Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic

At least ten tipping points look set to hit the Arctic hard, as described in an earlier post. Tipping points are abrupt climate changes that typically occur as self-reinforcing feedback loops start to kick in. Such tipping points can coincide and they are in many ways interrelated, making that the danger is compounded by the domino effect of multiple tipping points hitting one another. 

One feedback that is rarely-mentioned is the cold freshwater lid that is forming at the surface of the North Atlantic. 


Arctic is heating up faster than the rest of world.
Temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than elsewhere in the world, as illustrated by the image on the right and discussed at the Feebacks page. As a result, the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator narrows and this slows down the overall speed at which the Jet Stream circumnavigates Earth. It also widens the band within which the Jet Stream travels, so at times the jet stream will fan out widely or become much more wavy.

This deformed Jet Stream can cause more hot air to travel from the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean into the Arctic, as well as more cold air to travel out of the Arctic and descend over Europe, Asia and North America. Furthermore, high sea surface temperatures strengthen the wind over oceans, in turn increasing the speed of ocean currents and wave height.  

The image below, from an earlier post, shows the situation on September 6, 2020, when high sea surface temperatures on the Northern Hemisphere and a narrow difference between the Equator and the North Pole distorted the Jet Stream, making it cross the Arctic Ocean, form circular wind patterns and reach high speeds over the North Atlantic. The globe on the right shows that the Gulf Stream off the North American coast reached speeds of 8 km/h or 5 mph (at green circle).

[ click on images to enlarge ] 
Emissions by people heat up the air, which heats up oceans and makes winds stronger, in turn speeding up global ocean currents. The 2020 study by Hu et al. found increased kinetic energy in about 76% of the upper 2,000 meters of global oceans, as a result of intensification of surface winds since the 1990s. Wind speed increases especially during Winter on the Northern Hemisphere, when there are large temperature differences between the oceans and continents on the Northern Hemisphere. 

The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that extends into the Arctic Ocean, as pictured below. 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 entering the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in an earlier post. For more on the Gulf Stream and ocean currents, also see the links below. 

[ from earlier post ]

Below follow a number of images showing wind speed at different pressure levels, i.e. 850 hPa and 250 hPa (Jet Stream), wave height, sea surface temperature anomalies and 3-hour precipitation accumulation, all on December 12, 2020. 

The first image below shows that, on December 12, 2020, waves as high as 12.95 m or 42.5 ft (green circle) were recorded in the North Atlantic, and wind speed was 139 km/h or 86 mph (at 850 hPa) at that location.


The next image (below) shows that, on December 12, 2020, sea surface temperatures were very high off the east coasts of Asia and North America, where ocean currents carry hot water to the north-east. As the image shows, the sea surface temperature was 14°C or 25.1°F higher than 1981-2011 at the green circle. 


High sea surface temperatures are causing winds over oceans to get much stronger than they used to be at this time of year. The image below shows that, on December 12, 2020, the jet stream reached speeds as high as 324 km/h or 201 mph (at the green circle), while instantaneous wind power density at 250 hPa (jet stream) was 141.1 kW/m².


These strong winds then collide at high speed with the air in front that is moving at a slower speed. This collision occurs with an even greater force due to the lower overall speed at which the jet stream circumnavigates Earth, and especially in Winter on the Northern Hemisphere, when temperatures over land (i.e. North America, Europe and Asia) are low. Where such collisions occur, the air gets strongly pushed aside toward the Arctic and the Equator. The images show the Jet Stream crisscrossing the Equator and moving high up in the Arctic. 


Above image shows 3-hour precipitation accumulation as high as 94 mm or 3.7 in (at the green circle) on December 12, 2020. 

At times, the Jet Stream can reach even higher speeds. The image on the right shows that on December 20, 2020, the Jet Stream reached a speed of 406 km/h or 252 mph at the green circle, while the Jet Stream crosses the Equator in the south and, in the north, wind forms a circular pattern over the Arctic Ocean. As described in an earlier post, the Jet Stream was as fast as 411 km/h or 255 mph south of Greenland (at the green circle), before crossing the Arctic Ocean on November 4, 2020.

As said, as ocean heat increases, the temperature difference between land and oceans increases in Winter on the Northern Hemisphere, when land is cold. 

