Ocean currents keep pushing heat toward the Arctic Ocean
Arctic sea ice is getting very thin, as temperatures keep rising and ocean currents keeps pushing warm water toward the Arctic Ocean, as illustrated by the NOAA image below that shows sea surface temperatures as high as 32.7°C or 90.86°F on August 12, 2022.
The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that extends into the Arctic Ocean, as pictured below and discussed at this page. It is driven by the Coriolis force and by prevailing wind patterns. It contributes to the stronger and accelerating warming of the Arctic (compared to the rest of the world), which in turn causes deformation of the Jet Stream, and this can at times cause strong winds to speed up this ocean current, resulting in large amounts of salty, warm water enterong the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in an earlier post and at the feedbacks page.
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[ from earlier post ] |
Latent heat
Latent heat is ocean heat that is, or rather was previously consumed by melting of the sea ice underneath the sea surface.
Latent heat is ocean heat that is, or rather was previously consumed by melting of the sea ice underneath the sea surface.
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[ The Latent Heat Buffer ] |
This ice has meanwhile all but disappeared, so without this latent heat buffer further incoming heat must go elsewhere, i.e. the heat will further raise the temperature of the water and it will also cause more evaporation to take place where the sea ice has disappeared altogether, and this in turn will further heat up the atmosphere over the Arctic.
The nullschool.net image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies from 1981-2011. At the green circle, anomalies were 16.1°C or 29°F on August 9, 2022. Back in 1981-2011, the temperature at that spot was 0°C.
Thin layer of sea ice
The image below, adapted from University of Bremen, shows Arctic sea ice concentration on August 12, 2022, with concentration in a large area close to the North Pole as low as 0%.
The image below, from NSIDC, also shows sea ice concentration on August 9, 2022.
The Naval Research Laboratory image below, a forecast for August 18, 2022, run on August 10, 2022, shows that the sea ice is getting very thin.
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[ click on images to enlarge ] |
There still is a relatively extensive but very thin layer of sea ice present at the surface, as illustrated by the NSIDC image on the right that shows an Arctic sea ice extent of 6.438 million km² on August 11, 2022. This relatively large extent is due to the suppression of air temperatures that comes with the current La Niña (see images further below).
As long as air temperatures are low enough to keep this surface ice frozen and as long as there are no strong winds pushing the ice out of the Arctic Ocean, this thin layer of ice will act as a seal, preventing transfer of heat from the Arctic Ocean to the atmosphere.
The larger the remaining sea ice is in extent, the less ocean heat can be transferred from the Arctic Ocean to the atmosphere, which means that more heat will remain in the Arctic Ocean.
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[ The Buffer has gone, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ] |
The danger is that ocean heat keeps arriving in the Arctic Ocean, while the latent heat buffer is gone. As a result, more of this heat could reach sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, threatening to destabilize hydrates in these sediment, resulting in methane eruptions both from these hydrates and from free gas underneath these hydrates.
Record high methane levels
Methane levels are already at record high and growth is accelerating, even without an extra burst of seafloor methane.
NOAA registered a globally averaged marine surface April 2022 mean of 1909.9 ppb, which is 18.7 ppb higher than April 2021, as illustrated by the image on the right. By comparison, the highest annual growth on the NOAA record is 18.31 ppb for 2021.
The MetOp satellite recorded a mean global methane level of 1971 ppb at 293 mb on August 11, 2022 am. When using a 1-year GWP of 200, this translates into 394.2 ppm CO₂e.
As the image underneath also shows, the MetOp satellite also recorded a peak methane level of 3009 ppb at 469 mb on August 9, 2022 pm.
Record high carbon dioxide levels
When adding this monthly CO₂ concentration of 420.99 ppm to the above 394.2 ppm CO₂e for methane, that gives a total of 815.19 ppm CO₂e.

Clouds feedback
The clouds tipping point could be crossed due to an additional 5 Gt of methane from an abrupt eruption of the seafloor, which is only 10% of the 50 Gt that Natalia Shakhova et al. warned about long ago, while 50 Gt is in turn only a small fraction of all the methane contained in sediments in the Arctic. On its own, such an eruption of seafloor methane could raise the global mean methane concentration by another 1969 ppb which, at a 1-year GWP of 200, would translate into another 393.8 ppm CO₂e, which when added to the above 814.79 ppm CO₂e, gives a total of 1208.59 ppm CO₂e.
