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greenland

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MERRI OK

TARGET?

LANDRY ENVOY

KATIE MILLER

BAD TRINITY FOX 1 26 // DAVOS

neglected in terms of ice loss, doh/omg disaster capitalism djt pompeo

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10 20 26 trms

delay bad post midterm abort rx cda

pro putin buy diesel, cut starlink...

Trump’s Greenland threats spark arctic power grab as Russia looms

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Europe unites behind Greenland — 'stands firm' against Trump annexation push

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AN TRMS 8 26

Trump has long craved Greenland, a large island in the North Atlantic controlled by Denmark. He has played a game of chicken by threatening to conquer the island and even vowed at a July NATO summit in Ankara to take Greenland for the United States. He has repeatedly posted a meme of his face acquisitively looming over a Greenlandic village with the slogan “Hello Greenland!”

Now Greenland Energy, a company created by Trump supporter Larry Swets of Texas last year in the midst of Trump’s imperialist rhetoric toward the island, has started moving drilling equipment to East Greenland’s Arctic basin. They claim they will mine $1 trillion in crude oil beneath the Jameson Land region. Both Denmark and Greenland are protesting. And, as one prominent TV news anchor pointed out, America may have in effect begun to invade Greenland.

“The minister in charge of mineral resources in the Greenland government did a local interview in Greenland in which he said he was absolutely sure this American oil company would never break the law and try to start this drilling project without permission,” MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow explained. “Should that happen, he said, Greenland has the means to stop their actions. He said, ‘This is a society governed by the rule of law, so I have some broad-shouldered men in black uniforms in the first instance who can help me deal with some illegal activities if I ask for them’ — by which he means, I think, the Greenlandic police. Then he said, ‘Ultimately, I'm sure that the Arctic Command will also contribute’ — by which he means the Danish military would also, he believes, intervene to stop this American oil company from trying to drill for oil in Greenland without any permission to do so.”

Maddow added, “So you put all this together: this Trump-aligned oil company based in Texas saying, ‘We're going to drill for oil in Greenland.’ Greenland saying, ‘Oh, no, you're not.’ The company going ahead and dropping off their drilling equipment anyway. Local residents saying, ‘We'll fight tooth and nail.’ The local government saying, ‘We'll use the police, we'll use the Danish military.’ You put it all together, and it kind of seems like we're invading Greenland. I mean, this company has somehow hornswoggled itself into a partnership with Dr. Phil to make what sure looks like propaganda TV shows about this ‘heroic and exciting’ oil-drilling project — which the government of Greenland says is illegal, and which they don't have permission to carry out.”

Ultimately she asked, “Honestly — is this how we invade Greenland? With Dr. Phil doing a ride-along, like he did with ICE [which Greenland Energy says they are going to do]? All because a Trump donor billionaire says he needs to drill this oil, and who cares what this little country says?”

If America invades Greenland, the European Union could activate its Anti-Coercion Instrument, a series of boycotts and trade restrictions that would effectively devastate America’s economy in retaliation for violating the sovereignty of European nations.

"The EU’s single market counts roughly 450 million consumers," wrote the German Marshall Fund's Antonia Wunnerlich and Georgina Wright in February. "As a result, these tools can have significant extraterritorial impact, even targeting foreign businesses without European subsidiaries. US and Chinese services firms are particularly exposed because their home countries run sizeable services surpluses with the EU."

Additionally, Greenland’s ice sheet is melting as a result of man-made climate change, which is destabilizing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. If the situation worsens, it could lead to rising sea levels, widespread floods, severe storms and other extreme weather events.

“That rate of Greenland melt is approaching or exceeding rates of melt during natural warming periods over the past 12,000 years is not surprising,” Michael Mann, at the time a professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, told this journalist for Salon in 2020. “It’s what I would expect given the evidence we have already.” He also said that one of his studies found “evidence of the freshening of the sub-polar North Atlantic that we would expect as Greenland continues to melt. That freshening is reducing the stratification of the ocean and likely slowing down the ‘conveyor belt’ ocean circulation (the real-world equivalent of the ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ scenario) showing how these potentially threshold-like climate responses are potentially linked.”

Mann added, “As I am fond of saying, uncertainty is not our friend. It’s cutting against us, not in our favor, as we see and learn more.”

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AN 7 26

Experts sound the alarm on 'deranged' Trump for doctored US-Canada-Greenland map

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AN 7 26

Allies rip Trump as renewed Greenland obsession 'threatens to derail' NATO - Alternet.org

AN 5 26

Trump’s latest Greenland 'power grab' is total economic control - Alternet.org

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Greenland’s prime minister snubs opening of new US consulate in Nuuk - Alternet.org

? Trump's scheme to create '55 states across three continents' exposed: analysis - Alternet.org

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AN 1 26

One of President Donald Trump's ambassadors is trying to downplay his second job, but another former diplomat is issuing a warning.

It's rare for the governor of a state to take on a second job, but that's what Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) did when he agreed to be Trump's "Ambassador to Greenland." There is no official position of ambassador to Greenland, as Greenland is a territory of Denmark. Still, Trump wanted it, and Landry was happy to comply as a special envoy.

Now he's trying to spell out how he can do both jobs at once. Speaking to The Washington Post, he explained that he's not an ambassador, in that he lives and works in Greenland, as others do.

“Look, I think that the titles can somewhat be misleading,” he began. “I look at my job under this as almost like a representative of the United States and the state of Louisiana, to see what kind of economic opportunities there could be with trade in Greenland and Louisiana.”

He said in a December episode of "The Will Cain Show" that since summers in Louisiana are so horrible, Greenland is looking like a great tourist destination for those in his home state.

Thus far, his side hustle has consisted of talking about the U.S. and Greenland on television.

“They tell me they like to hunt, they like to fish, they like to have a good time,” Landry said in a Fox News interview. “I’m like, ‘Y’all belong in Louisiana.’”

“We should go to Greenland and say, ‘Hey, what kind of opportunities would you like? What are we doing? What can we offer you that Europe is not?” he added when speaking on CNBC.

