Climate Deniers balk at Arctic Ice melting data- it proves

climate change is anthropogenic and catastrophic

Tamino, 16 (Climate Deniers Embarrass Themselves about Arctic Sea Ice, Open Mind,
September 11, 2016, https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/climate-deniers-embarrass-themselvesabout-arctic-sea-ice/)

of sea ice in the Arctic has already plunged to its 2nd-lowest

annual minimum on record. Here are the yearly minima, although this years value is provisional because it may well dip even
This year, the extent

lower: annmin A plot of annual average extent also clearly shows the decline, and includes data from throughout the year rather than just the annual minimum:
annave The figure for 2016 is the lowest on record, but the year isnt done yet. If instead of averaging January-through-December we do September-through-August (to
make the final year complete), we find that

the most recent year is still the lowest on record:

annaveb Any way you look at it, Arctic sea ice is in decline. If you look at the entire year rather than just the annual minimum, the record year is this one. So

you might think that climate deniers want to avoid the subject,
right? After all, it makes their case look bad, very bad, so they
wouldnt want to bring attention to it, right? Maybe theyre just not that smart. The boys at WUWT
have offered up this commentary, and the spin on the topic is obvious from the first sentence: Despite a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth by Dr. Peter Wadhams,
theres still no joy in mudville for Arctic sea ice doomsters. Yes, theres a guy who has been predicting the imminent if not near-immediate collapse of Arctic sea ice. Hes
been wrong for a while, and seems to be still. This is used as an excuse to impugn scientists studying Arctic sea ice in general as being sea ice doomsters. Way to go!

Christopher Booker, who seems to rejoice that Arctic sea ice

isnt going to set a new record for lowest annual minimum . The fact that its a record
Then theres

for lowest annual average, and more importantly that weve already lost nearly two million square kilometers of it because the trend is of dramatic decline, doesnt seem

He also kicks in a number of false claims at the end, to

further discredit climate science. But Booker, and WUWT, are making a big mistake by drawing attention to Arctic sea ice
when they should be mum about the subject. You see, drawing attention to it makes people talk
about it, some of them actually look at the data, some show the real
data so you can see for yourself. And looking at the real data makes
it plain: Arctic sea ice is declining seriously . Ill take the bait. Ill post about Arctic sea ice. Ill estimate the
to be what he want so focus on.

trend (spoiler alert: its decline). Ill show the graphs. I want everybody to see not just a factoid out of context and misinterpreted. Instead of shouting from the hilltops
that This year isnt the lowest minimum on record! Ill show you the data, and point out that this year is only the 2nd-lowest annual minimum on record, but is the lowest
annual average on record. And as we do, the deniers will have another excuse to deny. But those who would be taken in by their sophistry werent going to be convinced

Those who are already aware that man-made climate change is a

serious threat, dont need to be convinced by my graphs and charts.
Its the vast majority who arent sure who really count and heres
a clue for Watts and Booker: when they compare your statements
with the real data, they wont be buying what youre selling
anyway.

Coordinated biodiversity and climate change research is

necessary to understand and create solutions to solve
climate change and its effects on biodiversity
Duffey, 16 (Sean, September 12, 2016, Climate Change Info Needed to Save Wildlife,
Courthouse News Service, http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/09/12/climate-change-info-needed-tosave-wildlife.htm, accessed September 27th, 2016, MJG)

international group of biologists

wants to predict how climate change will affect species competition
and movement factors that can have a significant influence on
survival or extinction. While sophisticated forecasting models exist, important species
information needed to improve predictions is generally lacking . In an article
published Friday, the biologists called for a coordinated effort to measure five key types of
biological information physiology, life history, species interactions, genetic variation, and dispersal that impact
species survival in order to identify at-risk populations and
ecosystems and better target the distribution of resources as global
temperatures continue to climb. "Right now, we're treating a mouse the same way as an elephant or a fish or a tree," lead
(CN) With the impact of climate change on future biodiversity still largely unknown, an

author Mark Urban said. "Yet we know that those are all very different organisms and they are going to respond to their environment in different ways,"

