” The new initiative has pledged to use “effective international lobbying” with its access to the UK government and the EU to delay or prevent homophobic legalisation around the world and help strengthen groups of men and women “who take a stand against injustice and discrimination in their own countries”. Apart from its focus on international discrimination against LGBT people, Kaleidoscope will also campaign for national causes. “There are still some big issues to address,” said Lance Price, a Kaleidoscope founding member and former 10 Downing Street media adviser. “Gay marriage is one; the attitude of the immigration service towards people seeking refuge from countries where their lives could be in danger is another.” Despite the achievements in the UK, the prominent gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said many refugees fleeing homophobic persecution “are still being refused asylum and locked up in detention centres like common criminals”. The UK Border Agency rejected an asylum application of a gay Iranian on the basis that he could ‘remain discreet’ in his country, although homosexuals are executed there. The ruling was later reversed in court. Paul Canning, an activist who has campaigned for those with a well-founded fear of persecution who have been refused asylum, highlighted the case of the Ugandan gay man Robert Segwanyi. “Segwanyi fled jail and torture for what he hoped would be sanctuary here,” he said. “Despite everyone describing him as ‘obviously gay’, the Home Office still wants to return him to what would be a likely death: it has taken a big campaign to – we hope – stop them. There are many cases just like Robert’s.” Gay rights Immigration and asylum Iran Uganda Peter Tatchell Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Africa and Middle East in spotlight as group launched to tackle homophobia
September 11, 2011 No CommentDays after men executed in Iran for homosexuality, activists from around the world come together to lobby for change An international pressure group is to be launched in Britain on Tuesday to tackle the rise in homophobic violence around the world, with a focus on Africa and the Middle East. The UK’s three main political parties have declared their support for Kaleidoscope, an independent group campaigning for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, after a series of high-profile attacks on sexual minorities in developing countries. In January, the Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death after he was pictured on the front of the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone alongside the headline Hang Them. Last week three men were executed in Iran for homosexuality. According to Kaleidoscope, more than third of all countries still have laws against consensual homosexual acts and 38 of the 54 members of the Commonwealth criminalise homosexuality. Bisi Alimi, a Nigerian gay rights activist who fell foul of the authorities after being the first person in his country to come out on a national television, is among the founding members of the organisation. “I was attacked, tied up and beaten in my own home in Lagos. For the first time in my life I not only saw a gun but I felt it right against my head. I was forced to leave my country. My dream is that others like me will be free to stay and be happy, surrounded by the love of their friends and families,” he said. Despite some progress for gay rights in the US and Latin America — such as the abolition of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US military and the legalisation of same-sex marriage in New York and Argentina — the global campaign for the rights of sexual minorities has experienced a series of setbacks in recent years. In May, the UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, warned that hate crimes against LGBT communities were on the rise around the world. Speaking from Uganda, Francis Onyango, the lawyer representing several other gay activists also named by Rolling Stone, said not much had changed since Kato’s death. “The danger is always there. All activists mentioned in that newspaper still face death threats by religious fanatics in their so-called war on homosexuality, and stigmatisation remains widespread. But international pressure can play an important role.” The new initiative has pledged to use “effective international lobbying” with its access to the UK government and the EU to delay or prevent homophobic legalisation around the world and help strengthen groups of men and women “who take a stand against injustice and discrimination in their own countries”. Apart from its focus on international discrimination against LGBT people, Kaleidoscope will also campaign for national causes. “There are still some big issues to address,” said Lance Price, a Kaleidoscope founding member and former 10 Downing Street media adviser. “Gay marriage is one; the attitude of the immigration service towards people seeking refuge from countries where their lives could be in danger is another.” Despite the achievements in the UK, the prominent gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said many refugees fleeing homophobic persecution “are still being refused asylum and locked up in detention centres like common criminals”. The UK Border Agency rejected an asylum application of a gay Iranian on the basis that he could ‘remain discreet’ in his country, although homosexuals are executed there. The ruling was later reversed in court. Paul Canning, an activist who has campaigned for those with a well-founded fear of persecution who have been refused asylum, highlighted the case of the Ugandan gay man Robert Segwanyi. “Segwanyi fled jail and torture for what he hoped would be sanctuary here,” he said. “Despite everyone describing him as ‘obviously gay’, the Home Office still wants to return him to what would be a likely death: it has taken a big campaign to – we hope – stop them. There are many cases just like Robert’s.” Gay rights Immigration and asylum Iran Uganda Peter Tatchell Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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PM hopes to seal £215m in deals for UK but is urged by former foreign secretaries to raise corruption with Putin and Medvedev Downing Street intends for £215m worth of deals to be done between Russia and the UK when the prime minister visits the Kremlin, despite a warning to David Cameron from four former foreign secretaries that business people already operating in the country are “victims of an increasingly potent mix of corruption and lawlessness”. In advance of Cameron’s visit, the first face-to-face contact between a British prime minister and the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, since 2007, No