The Post told a story about a Trump fan from Greenland who attended the inauguration and Turning Point USA inaugural ball. The report described him as the type of person that one would imagine the administration reaching out to. No one has.

But neither has Per Berthelsen, a member of Greenland's parliament. Aaja Chemniz, a Greenlandic member of Parliament in Denmark, chairs the Greenland committee. She hasn't heard from Landry either.

"As of last week, Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hadn’t heard from Landry, either. Nor had Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), his Democratic counterpart. Nor Jesper Moller Sorensen, the Danish ambassador to the United States. Nor Jacob Isbosethsen, the Greenland representative to the United States and Canada."

Landry said he replied to some emails from people in Greenland. But, he told Fox, “I’m not interested in going to an embassy and talking to diplomats."

"I haven’t gotten directly on the phone yet,” he told the Post. “There can be a language barrier, me and the U.S., let alone me and Greenlandic or Danish.”

He also wasn't at the meeting between Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland. During their hour-long conversation, the Post said that Landry's name never came up once.

The day after the meeting, Landry said he went to Washington to meet with Rubio. He also said that he has chatted with the governor of Alaska about going on a trip to Greenland at some point.

When the Post asked whether he was still the special envoy, Landry assumed he was.

“As far as I know, he hasn’t dismissed me,” Landry said.

His plan is to have a kind of “culinary diplomacy,” to win over Greenlanders who have been hostile to the U.S. after Trump's threats.

“They catch a lot of fish there,” he said. “Maybe we can teach them how to make a Greenland version of gumbo.”

“You think gumbo is going to want to make them be purchased?” asked Rufus Gifford, who was President Barack Obama's ambassador to Denmark. “You’re in for a rude awakening.”

*Read the full report here.

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MMA CALLED IT ICELAND 4X AT DAVOS?

mma

Many right-wing media figures fell in line after Trump renewed threat to acquire Greenland

White nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes said Europe should be “grateful that we don't take a whole lot more”

Written by Payton Armstrong, Reed McMaster & Jack Wheatley

Published 01/21/26

Many right-wing media figures backed President Donald Trump’s vow to take control of Greenland, a move that threatened the NATO alliance formed after World War II, telling Denmark to “just sell us Greenland” and arguing that it’s “worth talking about” taking Greenland by force because “that's the only way that America exists in the first place.” Some in conservative print media outlets came out against Trump’s threats, suggesting that some of his tactics were “dangerous,” calling it “Trump’s lesson in how to turn U.S. allies into China’s friends,” and asserting that his “foreign policy needs to distinguish between friend and foe.”

Trump vowed to acquire Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally

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cda troops to Greenland?

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MMA

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: Trump “is not trying to grab Greenland because it is necessary for us to up our military presence. We can do that under current treaty obligations.”

01/21/26 12:33 PM EST

  1. ### The Fox-Trump fusion in two Fox & Friends segments

01/21/26 11:16 AM EST

  1. ### Newsmax host says he questions Trump's “tactics” toward acquiring Greenland

01/21/26 10:08 AM EST

  1. ### Fox host gushes over Trump's presence at Davos: “nothing starts until President Trump arrives — until daddy's home, as so many people say”

01/21/26 9:38 AM EST

  1. ### Sean Hannity: “I just don't have any faith in the NATO alliance in terms of their ability to contribute much to us”

01/20/26 6:36 PM EST

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “We have to secure Greenland. It will happen.”

01/20/26 5:55 PM EST

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rww 1 26

President Donald Trump threatened to use tariffs to force support for the annexation of Greenland, which he maintains is critical for the United States’ “national security.”

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AN 1 14 26 Denmark military told to shoot back if the US fires on Greenland as Sweden send troops

Trump sends NATO an early morning warning

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AN 1 26

At no point has anyone in the U.S. government broached the subject with the foreign diplomats or leaders in Greenland or Denmark about a possible takeover of the Arctic island, a new report said.

Denmark’s Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen and Greenland’s head of representation to the United States, Jacob Isbosethsen, spoke with President Donald Trump's advisors on Thursday, reported CNN's Kylie Atwood and Natasha Bertrand.

Trump has been advocating the "purchase" of Greenland for years, but neither Greenland nor Denmark wants to sell the island or have it become part of the United States. While Trump has publicly commented on the matter, no one in his government has approached Greenland or Denmark to discuss it, diplomats told CNN.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration was "actively" discussing buying the island, but officials call the assertion false.

While Trump officials have gone so far as to tease the idea of a military takeover of Greenland, "behind the scenes the US’ relationship with Nuuk and Copenhagen remained business-as-usual for most of last year," CNN wrote, citing its diplomatic sources.

Greenland said that Trump administration officials made it clear to them last summer that there was "no policy directive" for the U.S. to discuss taking the island. So, when Trump announced a special envoy to Greenland in December with the aim of making the island "a part of the U.S." government officials were "blindsided," CNN said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet with the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark next week.

The report suggested that leaders will likely focus on Greenland's continued willingness to work with the U.S. on national security as a NATO ally and on supporting existing mineral extraction efforts.

*Read the full report here.

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AN 1 26

Former Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who served as a diplomat to the European Union on behalf of the United States, continued to promote his "mad man" defense of President Donald Trump in an interview with CNN Friday morning.

"So you have in the past kind of defended the sort of mad men defense of Trump that he's unpredictable," said host Audie Cornish.

She played a clip of the audio of Trump's interview with the New York Times in which he claimed, "I don't need international law. I'm not looking to hurt people."

Cornish asked, "If there's no international law, no bureaucratic process, no committee. No oversight that he believes that can restrain him. What is the check on the president's power?"

Sondland confessed, "I'm a full-time Trump-speak interpreter."

He explained, "I think what he was trying to say was, I don't even need to look at international law because my own morality is well within the bounds of international law."

While it has caused unnecessary global panic, Sondland said it's something people should get used to.

"He's a 70-something-year-old man," Sondland continued speaking about the president, who turns 80 in 2026. "He's not going to change. He speaks in metaphors. He speaks with grandiosity when he says, I'm going to solve the Ukraine problem in 24 hours. No one believed he meant 24 hours."