Existing climate change models draw predictions for biodiversity

from broad statistical relationships and can vary significantly, which

makes it difficult for scientists and policymakers to respond
accordingly. These models often fail to account for a wide range of biological factors that impact an organism's survival rate, such as species mobility,
competition from other organisms and the capacity to adapt and evolve. "This is because current ecological models often
do not include important biological processes and mechanisms: so
far only 23 percent of the reviewed studies have taken into account
biological mechanisms," said study co-author Karin Johst. Improving the accuracy of predictions is essential for global conservations
efforts, as many species are already migrating to higher ground or toward the poles, seeking cooler temperatures. However, the capacity to survive varies significantly
between different species. Some species of frog, for example, can travel miles to remain in a habitable environment, while others like some types of salamander are
less mobile and can move only a few feet over generations. "New Zealand's strong foundation in ecological research will help. One of our hopes is to build on these
strengths and highlight new opportunities to improve predictions by explicitly considering evolution, interactions among species and dispersal," said William Godsoe, a

logistical
challenges for gathering the necessary biological information to
improve predictions, but even a sampling of key species would be
beneficial, the authors said. The more sophisticated models will allow scientists
to expand their predictions and apply them to multiple species with
similar traits. "Our biggest challenge is pinpointing which species to concentrate on and which regions we need to allocate resources," Urban said. "We
are at a triage stage at this point. We have limited resources and patients lined up at the door." The team is calling for a
global campaign to study species and enhance existing predictions
for their survival, in addition to encouraging conservation strategies
to support biodiversity.
study co-author and member of New Zealand's Bio-Protection Research Centre. There are more than 8.7 million species worldwide, which creates

WW3 is right around the corner in the SCS, US

engagement is necessary to resolve conflict
Pandher, 16 (Gurmeet, September 24, 2016, NEWSWW3 News: The U.S. Must Confront China
Now In South China Sea Before Its Too, http://www.thebitbag.com/ww3-news-the-u-s-must-confront-chinanow-in-south-china-sea-before-its-too-late/184263Late, accessed September 27 th, 2016)

the risk of a WW3 is far

from over. With each passing day, the military deployments in the region add to every growing threat of a devastating war. Japans plans
to start joint patrols with the U.S. and Taiwans buildup of antiaircraft guns in the South China Sea indicate more trouble ahead . While
the military deployments to the tense South China region are reported everyday, the media has failed to address another threat. Apparently, the Chinese
are covertly training their fishing coast guard and fishing fleet to
face military threats from rivals. So apart from the Chinese Navy, Beijing is building paramilitary forces out of its civilian
The Sino-Russian naval exercises dubbed as the Joint Sea 2016 concluded without any incident but

fleet vessels. China currently operates the biggest fishing fleet in the world and in the highly contested South China Sea region, these fishing ships act as their second
navy, reports Business Insider. Beijing uses the fishing militia to harass and block other nations vessels from accessing the vital trade routes and fishing grounds. Andrew
Erickson, a professor of strategy with the U.S. Naval War College, suggested that it was high time that the U.S. started treating these fishing boats as the aggressive

Chinese reports that make it abundantly clear that the

fishing vessels have a militia function. However, China doesnt publicize its militia in any English language
militias they are. He cited

publication. There is plenty of evidence of the front-line elite Chinese maritime militia units answering specifically to a Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) chain of command,
being entrusted with the fulfilling of specific state-sponsored missions with respect to participation in international sea encounters and incidents, said Erickson. Related:

Center for Strategic

and International Studies recently released a report on Chinas use
of its coast guard as a sort of second navy. China possesses the
worlds largest coast guard fleet. The China Coast Guard (CCG) has some 205 vessels, including 95 vessels that displace
China-US War Will Be Prolonged & Inconclusive, But Wholl Strike First? CHINESE COAST GUARD In addition, the

over 1,000 tons. Former Chinese naval vessels also serve as part of the CCG fleet. The CCG too is more capable of intimidating and harassing the ships of other states. This
gives China strategic advantage over other nations including the United States. Related: Sino War Ships Outnumber U.S. Fleet in US, China War Scenario U.S. LIKELY

China has a dangerous

advantage with their CCG and fishing milita. He said the U.S. should take action against the Chinese now
and expose their use of militia to harass other nations. He indicated that the U.S. needs to take swift action
against the militia as several incidents happened where nations
were bullied by Chinese fishing vessels. This would deter Beijing
from pushing its power in the South China Sea region. However, the U.S. is reluctant to
TAKING ACTION SOON Erickson said that no one in the U.S. military has not said a word about this.

react against any civilian fishing vessels. Should the U.S. plan to do so, the risk of WW3 increases as Beijing wont take U.S. meddling in their affairs lightly. The Chinese

World War 3 is just waiting to happen whether

the U.S. takes action or not.
will but continue to bully the smaller nations. The