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Institute for Fiscal Studies says chancellor’s plan will cause 10% drop in family living standards George Osborne’s austerity programme will cut the living standards of Britain’s families by more than 10% over the next three years as those on the lowest incomes suffer most from the tax increases and spending cuts designed to reduce the budget deficit. A study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK’s leading experts on the public finances, concludes that the chancellor’s strategy will result in greater inequality and rising child poverty, throwing into reverse progress made in the final years of the last Labour government. The bleak picture painted by the IFS will be used by opponents of the chancellor’s austerity measures to call for a plan B to generate faster economic growth. There is likely to be further pressure on Osborne on Monday as the head of his independent commission on banking, Sir John Vickers, outlines measures for banking reform. The IFS analysis, included in a new international study into the impact of the “Great Recession” of 2008-09 on 21 wealthy countries, says the most severe downturn since the interwar years will “cast a very long shadow in the UK”, with the poorest 30% of households especially hard hit. “Declines in living standards look set to continue until at least 2013-14. If realised, this would mean that average living standards had not grown in well over 10 years, making it one of the worst decades for changes in living standards since at least the second world war.” According to the IFS, the squeeze on living standards will be the result of earnings failing to keep pace with prices, as well as the tax and benefit changes announced by the government to tackle the UK’s record peacetime budget deficit. “Welfare cuts and tax rises will act to reduce household incomes, and those with the lowest incomes are clearly set to lose the most from these reforms as a percentage of income (with the important exception of those with the very highest incomes). This is likely to increase poverty, other things being equal, offsetting some of the falls in poverty over the past decade.” The IFS work divides households up into 10 groups (“deciles”) in order to assess the impact of tax changes and benefit reductions. “Taking all family types together, within the bottom nine income decile groups, those with the lowest incomes are set to lose the most from these reforms as a percentage of income … Given that the annual welfare budget is being cut by £18bn, this is perhaps not a surprise.” The IFS said the poorest families also lose more as a result of the squeeze on public spending. “Losses as a percentage of net income (plus the value of benefits in kind) are between 5% and 6% at the bottom of the distribution, which is similar to the magnitude of the losses for those on the lowest incomes from tax and benefit reforms.” Osborne has said that the pain caused by deficit reduction will be shared, but the IFS study found that the richest 10% of households will see income cut by just over 4% on average between 2011 and 2014 by tax and benefit changes. The thinktank said the losses among this decile would be concentrated among the highest 1% of earners, due to the increase in the top rate of income tax to 50% for those earning more than £150,000, and the withdrawal of the personal income tax allowance and less generous pension relief for those earning more than £100,000. “The percentage loss in the [richest] decile group is higher than in all but the bottom three decile groups, but in fact this is largely driven by tax rises for the very richest (approximately the top 1%). Therefore tax and benefit reforms seem likely to squeeze the living standards of the less well off by more than those on higher incomes, except for those on the very highest incomes. The impact of the upcoming tax and benefit reforms seems likely to be to reverse a substantial part (if not all) of the reductions in … inequality seen during the Great Recession.” The IFS analysis is included in The Great Recession and the Distribution of Income, published on Monday by the London School of Economics. Professor Stephen Jenkins of the LSE said: “We were surprised at how little household incomes changed in the years immediately after the Great Recession began. This has been the worst macroeconomic downturn in most OECD countries since the Great Depression of the 1930s when there were substantial increases in poverty rates and other significant changes to the income distribution.” Jenkins added that the outlook now was “more worrying”, and that big differences in income distribution would emerge across countries. “We’re moving from the Great Recession era with relatively broad consensus about what to do to a new era of sharp distributional conflicts between, for example, rich and poor, old and young.” Warning that pain had been delayed but not avoided, the IFS said families with children would be hit harder by Osborne’s tax and benefit changes than other family types on average, with the poorest 10th of households suffering income losses of more than 8% over the next three years. “Recent IFS modelling predicted that child poverty will rise in each of the three years between 2010-11 and 2013-14, and that it will be about two percentage points