Sondland said what Trump was trying to say is that he'll focus on Ukraine "like a laser," giving it his full attention. However, even that hasn't been the case, as Trump has been distracted by his new invasion of Venezuela, his faltering peace plan in Israel and building his White House ballroom.

As for Stephen Miller, Sondland chuckled and said that the top Trump aide "loves hyperbole."

"He is not invading Greenland with the military," Sondland continued.

"Like any real estate developer, what he loves to do is he loves to put an offer on the table that's ridiculous. Let me put it in money terms. If he wants to pay $10,000 for something that someone wants, $20,000 for, you know, what he's going to offer. He's not going to offer 9 or 8 or something. He's going to say, I'll give you ten bucks, and people are going to say ten bucks," said Sondland

Cornish said that other Trump observers see Trump metaphorically hit them in the face and threaten them.

Sondland said that because it's the "U.S.'s money" and the "U.S.'s boots on the ground in the past, largely." Sondland said the work is redundant, as the U.S. is already providing these funds in another capacity. "But they don't want to neglect any potential revenue that they can achieve."

"And so when it comes to Greenland, what they've been doing is they've been talking to Russia, they've been talking to China quietly, but definitely.

"And Trump is saying, wait a minute, Greenland is an asset of NATO. Essentially. Forget about the United States. It's an asset of NATO. It's critical for our defense. Quit playing these games," Sondland continued. "If you're going to do this, we're going to take Greenland. And he says that in quotes. 'We're going to take Greenland.' Think about it. Multiple presidents have talked about Greenland. Now everyone is focused."

Cornish noted that the U.S. has had a deal with Greenland since the 1950s, but Sondland said that the "deal" includes China and Russia and Trump doesn't want them included. In fact, the deal with Greenland includes NATO, of which neither Russia nor China is a member. Greenland allows for a U.S. base to exist on Greenland soil and create "defense areas" that NATO deems necessary., CNN's Jim Sciutto explained. Given that the U.S. is a member of NATO, it can move freely through such areas, while Russia and China cannot.

Cornish said there was a way the U.S. could have had these conversations without "freaking out" NATO partners.

Any anger he sees coming from Congress, Sondland attributes to "bruised egos" and not legitimate concern about the separation of powers. He argued that every modern president has been given huge leverage in operating military actions. The difference, however, is that all of those were related to Middle East terrorism and fell under the AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force), which Congress passed in 2001.

Other than the bruised egos, Sondland said others are "miffed that the president didn't pick up the phone two seconds before he toppled Maduro. So, even if he had done so, what are they going to do?"

IFrame Content- YouTubEwww.youtube.com

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AN 1 26

Danish leaders are on edge after President Donald Trump invaded Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro. A top Trump insider posted on X that Greenland might be next.

Mere hours after Trump's attack on Venezuela, right-wing podcaster Katie Miller, who is married to top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, posted a map of Greenlandon X with the U.S. stars and stripes across the land.

"SOON," she wrote.

The Guardian explained that the territory is "mineral-rich," making it appealing to Trump's ongoing efforts to secure rare-earth minerals and oil from other countries. Greenland is part of the NATO alliance.

The Guardian quoted Copenhagen’s ambassador to the U.S., Jesper Møller Sørensen, who reposted Miller’s comments, saying, "Just a friendly reminder about the US and the Kingdom of Denmark: We are close allies and should continue to work together as such. US security is also Greenland’s and Denmark’s security. Greenland is already part of NATO. The Kingdom of Denmark and the United States work together to ensure security in the Arctic. The Kingdom of Denmark has significantly boosted its Arctic security efforts - in 2025 alone, we committed USD 13,7 bn that can be used in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Because we take our joint security seriously."

"And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark," he added.

The Guardian noted that when Trump named former Gov. Jeff Landry (R-La.) as a "special envoy to Greenland," the Louisianan called it an "honor" to work on "mak[ing] Greenland a part of the US."

On Saturday, Landry celebrated Trump's arrest of Maduro.

“Having served as a sheriff’s deputy and AG, I have seen the devastating effects of illegal drugs on American families. With over 100k opioid-related deaths annually, I am grateful to see a President finally take real action in the war on drugs,” he posted on X.

“Thank you @realDonaldTrump for holding individuals like Maduro accountable," he added.

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an 12 25

President Donald Trump's Sunday night decision to name Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) as his administration's new special envoy to Greenland is already making waves around the world.

Trump posted late Sunday to his Truth Social account that Landry "will strongly advance our Country’s Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World," and that the Louisiana governor "understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security." Landry appears to accept the role, though he posted on his official X account that his new "volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S." would not intrude on his ongoing responsibilities in Baton Rouge.

Simon Marks, who is a contributor to the United Kingdom-based iPaper, quipped that Landry's role advancing U.S. efforts in Greenland's capital city of Nuuk "won’t be easy, since so far there is limited appetite for non-stop flights between the two cities." He also observed that Trump's announcement has caused a significant amount of consternation for Denmark, which has dominion over Denmark and controls its military and foreign policy (though Greenland has its own parliament).

"Land borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Parilament chairman Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement. "You cannot annex other countries. Not even with an argument about international security. Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders … We expect respect for our territorial integrity."

Marks went on to note that Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called Landry's appointment "unacceptable" and that he was "deeply angered" upon learning of Trump's announcement. Ken Howery, who is the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark (and a co-founder of PayPal) has reportedly been summoned to Copenhagen to discuss Landry's appointment.

Trump's announcement that he was putting Landry in charge of the United States' diplomatic efforts in Greenland comes as his administration continues to threaten Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, which Trump recently admitted was about "getting land" and "oil rights." Marks wrote that "Trump is indicating that his expansionist tendencies are back in vogue, especially with regard to worldwide locations that are rich in natural resources."

The iPaper columnist hypothesized that if Venezuela is about oil, Trump's efforts in Greenland may be about mineral resources. He reminded readers that Greenland was rich in 25 of 34 minerals classified as "critical raw minerals" by the European Commission.

Click here to read Marks' full column in iPaper.