The status Quo cant solve, 1.5 is the new red line, and
Paris agreements are not able to cut in time
Mooney, 16 (Chris, September 29th, 2016, As Trump denies climate change, scientists fear
were about to blow past the 2-degree red line, The Washington Post,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/29/as-trump-denies-climatechange-scientists-fear-were-about-to-blow-past-the-2-degree-red-line/?utm_term=.3877d8fe71cb,
accessed September 30th, 2016, MJG)

A new scientific statement released Thursday underscoring the urgency of grappling with
global warming presented a sharp contrast with the state of public discussion of the subject in the United States. Here, in the wake of the
first presidential debate, the media skewered Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for denying his prior Twitter claim that the
concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese even as Trumps surrogates continued to bluntly advance positions contrary
to modern scientific understanding on the subject. His campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, for instance, asserted on CNN that Trump
believes the current climate swing is naturally occurring, contradicting the view of mainstream climate researchers that it is mainly human-

seven
distinguished climate scientists led by Robert Watson, a former chairman of the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, asserted that the chance of holding warming to below
1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has almost certainly
already been missed. And we could very soon be on an irrevocable
path to 2 degrees of warming, they continue, unless countries
dramatically up their pledges to cut emissions under the Paris
climate agreement an agreement Trump has said he would cancel. When you read the Paris
agreement, it is absolutely inadequate, with the current pledges, to
get on a pathway to 2 degrees Celsius, let alone a pathway to 1.5, said
caused. [We just might have a real climate debate in this election. Thats bad news for Trump] On Thursday, a group of

Watson in an interview with the Post. To be clear: The researchers are happy with the agreement itself, but not with the steps that countries

on our current emissions

trajectory, the world could be at 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial
levels in 2030 less than 15 years and at 2 degrees by 2050 . But
are currently committing to take under it. Watson said that as of now,

because of time lags in the climate system, the actual emissions that would result in those outcomes, and that would have to be averted in
order to avoid them, would occur sooner than that. I really think the world is definitely on a pathway, as were suggesting in that paper, past

we need to
redouble our efforts. The statement was signed by Watson and six other researchers, most of whom have previously
the 2 degree world, Watson said. If you want any hope of getting even close to that 2 degree world,

held prominent positions with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is considered the leading consensus body of
international climate science. The co-authors are from Italy, Argentina, Austria, and Brazil, as well as the United States. The significance of 2

Up until relatively recently, scientists have generally

asserted that this level of planetary warming is a kind of red line,
beyond which increasingly devastating impacts such as extensive
ice sheet loss and sea level rise, and reduced yields of food crops
would begin to occur. However, as warming has already reached 1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and
we begin to already see sharp impacts all around us major ice loss from Greenland
and West Antarctica, growing devastation of coral reefs, and much more it is starting to look more and
more as if even 2 degrees would be way too much. 1.5 degrees has
thus emerged as the new red-line number especially for small island states and developing
degrees is this:

countries. But Watson and his colleagues, like many other researchers, just dont see how 1.5 degrees can happen, given the warming

Every year, the world is

adding an additional 54 or so billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent
emissions to the atmosphere, their report notes. Energy and Environment newsletter The science and policy of
environmental issues. Sign up And the researchers reiterate, as previous analyses have done, that countries current
pledges under the Paris agreement which may soon enter into force dont
really change those kinds of numbers. What were saying in the paper is, even if all the pledges are
momentum already unleashed and the time it will take to gradually reduce emissions.

realized, our emissions in 2030 will be about the same as they are today, between 50 and 55 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent,
Watson said. The researchers therefore assert that countries of the world must rapidly up their levels of ambition when it comes to cutting
emissions but it is not clear how fast they can really do that. For instance, a recent analysis found that even with all of the Obama

the U.S. is still unlikely to hit its current target

administrations favored policies in place,

of
a 26 to 28 percent reduction in emissions below 2005 levels by the year 2025. All of which may make it even more clear why many climate
scientists are increasingly worried by Trump, who not only denies human-caused climate change, but would apparently try to scuttle the Paris
agreement entirely.

