Exponology: Arctic Spring Arrives Weeks Early

So I've been putting together a loose theory of exponential change -- social and natural -- called exponology for my first book Hyperhighway to Hell. In short, it proposes to examine the way things happen way faster than we think they will, and why there is an institutional constant at work in making sure we never find out how fast those things will indeed happen. The "thing" mostly in question in these articles is rapid environmental change, and some new evidence for my theory of exponology just came in.

The BBC reports that a team of Danish researchers has found that the Arctic spring season is showing up weeks earlier than predicted, no doubt because such predictions feature a host of political, economic and cultural forces hard at work keeping the truth -- and the science -- from public view. Anyway, first the numbers:

"Ice in north-east Greenland is melting an average of 14.6 days earlier than in the mid-1990s, bringing forward the date plants flower and birds lay eggs. The team warned that the observed changes could disrupt the region's ecosystems and food chain, affecting the long-term survival of some species."

Once again, we have climate science lagging behind climate change, crippled as ever by public apathy and political meddling. And we also have environmental change proceeding at a quicker pace, which will no doubt accelerate in the coming days. Right now, the researchers explain that they have "found a shift in the continent's seasons, with spring arriving an average of six to eight days earlier than it did 30 years ago." In ten years, it could be arriving eight to 15 days earlier. Or more.

That is what exponology is concerned with unmasking, the way everything can unravel faster than we can track it, encumbered as we are with profiteering and politics. Who here can provide us an algorithm to solve this conundrum? How long do we have before the ice stops coming altogether?

Exponologists, unite! And send me your data.