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AN 11 25

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for the U.S. to acquire Greenland as a new American territory. In response to this renewed pressure, Denmark, which currently controls Greenland as an autonomous territory, has set up a new "night watch" program to keep tabs on Trump's public comments.

News of this program first emerged in the Danish newspaper, Politiken. The outlet reported that Denmark's foreign ministry now has a team working a 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. night shift monitoring any public statements Trump might make about Greenland, designed to account for the time difference between the country and the U.S. Any time that Trump makes a statement containing the word "Greenland," it is added to a report presented to officials in the morning.

This night watch program has reportedly been in operation since the spring. Speaking with Newsweek about the program, Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said that Danish officials remain extremely concerned about Trump's overtures concerning Greenland, and may be looking to stall in hopes of a Democratic win in the 2026 midterms.

“Denmark is currently trying to play for time, hoping that this will fizzle out and that maybe a democratic win in the US midterms might stifle Trump's ambitions to take Greenland," Søndergaard explained.

Greenland is a snowy island territory situated in the Arctic Ocean northeast of Canada. Experts have suggested that Greenland's rich supply of important minerals, including rare-earth minerals that Trump has been fixated on securing during his second term.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has warned U.S. officials against Trump's Greenland posturing, and Danish officials have repeatedly insisted the territory is "not for sale." Trump has previously attempted to claim that Greenland residents want to join the U.S., despite an overwhelming 85 percent of Greenlanders opposing the idea. The president has also stated that he does not rule out the use of military action or economic pressure to coerce Denmark into ceding control of Greenland, which put Danish officials on even higher alert.

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an 8 22 almost a foot by 2100

The fossil fuel-driven climate emergency has already locked in so much ice melt in Greenland that sea levels will surge by nearly a foot in the coming decades, peer-reviewed research published Monday warns, underscoring the need to rapidly transform virtually all aspects of the global political economy.

Even if the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the Greenland ice sheet is set to lose at least3.3% of its mass, or 110 trillion tons of ice, and that will cause almost a foot in global sea-level rise (SLR), says the study, published in Nature Climate Change. The authors don't specify a time frame for the melting and SLR, though they expect much of it to happen between now and 2100.

But rather than lead to despair, this projection of inevitable damage—made by scientists based at institutions in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States—should catalyze immediate and robust climate action, experts stress. Without it, the life-threatening situation confronting humanity is destined to grow far deadlier.

Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that sea levels along the U.S. coastline would rise by an average of 10 to 12 inches by 2050, drastically increasing the threat of flooding in dozens of highly populated cities.

By mid-century, 150 million people worldwide could be displaced from their homes just by rising sea levels, according to some estimates. The consequences of a one-foot SLR would be especially catastrophic for developing island nations, where low elevation and high poverty combine to increase vulnerability.

These countries, which have done little to cause the climate crisis now roasting the Greenland ice sheet, lack the financial resources for adaptation and face the prospect of being wiped off the map.

"Every study has bigger numbers than the last," William Colgan, a scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and co-author of the new paper, told The Washington Post. "It's always faster than forecast."

As lead author Jason Box, also from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, told the newspaper, the finding that 3.3% of Greenland's ice sheet will be gone in a matter of decades regardless of what is done to halt planet-heating pollution represents "a minimum, a lower bound."

Things are all but guaranteed to get worse if humanity continues to burn fossil fuels. Should the record-breaking ice loss that occurred in 2012 become the norm, for example, the world is likely to see around two-and-a-half feet of SLR from Greenland alone, the study says.

By the same token, each fraction of a degree of warming that is avoided makes a difference.

If Greenland's ice sheet were to disintegrate completely, sea levels would rise more than 22 feet—"enough to double the frequency of storm-surge flooding in many of the world's largest coastal cities" by the end of the century, scientists have warned, so the stakes for adequate climate action are still immense even if a certain amount of melting and SLR has been deemed irreversible.

Greenland is located in the Arctic, which has been heating up for over a century and is one of the fastest-warming regions in the world. Dangerous feedback loops are of particular concern. The replacement of reflective sea ice with dark ocean water leads to greater absorption of solar energy, and the thawing of permafrost portends the release of additional carbon dioxide and methane—both leading to accelerated temperature rise that triggers further melting, defrosting, and destabilization.

In December, researchers estimated that the Arctic has been heating up four times faster than the rest of the globe over the past three decades. Another recent study found that 2021 was the 25th consecutive year in which Greenland's ice sheet lost more mass during the melting season than it gained during the winter. Rainfall is now projected to become more common in the Arctic than snowfall decades sooner than previously expected.

This context has a direct bearing on the new paper, which contains more dire predictions than other reports relying on different assumptions.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for instance, has projected that Greenland will lose roughly 1.8% of its mass and contribute up to half a foot of SLR by 2100 if humans continue spewing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

"One reason that new research appears worse than other findings may just be that it is simpler," the Postexplains. "It tries to calculate how much ice Greenland must lose as it recalibrates to a warmer climate."

"In the past, scientists have tried to determine what Greenland's ongoing melting means for the global sea level through complex computer simulations," the newspaper continues. "They model the ice itself, the ocean around it, and the future climate based on different trajectories of emissions." The result, in general, has been "less alarming predictions."

As the Post reports:

The new research 'obtains numbers that are high compared to other studies,' said Sophie Nowicki, an expert on Greenland at the University at Buffalo who contributed to the IPCC report. Nowicki observed, however, that one reason the number is so high is that the study considers only the last 20 years—which have seen strong warming—as the current climate to which the ice sheet is now adjusting. Taking a 40-year period would yield a lower result, Nowicki said.

[...]

Box, for his part, argues that the models upon which the IPCC report is based are 'like a facsimile of reality,' without enough detail to reflect how Greenland is really changing. Those computer models have sparked considerable controversy recently, with one research group charging they do not adequately track Greenland's current, high levels of ice loss.

For example, the processes causing ice loss from large glaciers in Greenland "often occur hundreds of meters below the sea surface in narrow fjords, where warm water can flick at the submerged ice in complex motions," the newspaper notes. "In some cases, these processes may simply be playing out at too small a scale for the models to capture."

