NILS BJORK 

6633 Pelhams Trace• Centreville, VA 20120 

703.266.5660 • FAX: 703.266.5663 

nbjork@brentwoodhouse.com 

July 30, 2014 

To the Environmental Protection Agency 

I appreciate the opportunity to address the need to take action now. I was impacted 

by the article of the Arctic sea ice, and since then, I have followed what has been 

happening up there these last 18 months. 

I trust some of this information will be of value. 

November 14, 2012 

• Our Arctic climatologists are alarmed of the "Death Spiral" of our Earth's "air 

conditioning" sea ice. 

Peter Wadhams ScD, professor of Ocean Physics, and Head of the Polar Ocean 

Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, 

University of Cambridge contends in Science American geoengineering may be our 

best chance to save what sea ice. 

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Since 1979 the volume of the summer sea ice is almost 80% gone, and without 

intervention the Arctic will begin to be ice free in just a few years. 2012: 3.3 km3 ice 

left. Once there are open seas, the ice will be gone forever. Then the sunlight will 

increase the temperature of shallow seas above the frozen methane. 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=geoengineering-last-chance-save-s 

ea-ice 

October 6, 2013 

• A new finding shows climate change can happen in a geological instant. 

In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan 

Schaller and James Wright contend that following a doubling in carbon dioxide levels, 

the surface of the ocean turned acidic over a period of weeks or months and global 

temperatures rose by 5 degrees Celsius — 9 degree Fahrenheit, all in the space of 

about 13 years, due to atmospheric release of 3,000 gigatons of carbon. 

Jarnes Wright, Rutgers University Morgan Schaller, James Wrigllt, and the core sample that Ihelped them understand 

what happened — and Ilow fast it happened. — 55 million years ago. 

Scientists previously thought during the Paleocene/Eocene thermal maximum the 

increase of heat happened over 10,000 years. Wright, a professor in the 

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ, 

USA, and Schaller, a research associate, say the finding is significant in addressing 

modern-day climate change. Will our government take actions to prevent a similar 

event? 

2 
November 14, 2013 

• Finding the missing heat, but in the worst places. 

Scientists have been wondering why our carbon emissions are not showing up with 

higher temperatures. While extreme weather seamed to increase, climate deniers 

have asked, where's the heat, during this mysterious long pause in warming these last 

15 years. From 1997 to 2012 90% of the globe stayed below 0.5° Celsius - red line 

below. Only on the poles was the temperature higher. 

In a ground-breaking paper, Robert Way, a doctoral student at the University of 

Ottawa, and Kevin Cowtan of the University of York, UK, published a surprising study 

in the Royal Meteorological Society, UK. 

Globat Surface Txmperatura Trend Comparizon 

Zonai Mean - Linear Trend (Oeg C Per Decade) 

Cowtan & way (Hybrid) Global Surface Temperature Anamalies 

(via fvick Stokes) 

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Muki-madal Ensembla Nhsn tMRYS (Historie/RCq6.0) 

1997 to 2012 

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Watts Up with That? Bob Tisdale 

Up until now, global warming estimates have covered on average 84% over the 

planet's surface leaving out the remainding area without weather stations. The 

majority left out were the polar areas. Cowtan and Way using techniques including 

satellite measurements found a huge amount of warming in these areas left out. 

Instead of the estimated increase of 0.05 °Celsius, earth has warmed more than twice 

that, at 0.12° Celsius. 

Note the Cowtan and Way brown line in the above chart. The temperature is near 

0.0° Celsius from -70 latitude to 55 latitude, and then above 1.5° Celsius in the 80 

latitude to the pole. 

3 
Met Office Global Temperature Trends (1979-2012) 

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Covvtan and Way (2013) Gtobat Temperature Trends (1979-2412) 

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In this period the Arctic was warming 8 times faster than the whole planet. This is a 

most terrible finding. The top map is the previous temperature trends. Below is the 

Cowtan and Way change. 

Please promptly increase the reductions of greenhouse emissions to address the 

threat of an Arctic methane release. 

February 12, 2014 

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Climate Reanalyzer Climate Change Institutel University of Maine 
• Huge temperature variant in just a few decades. 

The map on the left shows the departure of atmospheric temperature at 2 meters on 

February 12 from the average temperature of 1979-2000. The left globe shows in red 

the amount of temperature in this day in red higher than the average temperature in 

1979-2000. It is 36° Fahrenheit. The right side globe shows the temperature in 

Fahrenheit and Celsius. Even without any sunlight and in the middle of the North 

Pole the atmosphere was right around 32° Fahrenheit. 

Multiple times this winter when it was frigid in the middle Atlantic, the Arctic had a"hot 

wave" over the pole, Greenland, or over polar areas as shown above. 

