Reading between the lines, the government is preparing for doomsday.

[GliderGuider]

112. The Arctic ice should have the whole world crapping in its pants

Here's the chain of events I think is under way. Most of these effects can already be seen in their infancy. What is going to catch everyone off guard is how fast they're going to grow up:

Early climate change ==> loss of Arctic sea ice ==> destabilized permafrost ==> large, abrupt methane release (5 to 20 years) ==> positive feedback with the warming climate ==> increased Arctic amplification ==> reduced thermal gradient between the equator and the pole ==> Rossby waves slow down and destabilize, disrupting the polar jet stream ==> extreme weather changes across the Northern Hemisphere ==> reduced agricultural output throughout the hemisphere.

When you look at where that chain ends - with agriculture - you know what the next link is. What happens when much of a hemisphere (say a billion people across 40 major industrialized countries) runs short of food and turn into climate refugees, with nowhere to go?

Yeah, I completely get where the security emphasis is coming from. DoD has known about this for a while:
http://www.google.com/search?q=DoD+report+climate+change+security&oq=DoD+report+climate+change+security

The connection between arctic ice, methane and Rossby waves is the gun pointed at our heads.