Pennsylvania State University professor Richard Alley, an ice sheet expert who was not involved in the study, told the Post that "the problems are deeply challenging, will not be solved by wishful thinking, and have not yet been solved by business-as-usual."

One thing that's certain, Alley added, is that higher temperatures will lead to greater amounts of SLR.

"[The] rise can be a little less than usual projections, or a little more, or a lot more, but not a lot less," he said.

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arctic heating #X fast?! disrupts strato --> eu heat wave?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/greenland-lost-ice-three-days/

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FT 7 22 how is the jet stream connected to simultaneous heatwaves across the globe?

Scientists are racing to understand the changing shape of the air currents

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ew 920

Antarctica and Greenland's ice sheets are currently melting at a pace consistent with worst-case-scenario predictions for sea level rise, with serious consequences for coastal communities and the reliability ofclimate models.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14082020/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-climate-change

Going, Going ... Gone: Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet Passed a Point of No Return in the Early 2000s

A new study finds that the accelerating retreat and thinning of Greenland’s glaciers that began 20 year ago is speeding the ice sheet toward total meltdown.

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320 ew

Greenland experienced an unusually warm summer in 2019, which caused the world's largest island to lose 600 billion tons of ice and raised sea levels by 0.2 of an inch, according to a NASA study released yesterday. That amount of ice loss more than doubled Greenland's 2002-2019 annual average.

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causes: loss of ice, water moves heat: TIP PT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27122019/climate-science-decade-2019-year-review-tipping-points-jet-stream-ocean-circulation

The 2010s may go down in environmental history as the decade when the fingerprints of climate change became evident in extreme weather events, from heat waves to destructive storms, and climate tipping points once thought to be far off were found to be much closer.

The sum of the decade's climate science research, compiled in a series of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggests global warming is pushing many planetary systems toward a breakdown.It was the decade when governments worldwide woke up to the risk and signed the Paris climate agreement, yet still failed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions at the pace and scale needed. And when climate scientists, seeing the evidence before them, cast away their reluctance to publicly advocate for action.

New studies showed polar ice caps melting and sea level rising much faster than just 10 years ago. Ocean researchers showed how marine heat waves kill corals and force fish to move northward, affecting food supplies for millions of people in developing countries. They tracked changes to crucial ocean currents and concluded that hurricanes will intensify faster in a warming world.

Together, the research showed how important it will be to cap the global temperature rise as far below 2 degrees Celsius—the Paris Agreement goal—as possible.

Feedback Loops on the Greenland Ice Sheet

At the start of the decade, it was unclear how fast the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets would melt. As recently as the 1990s, melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet was balanced by the buildup of new snow and ice, offering some hope that sea level rise would be slow, allowing coastal communities time to adapt.

By the end of 2019, a study published in the scientific journal Nature showed the Greenland Ice Sheet was melting seven times faster than it had been in the 1990s. That's on pace with the IPCC's worst-case climate scenario, with Greenland alone contributing 2 to 5 inches of sea level rise by 2100. Another study, looking at evidence in fossilized shells, showed temperatures are very near a threshold that will melt most of the ice sheet.

Scientists discovered feedback loops and new ways earth's systems interact to melt the ice.Global warming is expanding ice slabs beneath Greenland's snowy areas, hastening runoff and sea level rise. In Antarctica, they showed how global warming is shifting winds and pushing warmer water under floating ice shelves—both of which could contribute to rapid disintegration of ice shelves with a subsequent surge of sea level rise.

"The rate and magnitude of Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss, and of ice loss globally, has been dramatic," said Twila Moon, a climate researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

How Sea Ice Loss Influences the Atmosphere

Many studies in the second half of the decade showed how important it is to keep the global temperature rise as far below 2 degrees Celsius as possible to avoid triggering tipping points that would have cascading consequences. Arctic sea ice is one of the big concerns.

Even now, in its diminished state, the summer Arctic sea ice is a 1.6 million square-mile shield that reflects incoming solar radiation back to space. The more it melts, the more darker-colored ocean can absorb heat, speeding up the planet's overall warming.

At 2 degrees Celsius warming, Arctic Ocean sea ice will probably melt completely, said National Snow and Ice Data Center climate researcher Walt Meier. "Some ice probably will persist if warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius," Meier said. He noted that researchhas suggested the ice could recover fairly quickly—if greenhouse gas concentrations are reduced enough to drop the temperature.

One intriguing question has been how the loss of Arctic sea ice will affect weather patterns in North America, Europe and Asia.

Melting that much of Earth's icebox could alter wind patterns that shunt weather systems around the Northern Hemisphere, scientists reasoned early in the decade. A study in 2012 suggested a mechanism: Sea ice melt alters the jet stream by reducing the temperature contrast between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes. As the jet stream weakens, it enables areas of rainy weather or hot, dry conditions to linger longer over a given area, leading to extreme rainfall or heat waves and drought.

As the decade ended, studies seemed to support that early conclusion. Research published by Michael Mann, Stefan Rahmstorf and others showed how heat waves, floods and wildfires are linked with a jet stream pattern that, in turn, is related to an over-heated Arctic. In a climate warmed by greenhouse gases, the jet stream is more likely to set up in a pattern that causes extremes to linger longer over Europe and North America.

Arctic Melting Also Effects Ocean Currents

Another major advance in climate research this decade relates to how the melting Arctic will affect a key Atlantic Ocean current that balances Earth's climate by carrying warm, salty water north in the upper layers of the ocean and colder water southward in the ocean depths.

Early in the decade, scientists were still speculating about whether such a slowdown was happening, but now, "for the first time the IPCC has confirmed that the AMOC has slowed down, as predicted by models," Rahmstorf said.

Slowing of the AMOC, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, has been identified as one of the main tipping points in the planet's climate system. Changes in the circulation "have been responsible for some of the strongest and most rapid climate shifts during the Quaternary Period (the past 2.6 million years)," one study said.