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[ from earlier post, click on images to enlarge ] |
So, that would abruptly cause the joint CO₂e of just two greenhouse gases, i.e. methane and CO₂, to cross the 1200 ppm clouds tipping point and trigger a further 8°C global temperature rise, due to the clouds feedback alone.
There are further forcers and feedbacks to be taken into account, which means that the clouds tipping point could be crossed even with a far smaller abrupt release of seafloor methane. While it would take longer for the clouds tipping points to get crossed that way, the associated temperature rise could be enough to drive humans into extinctions well before the tipping point was even reached. A rise of 3°C above pre-industrial could occur on land and drive humans into extinction by 2025.
La Niña
As said, sea ice extent is relatively large at the moment, because we are currently in the depths of a persistent La Niña, which is suppressing the temperature rise.
El Niños typically occur every 3 to 5 years, according to NOAA and as also illustrated by the NOAA image below, so the upcoming El Niño can be expected to occur soon.
The NOAA image below indicates that going from the bottom of a La Niña to the peak of an El Niño could make a difference of more than half a degree Celsius (0.5°C or 0.9°F).
Furthermore, the rise in sunspots from May 2020 to July 2025 could make a difference of some 0.15°C (0.27°F). The next El Niño looks set to line up with a high peak in sunspots, in a cataclysmic alignment that could push up the temperature enough to cause even more dramatic sea ice loss in the Arctic, resulting in runaway temperature rise.
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[ adapted from NOAA - click on images to enlarge ] |
El Niños typically occur every 3 to 5 years, according to NOAA and as also illustrated by the NOAA image below, so the upcoming El Niño can be expected to occur soon.
The NOAA image below indicates that going from the bottom of a La Niña to the peak of an El Niño could make a difference of more than half a degree Celsius (0.5°C or 0.9°F).
Furthermore, the rise in sunspots from May 2020 to July 2025 could make a difference of some 0.15°C (0.27°F). The next El Niño looks set to line up with a high peak in sunspots, in a cataclysmic alignment that could push up the temperature enough to cause even more dramatic sea ice loss in the Arctic, resulting in runaway temperature rise.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is a growing risk that methane will erupt from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, which could cause a dramatic rise in temperature.
Even without such eruption of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, temperatures could rise strongly, as we move into an El Niño and face a peak in sunspots. The resulting temperature rise could drive humans extinct as early as in 2025 with temperatures continuing to skyrocket in 2026, making it in many respects rather futile to speculate about what will happen beyond 2026.
At the same time, the right thing to do now is to help avoid the worst things from happening, through comprehensive and effective action as described in the Climate Plan.
Arctic sea ice on previous months
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/06/arctic-sea-ice-june-2022-why-situation-is-so-dangerous.html
Further links
• Jet Stream
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/jet-stream.html
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/cold-freshwater-lid-on-north-atlantic.html
• NOAA - ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
• NOAA - Monthly Temperature Anomalies Versus El Niño
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
• NOAA - Monthly Temperature Anomalies Versus El Niño
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202207/supplemental/page-4
• University of Bremen
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/databrowser
• nullschool
https://earth.nullschool.net
• Naval Research Laboratory
https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycomcice1-12/arctic.html
• Albedo, latent heat, insolation and more
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/albedo.html
• Latent Heat Buffer
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/latent-heat.html
• Feedbacks in the Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html
• Clouds feedback
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/clouds-feedback.html
• Sunspots
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/sunspots.html
• Cataclysmic Alignment
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/06/cataclysmic-alignment.html
• Human Extinction by 2025?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/07/human-extinction-by-2025.html
• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html
• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html
• University of Bremen
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/databrowser
• NSIDC - Arctic sea ice concentration
• NSIDC - Chartic, interactive sea ice graph
• NOAA - Trends in Atmospheric Methane
• nullschool
https://earth.nullschool.net
https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycomcice1-12/arctic.html
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/albedo.html
• Latent Heat Buffer
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/latent-heat.html
• Feedbacks in the Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html
• Clouds feedback
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/clouds-feedback.html
• Sunspots
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/sunspots.html
• Cataclysmic Alignment
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/06/cataclysmic-alignment.html
• Human Extinction by 2025?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/07/human-extinction-by-2025.html
• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html
• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html