06-07-2016, 09:28 PM
But this involves a positive feedback. The low longitudes correspond with the parts of the Arctic most open to the relatively warm waters of the North Atlantic. The ice cap atop the Arctic Ocean is getting thinner, and melting earlier. Ab earlier melt implies that more of the Arctic will have an absorptive surface instead of a reflective surface. Open waters in the Arctic don't get much sunlight for real warming, but sunlight in the High Arctic is extremely intense around the North Pole around the summer solstice. When the ice goes, then the Arctic Ocean could get seasonally hot.
From mid-May until about the start of August places north of 80N in fact receives more sunlight than the equator at all times (ignoring effects of clouds). Just imagine how warm the Arctic waters could be in July. The heat will have to go somewhere, and it will evaporate surface waters -- that rise as gigantic thunderheads. The open Arctic will not be a benign shipping lane in the summer. The deep thunderheads will also make a mess of air travel across the Arctic. Thus a flight between New York and Tokyo that has its Great Circle Route going near the North Pole might have to be diverted to avoid the great thunderstorm of the polar summer.
From mid-May until about the start of August places north of 80N in fact receives more sunlight than the equator at all times (ignoring effects of clouds). Just imagine how warm the Arctic waters could be in July. The heat will have to go somewhere, and it will evaporate surface waters -- that rise as gigantic thunderheads. The open Arctic will not be a benign shipping lane in the summer. The deep thunderheads will also make a mess of air travel across the Arctic. Thus a flight between New York and Tokyo that has its Great Circle Route going near the North Pole might have to be diverted to avoid the great thunderstorm of the polar summer.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.