[graf/ map currents]

There are already signs that the weakening of the Atlantic circulation is having an effect on U.S. fisheries and storms. Ice melting off Greenland as the Arctic warms is believed to play a key role. Credit: NASA]

Total collapse of the current, still seen as unlikely, would raise sea level by 30 inches around the North Atlantic, but even a slowdown will have a similar effect, to a lesser degree.

"The current is balanced, in part, by the slope of the sea surface as it climbs away from the East coast toward the center of the North Atlantic Ocean gyre," explained Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann. "If the current slows, that slope must decrease, which is accomplished by the sea surface rising along the coast. That can add as much as an extra foot to sea level rise over the next century over parts of the East Coast."

The slowdown will likely push tropical rainfall belts southward, disrupting agriculture and ocean ecosystems. A study in 2016 showed how global warming is shifting other currents in ways that could bring more intense storms to land areas, like the rainstorms that brought record flooding to Japan.

Marine Heat Waves Drive Ecosystem Tipping Points

Scientists have long known that the oceans are absorbing about 93 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, but it wasn't until the last few years that they showed how that's manifesting in marine heat waves that are driving some ocean ecosystems to tipping points.

The most visible might be the mass die-offs of coral reefs in 2015 and 2016 as the oceans seethed at near record warmth for months on end.

The impacts of another marine heat wave, known as the Pacific warm blob, cascaded through Pacific Ocean ecosystems in 2014 and 2015, causing widespread disruption to the food chain and promoting toxic algae blooms. Another began forming in the Pacific in 2019.

Marine heat waves don't just affect the water. The Pacific warm blob was also linked with California's extreme drought that pushed some inland forest ecosystems past the brink. The large area of stagnant heat over the ocean blocked cooler marine air from reaching the coast, enabling the heat to build up.

Since the 1920s, marine heat waves have become 34 percent more frequent, and research shows about 87 percent of them can be attributed to human-caused global warming.

Potential for West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse

At the start of the 2010s, scientists were just beginning to understand how vulnerable parts of Antarctica are to human-caused global warming. New studies this past decade showed that what was once considered a nearly invincible fortress of ice is crumbling at the edges.

Just a little more warming could push parts of the Antarctic ice sheets past a tipping point that would raise sea level faster and higher than anticipated by the climate assessments commonly used for coastal planning around the world.

"I'd say one of the big things this decade includes the potential collapse of West Antarctica, based on new research," said University of Colorado climate scientist Mike MacFerrin. "Just this year, we have evidence that Antarctica's recent speedup of ice loss is, in fact, human-caused."

Concerns about an abrupt collapse of parts of Antarctica's ice shelves intensified in 2016 with a study suggesting that water from surface melting could seep deep into the ice, refreeze and split off huge slabs of the shelves in a relatively short time. Radar surveys showing the thinning of the Thwaites Glacier helped trigger a massive international research effort to track the melting in that area, and scientists are also watching the Pine Island Glacier for signs of disintegration.

The worst-case tipping point scenarios shouldn't be off the table, said Jason Box, a  climate scientist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

Box said the research showing destabilization of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a key climate science advance of this past decade "that should have been like a real wake-up call moment," he said.

Connecting Climate Change to Weather Extremes

Only a few years ago, scientists were reluctant to connect any specific extreme weather event to global warming.

In 2011 and 2012, Rahmstorf and other scientists triggered debates when they wrote that there was strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate. Since then, scientists who specialize in attribution research have found global warming fingerprints on nearly every heat wave they've studied.

"Looking back over the past decade, it's astonishing how firmly we've moved out to the tails of the probability distribution. Extremes are common and are commonly attributed to human activities," said Oregon State University climate researcher Philip Mote. "We're living the worst-case scenario."

One area of research during the 2010s with ominous findings was how global warming affects the intensity tropical storms, including North Atlantic hurricanes that affect the densely populated East Coastof the U.S. A 2016 study tracked a persistent shift of storm tracks toward that area.

"We've seen extreme events, with every major ocean basin having at least one big, catastrophic hurricane in the last few years," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. "We had Dorian and Michael, with rapid intensification so early in its development and close to the equator," he said. "Every basin has come up with monstrous storms."

Seeing the Risks, More Scientists Are Speaking Out

The 2010s may also be remembered as the decade when scientists cast away their reluctance to advocate for political and social changes.

The research on global warming is now so compelling that "a growing number of scientists are starting to make increasingly direct, pointed, and public statements about climate change risks to society," said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"My sense is that a key reason for this is the widening gap between physical reality and political reality," he said. "There is a growing sense that society is careening toward the abyss while we're collectively arguing about whether we should hit the brakes.

"Scientists who work in the climate domain are particularly, sometimes painfully, aware of the consequences that lie ahead if we continue on our current trajectory. And we're also aware that the emissions targets set forth in the Paris Agreement remain largely aspirational; we're currently still on a path to blow right past them."

Read this next from our decade in review series: Earth's Hottest Decade on Record Marked by Extreme Storms, Deadly Wildfires

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/the-pompeo-doctrine-a-formula-for-catastrophe

no lnx

The Pompeo Doctrine: A formula for catastrophe

Written by Michael Klare / TomDispatch September 12, 2019

Donald Trump got the headlines as usual — but don’t be fooled. It wasn’t Trumpism in action this August, but what we should all now start referring to as the Pompeo Doctrine. Yes, I’m referring to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, when it comes to the Arctic region, he has a lot more than buying Greenland on his mind.

In mid-August, as no one is likely to forget, President Trump surprised international observers by expressing an interest in purchasing Greenland, a semi-autonomous region of Denmark. Most commentators viewed the move as just another example of the president’s increasingly erratic behavior. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen termed the very notion of such a deal “absurd,” leading Trump, in an outburst of pique, to call her comments “nasty” and cancel a long-scheduled state visit to Copenhagen.

A deeper look at that incident and related administration moves, however, suggests quite a different interpretation of what’s going on, with immense significance for the planet and even human civilization. Under the prodding of Mike Pompeo, the White House increasingly views the Arctic as a key arena for future great-power competition, with the ultimate prize being an extraordinary trove of valuable resources, including oil, natural gas, uranium, zinc, iron ore, gold, diamonds, and rare earth minerals. Add in one more factor: though no one in the administration is likely to mention the forbidden term “climate change” or “climate crisis,” they all understand perfectly well that global warming is what’s making such a resource scramble possible.

