Melting ice caps may force humans to grow gills, or cut CO2

It’s common knowledge that the ice caps are melting because of global warming, but new data from NASA’s satellites confirms that the ice is getting thinner than ever. And if too much of our ice caps melt, Earth’s landscape will change to huge plateaus of water.

Even the best swimmers get tired eventually, which means that in order to survive anywhere near our current population in a world like that, somehow we’d need to grow gills. Or, we could think ahead and cut carbon emissions quickly to slow the melting.

Sea ice that used to last through several summers but now melts is of particular concern to scientists. That ice serves as a global cooling system and also reflects solar radiation back out into space, according to NASA. In the past scientists have been able to measure the spread of arctic ice fairly easily but thickness is important too. Recently they used data from NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite and “. . . found that the average winter volume of Arctic sea ice contained enough water to fill Lake Michigan and Lake Superior combined.”

The older the ice, the more likely it is to survive through a summer, “seasonal sea ice averages about 6 feet in thickness, while ice that had lasted through more than one summer averages about 9 feet, though it can grow much thicker in some locations near the coast.”

Going green couldn’t come at a better time for the Earth, even if it does often seem like a bunch of superficial marketing stew. Wind, geothermal, solar, and hydroelectric energy are all good means to an end, and in some ways we’re very lucky the recent surge in fuel prices has stimulated so much activity in those spaces.

There are clear indications that we need to act, “thin seasonal ice -- ice that melts and re-freezes every year -- makes up about 70 percent of the Arctic sea ice in wintertime, up from 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s. Thicker ice, which survives two or more years, now comprises just 10 percent of wintertime ice cover, down from 30 to 40 percent.”

But until people are affected in a very direct way, they usually don’t care.