Friday, June 30, 2023

Arctic sea ice under threat - update 5

The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows Arctic sea ice on June 29, 2023, with the North Pole on the left. 


The animation below shows that, while clouds can obscure a closer look, sea ice is clearly very thin with the thickest ice breaking up near the top of Greenland, some 750 km from the North Pole. 


The Uni of Bremen image below shows Arctic sea ice thickness on June 28, 2023.


The danger is that, as El Niño strengthens, there will be massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months, with water in the Arctic Ocean heating up strongly due to loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo, while huge amounts of ocean heat keep entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

The image below shows that the North Atlantic sea surface temperature was 23.5°C on June 28, 2023 (on the black line), 0.9°C higher than the 22.6°C on June 28, 2022 (on the orange line). A record high of 24.9°C was reached on Sept. 4, 2022, even while La Niña was suppressing the temperature. This time, there's an El Niño. 


The image below, adapted from NOAA, shows ocean heat moving toward the Arctic along the path of the Gulf Stream on June 25, 2023, while sea surface temperatures on the map are as high as 32.6°C.


In addition, the Jet Stream is strongly deformed, and this threatens to strengthen heatwaves extending over the Arctic Ocean and causing hot water from rivers to enter the Arctic Ocean, and to strengthen storms accelerating the flow of ocean heat into the Arctic Ocean, while fires and storms contribute to darkening of the sea ice, further speeding up its demise.

The danger is that, as El Niño strengthens and as ocean heat keeps entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, a huge amount of heat will abruptly be pushed into the Arctic Ocean.

This danger is illustrated by the image on the right, from an earlier post, showing the Jet Stream pushing wind at a speed of 126 km/h (78 mph) up through Fram Strait (at the green circle) into the Arctic Ocean on June 21, 2023.

This situation threatens to cause massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months, with water in the Arctic Ocean heating up strongly due to loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo.

This in turn threatens to trigger methane eruptions from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, a threat that has been described many times before, such as here, here and here.

[ Latent heat loss, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]
[ see the Extinction page ]
Loss of Arctic sea ice albedo, loss of the latent heat buffer and eruption of seafloor methane all constitute tipping points that threaten to abruptly accelerate the temperature rise in the Arctic, further speeding up loss of permafrost in Siberia and North America and thus threatening to trigger further releases of greenhouse gases.

In addition, there are further events and developments that could unfold and make things even worse.

The upcoming temperature rise on land on the Northern Hemisphere could be of such a severity that much traffic, transport and industrial activity will grind to a halt, resulting in a reduction in cooling aerosols that are now masking the full wrath of global heating. Without these cooling aerosols, the temperature is projected to rise strongly, while there could be an additional temperature rise due to an increase in warming aerosols and gases as a result of more biomass and waste burning and forest fires. Furthermore, as traffic slows down, there will be less nitrogen oxide emissions, which could result in less hydroxyl to curtail methane.

The bar on the right depicts the threat, as discussed at the Extinction page.

In conclusion, the situation is dire and calls for support for a Climate Emergency Declaration.


Links

• Arctic sea ice under threat

• Arctic sea ice under threat - update 1

• Arctic sea ice under threat - update 2

• Arctic sea ice under threat - update 3
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/arctic-sea-ice-under-threat-update-3.html

• Arctic sea ice under threat - update 4
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/arctic-sea-ice-under-threat-update-4.html

• Climate Reanalyzer - Daily sea surface temperatures
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily

• NOAA - The National Centers for Environment Prediction Climate Forecast System Version 2  

• NOAA - Climate Prediction Center - ENSO Diagnostic Discussions
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml

• NOAA - sea surface temperature
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/contour/index.html

• University of Bremen - sea ice concentration and thickness
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/start

• NASA Worldview
https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov


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