This isn’t the first time that great powers have paid attention to the Arctic. That region enjoyed some strategic significance during the Cold War period, when both the United States and the Soviet Union planned to use its skies as passageways for nuclear-armed missiles and bombers dispatched to hit targets on the other side of the globe. Since the end of that era, however, it has largely been neglected. Frigid temperatures, frequent storms, and waters packed with ice prevented most normal air and maritime travel, so — aside from the few Indigenous peoples who had long adapted to such conditions — who would want to venture there?

Climate change is, however, already altering the situation in drastic ways: temperatures are rising faster in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet, melting parts of the polar ice cap and exposing once-inaccessible waters and islands to commercial development. Oil and natural gas reserves have been discovered in offshore areas previously (but no longer) covered by sea ice most of the year. Meanwhile, new mining opportunities are emerging in, yes, Greenland! Worried that other countries, including China and Russia, might reap the benefits of such a climate-altered landscape, the Trump administration has already launched an all-out drive to ensure American dominance there, even at the risk of future confrontation and conflict.

The scramble for the Arctic’s resources was launched early in this century when the world’s major energy firms, led by BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Russian gas giant Gazprom, began exploring for oil and gas reserves in areas only recently made accessible by retreating sea ice.Those efforts gained momentum in 2008, after the U.S. Geological Survey published a report, Circum-Arctic Resources Appraisal, indicating that as much as one-third of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas lay in areas north of the Arctic Circle. Much of this untapped fossil fuel largess was said to lie beneath the Arctic waters adjoining Alaska (that is, the United States), Canada, Greenland (controlled by Denmark), Norway, and Russia — the so-called “Arctic Five.”

Under existing international law, codified in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal nations possess the right to exploit undersea resources up to 200 nautical miles from their shoreline (and beyond if their continental shelf extends farther than that). The Arctic Five have all laid claim to “exclusive economic zones” (EEZs) in those waters or, in the case of the United States (which has not ratified UNCLOS), announced its intention to do so. Most known oil and gas reserves are found within those EEZs, although some are thought to be in overlapping or even contested areas beyond that 200-mile limit, including the polar region itself. Whoever owns Greenland, of course, possesses the right to develop its EEZ.

For the most part, the Arctic Five have asserted their intent to settle any disputes arising from contested claims through peaceful means, the operating principle behind the formation in 1996 of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental organization for states with territory above the Arctic Circle (including the Arctic Five, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden). Meeting every two years, it provides a forum in which, at least theoretically, leaders of those countries and the Indigenous peoples living there can address common concerns and work towards cooperative solutions — and it had indeed helped dampen tensions in the region. In recent years, however, isolating the Arctic from mounting U.S. (and NATO) hostilities toward Russia and China or from the global struggle over vital resources has proven increasingly difficult. By May 2019, when Pompeo led an American delegation to the council’s most recent meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland, hostility and the urge to grab future resources had already spilled into the open.

Reaping the Arctic’s Riches

Usually a forum for anodyne statements about international cooperation and proper environmental stewardship, the lid was blown off the latest Arctic Council meeting in May whenPompeo delivered an unabashedly martial and provocative speech that deserves far more attention than it got at the time. So let’s take a little tour of what may prove a historic proclamation (in the grimmest sense possible) of a new Washington doctrine for the Far North.

“In its first two decades, the Arctic Council has had the luxury of focusing almost exclusively on scientific collaboration, on cultural matters, on environmental research,” the secretary of state began mildly. These were, he said, “all important themes, very important, and we should continue to do those. But no longer do we have that luxury. We’re entering a new age of strategic engagement in the Arctic, complete with new threats to the Arctic and its real estate, and to all of our interests in that region.”

In what turned out to be an ultra-hardline address, Pompeo claimed that we were now in a new era in the Arctic. Because climate change — a phrase Pompeo, of course, never actually uttered — is now making it ever more possible to exploit the region’s vast resource riches, a scramble to gain control of them is now officially underway. That competition for resources has instantly become enmeshed in a growing geopolitical confrontation between the U.S., Russia, and China, generating new risks of conflict.

On the matter of resource exploitation, Pompeo could hardly contain his enthusiasm. Referring to the derision that greeted William Seward’s purchase of Alaska in 1857, he declared:

“Far from the barren backcountry that many thought it to be in Seward’s time, the Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance. It houses 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30% of its undiscovered gas, and an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources.”

Of equal attraction, he noted, was the possibility of vastly increasing maritime commerce through newly de-iced trans-Arctic trade routes that will link the Euro-Atlantic region with Asia. “Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade,” he enthused. “This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days… Arctic sea lanes could come [to be] the 21st century’s Suez and Panama Canals.” That such “steady reductions in sea ice” are the sole consequence of climate change went unmentioned, but so did another reality of our warming world. If the Arctic one day truly becomes the northern equivalent of a tropical passageway like the Suez or Panama canals, that will likely mean that parts of those southerly areas will have become the equivalents of uninhabitable deserts.

As such new trade and drilling opportunities arise, Pompeo affirmed, the United States intends to be out front in capitalizing on them. He then began bragging about what the Trump administration had already accomplished, including promoting expanded oil and gas drilling in offshore waters and also freeing up “energy exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” a pristine stretch of northern Alaska prized by environmentalists as a sanctuary for migrating caribou and other at-risk species. Additional efforts to exploit the region’s vital resources, he promised, are scheduled for the years ahead.

A New Arena for Competition (and Worse)

Ideally, Pompeo noted placidly, competition for the Arctic’s resources will be conducted in an orderly, peaceful manner. The United States, he assured his listeners, believes in “free and fair competition, open, by the rule of law.” But other countries, he added ominously, especially China and Russia, won’t play by that rulebook much of the time and so must be subject to careful oversight and, if need be, punitive action.