In October 1984, I watched the sun illuminate Alaska's Malaspina Glacier from
200 miles above earth. Looking down from the space shuttle Challenger, I
was able to fully appreciate the scale and magnitude of a piece of ice 40
miles wide and 28 miles long, roughly 50 times the size of Manhattan Island.
Today's space station astronauts see a very different landscape. Malaspina is
melting, just like nearly every other glacier on our planet. Each year the
Malaspina and other glaciers in the St. Elias Mountain Range in Southeast
Alaska send about 84 gigatons of water into the ocean. That's the
equivalent of the approximately 200-mile-long Chesapeake Bay, and it's just
a small fraction of the water that is entering the oceans from an
unprecedented melting of Arctic ice. More than anywhere else on Earth, the
Arctic has changed dramatically over the past three decades, and
there is new urgency in addressing both these changes and their
immense global reach. For these reasons, government ministers, scientists,
and representatives of indigenous groups from more than 25 nations will hold
the first Arctic Science Ministerial on Wednesday at the White House. This
meeting is a significant step in recognizing the Arctic as a pivotal, yet vastly
underobserved and poorly understood region of our planet. Concerns around
the world are growing because the Arctic's rapid changes are unprecedented.
Temperatures are warming at least twice as fast as the global average.
Melting ice sheets and glaciers are draining water into the sea at the
fastest rate in recorded history, contributing to rising sea levels around
the world. Ground that has been frozen for centuries is thawing,
exacerbating coastal erosion and allowing even more heat-trapping
greenhouse gases to enter our atmosphere. The loss of entire villages
along the Arctic coast has created our nation's first climate
refugees. [Alaskans use Arctic Summit Science Week to focus on climate
change] Such rapid environmental changes may seem to be a world away to
most Americans, but the remoteness is only geographic. We have learned
that what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic, and the
changes now underway have the potential to affect us all. The Arctic
works as a refrigerator for our planet, helping to stabilize global climate and
regulate temperatures around the world. But warming in the Arctic is
destabilizing weather patterns, in all likelihood contributing to severe heat
waves, droughts and harsh winter storms throughout the Northern
Hemisphere, where 88 percent of the world's population lives. The transition
of the Arctic environment has been so pronounced even the fabled Northwest
Passage, frozen for centuries, is now navigable in summer. Last month, for
the first time, more than 1,000 passengers cruised from Anchorage to New
York City in once ice-choked waters. While new economic opportunities
brought on by expanding tourism, oil and gas development, and mineral
extraction may provide better infrastructure for Arctic residents, including
broadband internet connectivity and more reliable commercial transportation,
they must be developed in an environmentally responsible manner.
[Scientists: Climate change is behind Arctic's 'startling' winter warmth] The
extent to which we capitalize on emergent opportunities and deal with

increasingly severe scenarios such as sea level rise rests largely on our ability
to effectively monitor Arctic change and understand how long-term trends will
impact the rest of the world. This requires collecting the scientific data to
produce new knowledge on which sound policies must be built. Without
reliable data on the rate of melting Arctic ice, for instance, we can't
accurately predict sea level rise in New York, New Orleans, Miami or any other
city. As Hurricane Sandy showed us, even small increases in sea level can
have devastating consequences. Throughout history, the Dutch have adeptly
held back the sea, but without a concerted effort to deal with sea level rise,
it's unlikely that Rotterdam will continue to be Europe's largest port. In lowlying countries like Bangladesh, rising seas could displace millions of people,
creating an unparalleled refugee crisis. Even knowing those risks, we
continue to have a blind spot in the Arctic. While the U.S. and many
international partners are working to close the gap in the Arctic by developing
new observing systems that can provide year-round information, there is still
a critical lack of resources in the region. We must take full advantage of the
upcoming Arctic Science Ministerial to rally nations throughout the world to
commit to sustained Arctic observations that will improve weather and sea
ice forecasting, storm inundation models, sea-level rise scenarios, and global
climate models. Ocean observing systems built in the Pacific and Indian
oceans to improve El Nio forecasts have saved lives, livelihoods and billions
of dollars. A similar system in the Arctic could provide the information we
need to stave off major catastrophic events around the world. With
innovative technologies and the miniaturization of sensors, it's now possible
to gather vital environmental information faster, cheaper, and far more
efficiently than ever before. Unmanned vehicles and other autonomous
systems that can stream data in real time have revolutionized how
observations are made in the sea, air, and space. And unlike in other regions,
we don't need to build expensive observing infrastructure because highly
adaptable, mobile observing arrays can be deployed to get the job done. With
relatively modest investments, Arctic sensors and monitoring assets from
dozens of countries can be interconnected into an observing array by 2020.
The Arctic Science Ministerial will highlight the fact the Arctic is a blind spot in
our global observing capabilities and provide opportunities to enhance our
data gathering efforts. We must choose to invest the resources to enable us
to use the Arctic as an indicator of global climate change because the
consequences of these changes are coming whether we are ready for them or
not. Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan is undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and
Atmosphere and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. Sullivan is an oceanographer and the first American woman
to walk in space.