higher in 2013-14 as a result of the tax and benefit reforms planned by the current government.” Child poverty is measured by the percentage of children in households where income is less than 60% of the median for the UK. According to the IFS, it fell from 25% in 2000 to 20% a decade later. The pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, told BBC TV that the chancellor was sticking to plan A to cut the budget deficit, but was looking at other ways to bolster economic growth. “I know George is looking carefully at a whole new raft of things that we could be doing to actually give the economy another push, and another kickstart in the direction of greater growth”. Economics George Osborne Public sector cuts Tax and spending Equality Thinktanks Poverty Public services policy Public finance Social exclusion Recession Family finances Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Dick Cheney Defends the Use of Torture and Claims Waterboarding ‘Produced Phenomenal Results’
September 11, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I guess former Vice President Dick Cheney wasn’t satisfied with only running in front of the cameras on every single network in town to try to hawk his new book and let everyone know how proud he is of being a war criminal. No, he decided to spend over an hour at the American Enterprise Institute this week as well for an interview with his former stenographer biographer, Stephen Hayes. Dick Cheney defends use of torture on al-Qaida leaders : Dick Cheney , the former US vice-president, has claimed Osama bin Laden would not have been tracked down and killed if it had not been for information gathered by torturing captured al-Qaida leaders. In a robust defence of what he called “enhanced interrogation”, Cheney said it produced “phenomenal” results and dismissed the Obama administration ‘s investigations of its legality as “objectionable” and a “terrible precedent”. Speaking ahead of ceremonies to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the former vice-president rejected accusations that the use of torture undermined the moral authority of the US overseas. “The notion that somehow the United States was wildly torturing anybody is not true,” he said. “One of the most controversial techniques is waterboarding … Three people were waterboarded. Not dozens, not hundreds. Three. And the one who was subjected the most often to that was Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and it produced phenomenal results for us.” Khaled Sheikh Mohammed is awaiting trial before a US tribunal accused of being the architect of the 9/11 attacks. But while Cheney, who was appearing at a question and answer session at the conservative American Enterprise Institute to promote his new memoir, In My Time, insisted only a small number of men were subjected to “enhanced interrogation”, he made no mention of the rendition programme in which the US abducted individuals and handed them over to a third country for questioning under torture. Cheney said that waterboarding Khaled Sheikh Mohammed “helped produce the intelligence that allowed us to get Osama bin Laden”. As they noted, Hayes allowed Cheney to give Bush credit for the intelligence that might have led to killing Osama bin Laden, even thought his administration wasn’t all that concerned about him as has been noted over and over for years now — Flashback: Seven years ago today, Bush received ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ memo. : Today marks seven years since the day President Bush received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “ Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. ” (See the memo here .) At the time, Bush was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, TX and stayed on vacation the rest of August 2001. Here’s how the administration reacted , according to the 9/11 Commission report… Cheney was also apparently very proud of our country’s use of torture as Think Progress noted here — Cheney Claims Waterboarding ‘Produced Phenomenal Results’ : Dick Cheney wrapped up his book tour on home turf this morning at the American Enterprise Institute. The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes — the official Cheney biographer and famous peddler of the false “ connection ” between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaeda — moderated the event and eventually got to the sticky topic of torture. In what he called “a thoughtful critique,” Hayes asked Cheney to respond to those who argue “the things that we did amounted to torture and the sense that maybe the moral position of the United States was eroded because of the things that we did here in this country.” Cheney dismissed the question, saying they waterboarded only “a handful” of people, which, he claimed, “produced phenomenal results”: CHENEY: When we get into the whole area of one of the most controversial techniques, waterboarding. … Three people were waterboarded — not dozens, not hundreds. Three. And the one who was subjected most often to that was Khalid Sheik Mohammad and it produced phenomenal results for us . There are reports that the intelligence committee did of the results of the program which were declassified at my request and are now available on the internet that talk about the quality of information that we got as a result of our enhanced interrogation techniques applied to a handful of individuals. We are talking about only a handful of people who were indeed part of the al Qaeda organization. The “reports” Cheney is presumably referring to are two CIA documents the agency released in 2009 — at Cheney’s request. However, they do not prove torture worked and in fact, they “ actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.” The bottom line is that there is no evidence to support Cheney’s claim that torture “produced phenomenal results.” Here’s more of Haye’s softball interview with Cheney. Click here to view this media
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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