The science programme Spectrum has an Arctic special this week.
Recommended listening:
Spectrum: Science and Technology

Thank you Dr. Koko Warner for a long and very informative comment on the Ice Blog.
(See comment to last entry. It’s hard to read a long entry like that in the blog comment small print, so I suggest copying and pasting into your usual text editing programme. It’s well worth an attentive read and has more references for further reading).
You certainly give us plenty of food for thought about the implications of climate change in terms of migration and the challenges of developing the mechanisms to cope with them. Let me just quote one section here:
“By 2050 when human population is projected to peak, some 9 billion people will live on Earth. The majority of them will live in urban areas with crushing environmental footprints. Many megacities are located in areas prone to sea level rise.Climate change will visit urban and rural areas alike with incrasingly frequent and violent hazard events. Flooding, intense storms, or droughts (…)Mitigation of greenhouse gases will likely be insufficient to avoid global temperature increases of 2°C or more, making adaptation a necessity at all scales.”

And that brings to me to the “Extreme Weather Congress”, taking place in Bremerhaven, Germany, at the moment. The organiser, Frank Böttcher, draws attention to the fact that climate change is happening far faster than most of the models have been predicting. He calls for a rapid shift to renewable energies.
More about the congress online

At the same time, a group of environment and development organisations have sent an open letter to the heads of the EU countries, warning them not to neglect the climate crisis because of the current financial crisis. They say financial support for the countries hardest hit by climate change is a moral obligation.
With the next round of UN negotiations taking place in Bonn at the end of March and an EU summit meeting earlier next month to agree on the EU’s position for the Copenhagen climate conference at the end of the year and the next UN climate agreement, it’s certainly a good time to launch this kind of initiative. Here’s hoping the open letter will get the attention it deserves.
I’m having a few days off during Germany’s Karneval holiday here. Let me leave you faithful Ice-Blog followers with a link to a marvellous “Climate Time Machine” I’ve found, created by NASA.
NASA climate change site
Click on the Climate Time Machine on the right-hand bar for brilliant visualisation of how key factors such as sea ice, sea level, Co2 emissions and, global temperature have changed in recent history.

I had an enjoyable short walk early this morning,as soon as it got light, across snow-covered fields – although it is thawing, and the light snowfall was turning into a fine drizzle. It was like a silvery-grey veil over the sky and the landscape and beautifully quiet, just me, one or two dog-walkers and a peckish-looking buzzard.
The bird reminded me of something a visitor from Africa said to me at the weekend. “The Germans even have perches for their birds-of-prey by the motorway”. It’s true – not just by the motorways.The bird was using a perch set up in an orchard.
The visitor, used to hot weather, was also delighted to see some snow, and amazed to feel how cars slither on icy roads. “Is it always like this at this time,is this the height of winter, how long does it last?”
Of course people here are saying it’s time spring came along, this has been an unusually cold and snowy winter… But of course this used to be much more “normal” not so many decades ago. And “extreme” weather events, are becoming more common.
The visitor was one of a group from different parts of Africa and other parts of the world in town for a conference on Migration and Security in sub-Saharan Africa.
More about Migration and Security on the website of the Bonn International Centre for Conversion
I was at the conference, which was looking at the extent of migration, the causes and what we need to do about it.
Climate change is, of course, already a factor, and that will increase tremendously in the years to come.
One of the presentations was by Dr. Koko Warner of UNU-EHS, that’s the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security.
More about the work of UNU-EHS
There were a lot of interesting papers at the conference, but Dr. Warner’s, was on the role of environmental degradation in provoking migration.She stressed the need for climate change and environmental degradation to be tackled together, rather than in separate boxes. One thing that stuck in most people’s minds was what she said about possible numbers of migrants. Everybody wants to know how many people are likely to be affected. There are various estimates, but none is based on real scientific estimates at yet. There’s a huge variation in the estimates. A “conservative” estimate says that after 2050, 200 million people will be pushed by “environmental” factors to migrate. Other forecasts see up to 700 million people on the move.
It’s not hard to work out how that could become a challenge to global security.

The Census of Marine Life, which is an ongoing project to document life in the oceans, has published some interesting findings about species in the Arctic and the Antarctic, and changes caused by climate change. It’s hardly surprising that cold-water-loving species are migrating towards the Poles to escape water that has become too warm for their comfort. The results are based partly on some amazing resarch voyages during the international polar year.
It’s well worth a read. And there are some amazing photos and video sequences.
Arctic and Antarctic species online

I’ve just had a look at the Living Planet website and am pleased to hear that Amiram and Ragna are still cycling through Africa to draw attention to climate change.
They visited the Ice Blog at an earlier stage in their journey. Now they’re coming towards the end.
Climate cyclists currently in Namibia
And the whole project is presented here:
Cycling Africa for the Climate