This is another Arctic ominous change of increase temperatures even in the blackest 

and ususally coldest months 

February 18, 2014 

• Just a reduction less than 1/10 tenth of reflectivity makes a big impact. 

This February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences lan Eisenman 

of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in looking at the data of NASA's CERES 

satellite, found the Arctic's Ocean's fraction of sunlight reflecting back into space 

dropped from 52% per cent in 1979 to 48% in 2011. This 8% decrease from norm 

means the Arctic has had unexpectedly absorbed a big rise of energy —"equal to 25% 

of the trapped CO2by the rise in atmospheric 

carbon globally over the same 32 year period." 

Think what the amount of energy the Arctic oceans will absorb when all the ice is 

gone. Will the ocean temperature release the methane? 

PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1318201111 

PASTE: Arctic thaw significantly worsens global worsens global warming risk-environment 

www.newscientist.com/article/dn25072-arctic-thaw-significantly 

March 17, 2014 

• A surprise in the coldest area of Greenland. 

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In the journal Nature Climate Change published this March, an international group 

of researchers found Greenland's northeast glaciers, previously 

thought to be stable, have begun shedding ice. Two years after 

Greenland made a milestone in melting over 97% of its surface; 

scientists feel if it continues" a self-perpetuating feedback 

process may have been triggered." 

More worrisome, is that if these glaciers do not hold back the 370 mile long ice 

stream that extends deep into Greenland's interior, it will likely have severe 

consequences for low-lying coastal cities worldwide. 

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Regional warming has triggered rapid ice loss in a vast portion of the northeastern Greenland Ice Sheet (NEGIS). 

Red indicates the fastest melting. (Via Ohio State) 

If humans continue increasing greenhouse gas emissions, there will be a report, 

possibly soon that Greenland's glaciers will melt and melting will be unstoppable. 

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PASTE: Sea levels to rise more than expected due to warming-driven surge in 

Greenland ice loss 

http://thinkprogress. org/climate/2014/03/17/3411561 /sea-levels-greenland-ice-loss/ 

PASTE: Study: Greenland me/ting is more pervasive, adding to sea level fears 

hftp://mashable.com/2014/03/16/greeniand-ice-melt-sea-level-rise/ 

March 20, 2014 

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+ 1.28 °C 

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+ 0.87 °C 

North Pacific 

+ C).39 °C 

5outhern Hetrnisphere 

+ 0.31 "C 

Ecluatorial Pacific 

+ 0.32 °C 
• Of all the oceans, the Arctic ocean has the highest increase in temperature. 

Above are the current increases of ocean temperatures of the departure from the 

baseline temperatures of 1979-2000. AII oceans are warmer, but the Arctic Ocean at 

4 C° is 3 times warming than the Northern Hemisphere, 10 times than the North 

Pacific, and more than the World 4.5 times. 

Already having an increase in 4 C° warmer waters, what temperature will release the 

frozen methane from the sea beds of shallow East Siberian Arctic Shelf? 

May 12, 2014 

• Gasp! The biggest climate news this year — Antarctica is melting. 

The planet has undeniably and unmistakably been altered. It's a major tipping 

crossed. Antarctica glaciers will reshape the geography of land for all conceivable 

generations to come. Remove the maps, and realize humans will eventually 

withdraw from mega-cities ranging from New York to China, a retreat from the sea by 

millions of people, and loss of trillions of dollars in assets. 

: 
The two newly published research findings from NASA that West Antarctic glaciers 

have passed a tipping point much earlier than expected and their disintegration is now 

"unstoppable" at just the current level of global is now "unstoppable" at just the current 

level of global warming have shocked the scientific community. 

This is just what we don't want to happen in the Arctic! Not to take precationalry 

actions is highly enethical. Our country needs to take action now. 

May 29, 2014 

• Climate Melting Polar Ice Caps a"Ticking Timebomb" for Earth's System 

Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics, University of Cambridge has a new 

discussion over the Arctic. A sobering discussion of a possible pulse of inethane 

within two decades. 

http://climatechangepsychology. blogspot.com/2014/05/peter-wadhams-mefting-polar 

-ice-caps. html 

To all of you at the EPA I thank you for all your effort to mitigate the frightening path we 

are going. Global warming is moving too fast. We need a program like our 32nd 

President Franklin Roosevelt where he pulled all our resources to fight World War II, 

but now address Climate Change. 

It is not the just the deniers and obstructionists. It's the physical processes that we'II 

have to sprint to keep up, because nature doesn't wait for anyone. 

Sincerely, 

N ~0 I-sNils Bjork ~ 9