# 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. N.i inimum 1-day voiume, [nousand km° 1 2 4 6 U 10 12 14 16 18

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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) HADfdtUT4 (Dashod) Muki-madal Ensembla Nhsn tMRYS (Historie/RCq6.0) 1997 to 2012 1 The Cowton and Way Infilling Exaygerate5

L IDoesimate Prlodel Flaws At Both PoleS But 1.5 ittle To Help Explain The Slowdown bsence of Warminy ForThe Other f The Globe. $

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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. 3Met Office Global Temperature Trends (1979-2012) a``. 1A8st— .-



### 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 CO 2 by 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. 0

# 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. 1.0, 11

# 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/2014/03/1 6/greeniand-ice-melt-sea-level-rise/ March 20, 2014

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# Northern Hemisphore + 1.28 °C North Atlantic 

# + (}.46 °C World + 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.

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# 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 32n d 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, 

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