Lucy De Palma's List: Global Warming Writing Project

• Not so long ago
• covered by thick ice several years old
• end of summer
• more than half of the sea surface
• still
• As the world has warmed
• given way
• Heat-reflecting white ice
• surrounding lands
• melted
• earlier
• heat-absorbing dark water
• bigger waves
• storms have assailed weakening ice
• Arctic
• warm twice as fast
• other region on the planet
• late 1990s
• lowest level for at least 1400 years.
• sea ice had fallen
• quarter of the Arctic Ocean was still covered in ice
• end of this summer
• total volume of ice was just a fifth of what it was three decades ago
• wasn't supposed to happen this quickly
• consensus was that the Arctic would not be ice-free in summer until the end of the centur
• natural variability might have accelerated ice loss
• climate models clearly underestimated the pace of change
• the continued ice loss will have many knock-on effects.
• more extreme weather
• faster melting of the Greenland ice sheet
• eater releases of carbon currently locked away in permafrost
• orbital changes, shifting ocean currents
• abrupt climate changes
• It is not yet clear if the newer models are any better in this respect.

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