Humanity has reached the "Oh Crap!" point in the climate change process, for those who are watching.  Tony Abbott may have said that "Climate Change is crap", but he does not seem to have realized how bad the crap is going to be for us, and that it is actually the result of all our throwaway waste crap coming back to haunt us. All that waste carbon dioxide for instance. That is our crap that is melting the Arctic. We need to change "Climate change is crap" to "Climate change is OUR crap".

Some of the talk of worried scientists that has been labelled "alarmist", has actually come to pass. They now should be given prophet status.  Some "tipping points" for climate change have arrived far ahead of schedules set by human climate models, and current indications are not nice. Gaia's schedule for Arctic Ice melt seems to have arrived about 50 years too early for the IPCC reports of 2007.  Too much other bad crap also appears to be happening far in advance of the convenient schedules hoped for by conservative human civilization.

The onset of our doom has been gradual and slow, the moments stretch far back in decades.  The global consciousness of it may have only just reached the cultivated panic detectors of some. When the 2013 Artic ice melt didn't quite reach the same historic reduction record as 2012, denialists could laugh.  They get kicks out of noise fluctuations in long term trends. They claimed that warming had paused, and that land temperature increases were not quite as obvious over the last decade. Denialists have been crowing loudest about the false dawn of cooling. There is a secret hidden fear buried deep below layers of denial, where we all really know that Gaia is coming on strong for a massive revenge against human civilization. Denialists secretly watch for new climate science developments as much as the alarmists, if they are really on to their game.

For our planetary size and geologic time scales, if the changes wrought can be seen over a decade, then they are moving really fast. Here is a picture of Arctic Ice reduction, that indicates Gaia is keeping up with her personal revenge schedule for humanity. The seasonal maximum of March is a new record minimum.

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/has-the-descent-begun.html

As an alarmist watcher, I join others in taking the 2015 Arctic ice free prediction to be a given Gaia gift. Methance eruptions from the shallow Arctic sea bed and continental shelves are increasing rapidly, and are now a given Gaia gift.  The next tipping point of interest is how fast will the Greenland Ice Sheet collapse?

The graphic below is also obtained from http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/ and note how the seas around Greenland are 4 degrees C warmer than average for this month.

The rapid collapse of Greenland Ice Sheet will accelarate global sea level rise, now at 1 cm / year.  Greenland's rate of ice mass loss is increasing each year. It seems that we might have many decades, but please remember this is a non-linear system, and the conditions and feedbacks of today are an unrepeatable experiment.

The folks at the Arctic Methane Emergency Group recognize that all of this indicates a major shift in Earths weather systems. They are convinced that Gaia has serious murderous intent, and the changes Arctic will also be a big change in global climate.  http://ameg.me/

On balance, the actual rate of Arctic methane release, and its effect on global methane levels, and its ultimate rate potential, and reservoir size are uncertain.  Its early days yet. Skeptical science has a good summary here : https://www.skepticalscience.com/toward-improved-discussions-methane.html    

If it is really "game over" the additional Arctic methane and CO2 emissions will start to show up in global average methane levels, and in the Keeling CO2 curve. The Keeling curve is already gone far enough, passing 400 ppm for the first time in human history in the middle of March 2014. It has been going up by 2-3 ppm every year, from current industrial CO2 emissions, which are still growing.  Global CO2 emissions have to fall a long way in order to reverse this trend. A significant collapse in civilization powered by carbon energy is required.

It seems that the rate of Arctic emission releases will be proportional further rises in Arctic and global temperature, and so its an amplifying feedback which will play out over time.

The ice box on the top of our planet has melted. Major wind systems and ocean currents have shifted. Methane and carbon dioxide release has started from great reservoirs of defrosting carbon. These are adding to the total of human carbon emissions, and have a potential to increase.  If this is significant, we should be seeing an accelaration in the Keeling Curve over the next decade. Trapped heat energy continues to be packed into the oceans. Its shifting currents are redistributing the heat around the planet, and will help melt the ice sheets.

Yesterday would be a good time to panic, and a good time to reconsider the value of not burning fossil fuels.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury, like a woman planetary goddess scorned.

From 'The Mourning Bride', by William Congreve

I am actually an optimist, relatively speaking, by the process of trying not to know too much about anything. No matter how much we know, some absolute predictions are likely to be off. I currently rate Guy MacPherson the global No.1 climate change pessimist, and he naturally seems to come across all the really bad climate science news, collects and publishes it, and casts it in a multiplicative negative light. See http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/  The accepted term seems to be "Near Term Extinction" (NTE). Also see this more optimistic piece by future veterans Paul and Anne Ehrlich http://ingienous.com/?page_id=15835

The original Royal Society URL for Paul and Anne Ehrlich summary is http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845.full.pdf

Guy Macpherson on a speaking tour.