Where does the Beast come from?

It was a great pleasure under such an unpleasant weather to spend the Saturday afternoon in Conway Hall listening to a range of international experts and campaigners to discuss the environmental sustainability issues and the impact of population growth on climate change, this conference of ''Climate Change and Us' was hosted by the membership charity Population Matters and chaired by Sara Parkin.

One of the noteworthy takeaways for me is from the speech about ''Arctic Climate Feedback and Food production'' given by Prof Peter Wadhams who is UK's most experienced sea ice scientist, best known for his worldwide authority and 47 years of research on sea ice and physical ocean processes in the Arctic and the Antarctic. ''Since the first measurements of albedo were collected from Nimbus-7 in 1979'', it is estimated that ''the Arctic ocean albedo has changed from 52% to 48%, produced an increase in radiative forcing 4W/m2'' due to the declining sea ice extent, approximately similar magnitude to the greenhouse gas effects during the same period. Pro Peter Wadhams also highlighted ''Greenland ice sheet has been observed losing at a greater rate in summer (sea level rises equivalently), and Northern Hemisphere snow cover has also been declining''

The rapid Arctic warming evidenced by the continued loss of sea ice, snow cover and thinner ice cover is known as Arctic amplification. This phenomenon is suggested to have strong relationships with Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes extreme weather via one of the pathways: high-amplitude wavy-like jet-stream, a pattern of observed weakness in poleward thickness gradients and zonal upper-level winds. It is possible to link such movement of large-scale atmospheric circulation system to the high likelihood of extreme cold and warm weather events in Europe as well as the US, which could be affecting natural ecosystems and water resources. Most importantly, as Peter Wadhams pointed out, alternating the ''food production'' enhancing the sensitivity of this global issue.

More work and sustained observation are required to better understand the physical dynamics of climate change on Arctic ocean, the conference also called for attention and action on a more human-related issue - population growth. I haven't done much in-depth study on this aspect of global climate change, but I tend to agree and believe the population growth is not the only contributor to climate change but population matters; population stabilisation is not to control women body or impose coercive measures, but to reduce vulnerability and give all genders equal opportunity for education and decent standard of living. We are now in a world ''not LACK of resource but of POOR resource allocation and WASTE of resource'', the widely cited concept ''sustainability'' is not only about economy-society-environment rapport, but also to tackle the existing complex global money circle - the money from fossil fuel and high-carbon development model. 

Current air temperatures in the Arctic Zachary Labe. Daily 2 m surface air temperature for the Arctic averaged above 80°N. Individual years from 1958-2017 are shown by the sequential blue/purple to yellow lines. 2018 is indicated by the red line. ERA40 has been applied for the 1958-2002 climatology (blue line), while the operational ECMWF is used for the current year. This figure is modified from the Danish Meteorological Institute with more information available at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php.

For more information about this conference please visit Climate Change and Us and see the videos of all the presentations and discussions at the onference online on YouTube channel.