China, he pointed out, is already developing trade routes in the Arctic, and establishing economic ties with key nations there. Unlike the United States (which already has multiple military bases in the Arctic, including one at Thule in Greenland, and so has a well-established presence there), Pompeo claimed that Beijing is surreptitiously using such supposedly economic activities for military purposes, including, heinously enough, spying on U.S. ballistic missile submarines operating in the region, while intimidating its local partners into acquiescence.

He then cited events in the distant South China Sea, where the Chinese have indeed militarized a number of tiny uninhabited islands (outfitting them with airstrips, missile batteries, and the like) and the U.S. has responded by sending its warships into adjacent waters. He did so to warn of similar future military stand-offs and potential clashes in the Arctic. “Let’s just ask ourselves, do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” The answer, he assured his listeners, is “pretty clear.” (And I’m sure you can guess what it is.)

The secretary of state then wielded even stronger language in describing “aggressive Russian behavior in the Arctic.” In recent years, he claimed, the Russians have built hundreds of new bases in the region, along with new ports and air-defense capabilities. “Russia is already leaving snow prints in the form of army boots” there, a threat that cannot be ignored. “Just because the Arctic is a place of wilderness does not mean it should become a place of lawlessness. It need not be the case. And we stand ready to ensure that it does not become so.”

And here we get to the heart of Pompeo’s message: the United States will, of course, “respond” by enhancing its own military presence in the Arctic to better protect U.S. interests, while countering Chinese and Russian inroads in the region:

“Under President Trump, we are fortifying America’s security and diplomatic presence in the area. On the security side, partly in response to Russia’s destabilizing activities, we are hosting military exercises, strengthening our force presence, rebuilding our icebreaker fleet, expanding Coast Guard funding, and creating a new senior military post for Arctic Affairs inside of our own military.”

To emphasize the administration’s sincerity, Pompeo touted the largest NATO and U.S. Arctic military maneuvers since the Cold War era, the recently completed “Trident Juncture” exercise (which he incorrectly referred to as “Trident Structure”), involving some 50,000 troops. Although the official scenario for Trident Juncture spoke of an unidentified “aggressor” force, few observers had any doubt that the allied team was assembled to repel a hypothetical Russian invasion of Norway, where the simulated combat took place.

Implementing the Doctrine

And so you have the broad outlines of the new Pompeo Doctrine, centered on the Trump administration’s truly forbidden topic: the climate crisis. In the most pugnacious manner imaginable, that doctrine posits a future of endless competition and conflict in the Arctic, growing ever more intense as the planet warms and the ice cap melts. The notion of the U.S. going nose-to-nose with the Russians and Chinese in the Far North, while exploiting the region’s natural resources, has clearly been circulating in Washington. By August, it had obviously already become enough of a commonplace in the White House (not to speak of the National Security Council and the Pentagon), for the president to offer to buy Greenland.

And when it comes to resources and future military conflicts, it wasn’t such a zany idea. After all, Greenland does have abundant natural resources and also houses that U.S. base in Thule. A relic of the Cold War, the Thule facility, mainly a radar base, is already being modernized, at a cost of some $300 million, to better track Russian missile launches. Clearly, key officials in Washington view Greenland as a valuable piece of real estate in the emerging geopolitical struggle Pompeo laid out, an assessment that clearly wormed its way into President Trump’s consciousness as well.

Iceland and Norway also play key roles in Pompeo’s and the Pentagon’s new strategic calculus. Another former Cold War facility, a base at Keflavik in Iceland has been reoccupied by the Navy and is now being used in antisubmarine warfare missions. Meanwhile, the Marine Corps has stationed several hundred combat troops at bases near Trondheim, Norway, the first permanent deployment of foreign soldiers on Norwegian soil since World War II. In 2018, the Pentagon even reactivated the Navy’s defunct Second Fleet, investing it with responsibility for protecting the North Atlantic as well as the Arctic’s maritime approaches, including those abutting Greenland, Iceland, and Norway. Consider these signs of heating-up times.

And all of this is clearly just the beginning of a major buildup in and regular testing of the ability of the U.S. military to operate in the Far North. As part of Exercise Trident Juncture, for example, the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman and its flotilla of support ships were sent into the Norwegian Sea, the first time a U.S. carrier battle group had sailed above the Arctic Circle since the Soviet Union imploded in 1991. Similarly, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer recently announced plans to send surface warships on trans-Arctic missions, another new military move. (U.S. nuclear submarines make such journeys regularly, sailing beneath the sea ice.)

The Irony of Arctic Melting

Although Secretary Pompeo and his underlings never mention the term climate change, every aspect of his new doctrine is a product of that phenomenon. As humanity puts more and more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and global temperatures continue to rise, the Arctic ice cap will continue to shrink. That, in turn, will make exploitation of the region’s abundant oil and natural gas reserves ever more possible, leading to yet more burning of fossil fuels, further warming, and ever faster melting. In other words, the Pompeo Doctrine is a formula for catastrophe.

Add to this obvious abuse of the planet the likelihood that rising temperatures and increasing storm activity will render oil and gas extraction in parts of the world ever less viable. Many scientists now believe that daytime summer temperatures in oil-producing areas of the Middle East, for instance, are likely to average 120 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050, making outdoor human labor of most sorts deadly. At the same time, more violent hurricanes and other tropical storms passing over the ever-warming waters of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico could imperil the continuing operation of offshore rigs there (and in other similarly storm-prone drilling areas). Unless humanity has converted to alternative fuels by then, the Arctic may be viewed as the world’s primary source of fossil fuels, only intensifying the struggle to control its vital resources.

Perhaps no aspect of humanity’s response to the climate crisis is more diabolical than this. The greater the number of fossil fuels we consume, the more rapidly we alter the Arctic, inviting the further extraction of just such fuels and their contribution to global warming. With other regions increasingly less able to sustain a fossil-fuel extraction economy, a continued addiction to oil will ensure the desolation of the once-pristine Far North as it is transformed into a Pompeo-style arena for burning conflict and civilizational disaster.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. His new book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change (Metropolitan Books), will be published in November.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.

Copyright 2019 Michael T. Klare

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