Forty five years ago, on this day, October 30th, 1981,
Summer Ice and Carbon Dioxide G. Kukla and J. Gavin Science, 30 October 1981
The extent of Antarctic pack ice in the summer, as charted from satellite imagery, decreased by 2.5 million square kilometers between 1973 and 1980. The U.S. Navy and Russian atlases and whaling and research ship reports from the 1930’s indicate that summer ice conditions earlier in this century were heavier than the current average. Surface air temperatures along the seasonally shifting belt of melting snow between 55° and 80°N during spring and summer were higher in 1974 to 1978 than in 1934 to 1938. The observed departures in the two hemispheres qualitatively agree with the predicted impact of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, since it is not known to what extent the changes in snow and ice cover and in temperature can be explained by the natural variability of the climate system or by other processes unrelated to carbon dioxide, a cause-and-effect relation cannot yet be established.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 340ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that by 1981 scientific papers were being published left, right, and centre about carbon dioxide build-up, and you can read about some of them in the CO2 Newsletter. And the question here is, what will happen to ice in the summer? Nothing good, I’m melting, I’m melting.
What I think we can learn from this is that the scientists were on it long, long before Joe and Jane Public picked up, understandably. And the scientists have continued to be on it, and it hasn’t mattered one jot, really.
What happened next Well, the summer ice started shrinking, and here we are.
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
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Also on this day:
October 30, 1972 – Carroll Wilson writes to Maurice Strong, pondering networks
October 30, 1983 – Carl Sagan hosts ‘nuking ourselves would be bad’ conference.
October 30, 2006 – Stern Review publshed.