The temperature difference increases even more at times when cold air descends from the Arctic over North America and over Europe and Asia. This larger temperature difference results in stronger winds that can carry more warm, moist air farther down the track of the Gulf Stream, as illustrated by image on the right that shows precipitation in mm per hour. 

Ocean stratification occurs due to differences in density, with warmer, lighter, less salty water layering on top of heavier, colder, saltier water. Increasingly, ocean stratification results in less nutrients from greater depth reaching the surface and resulting in the formation of a freshwater lid on top of oceans.

[ image from: 10°C or 18°F warmer by 2021? ]
Until now, about 93% of the extra heat from the Earth's energy imbalance has ended up in the ocean as increasing ocean heat content. Less than 1% remains in the atmosphere. The top few meters of the ocean store as much heat as Earth's entire atmosphere. Further stratification could cause more heat to remain in the atmosphere or to reach only the surface of the oceans, instead of sinking to greater depth as previously. As temperatures rise, the atmosphere will suck up more water vapor along with heat, while stronger storms could also cause more of the heat at the surface of the oceans to re-enter the atmosphere. 

Stronger ocean stratification, in combination with higher sea surface temperatures and distortions of the Jet Stream, can cause a sudden strengthening of the wind, and this can push a lot of warm, moist air all the way from the Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean. 

[ click on images to enlarge ]
As oceans heat up, more water evaporates from the sea surface. This evaporation will cool the sea surface somewhat, so the sea surface can be colder than the water just underneath the sea surface. 

Much of the moisture that evaporates from the sea surface will get blown farther along the path of the Gulf Stream in the direction toward the Arctic before precipitating, thus contributing - along with meltwater - to the formation of a cold freshwater lid at the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The image on the right shows a wavy Jet Stream pushing precipitation north over the Atlantic Ocean, with 0.9 mm or 0.04 in of precipitation (3-hour accumulation) reaching the North Pole on December 24, 2020. 

The Argo float compilation image below illustrates the presence of a cold freshwater lid on top of the ocean, where water from the North Atlantic flows into the Arctic Ocean. 


In conclusion, stronger winds along the path of the Gulf Stream can at times speed up sea currents that travel underneath this cold freshwater lid over the North Atlantic. As a result, huge amounts of warm, salty water can travel from the Atlantic Ocean toward the Arctic Ocean, abruptly pushing up temperatures and salinity levels at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and thus threatening to destabilize methane hydrates that are contained in sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. The danger is especially large where seas are shallow in the Arctic Ocean, such as the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), and where methane is present in submarine permafrost.
 
The above image was created with content from a paper by Natalia Shakhova et al., from an earlier post. 


The panel on the left of the above image, from an earlier post, shows sea surface temperatures on June 20, 2020, while the panel on the right shows a bathymetry map indicating that the sea in a large part of the Arctic Ocean is very shallow. 


The above map shows the thickness of Northern Hemisphere permafrost on land and below the seabed.

As the image on the right shows, sea surface temperatures off the east coast of North America were very high on January, 2021, as much as 15.4°C or 27.7°F higher than 1981-2011 at the green circle.

In the Arctic Ocean itself, increased flow of freshwater from rivers can also lead to a more extensive freshwater lid at the surface, since freshwater doesn't mix well with the more salty water underneath.

Similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the Kuroshio Current transports warm equatorial water poleward in the Pacific Ocean. 

Studies, some of which dating back more than two decades, show that over the shallow East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) winds at times can mix the water column from the top to the bottom.  A study of the ESAS shows that, in September 2000, water temperatures at the seafloor were 4.7°C at 20m depth at one location and 2.11°C at 41m depth at another location, with salinity levels of 29.7‰ and of 31.7‰, respectively. 

The animation on the right shows how remnants of Typhoon Merbok were forecast to enter the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait from September 17 to 19, 2022. 

In summary, the danger is that further stratification and stronger storms will enable more warm, salty water to travel from both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean into the Arctic Ocean and reach shallow parts of the Arctic Ocean such as the ESAS, pushing up temperatures and salinity levels at the seafloor and destabilizing methane hydrates, in turn resulting in eruptions of methane from these hydrates and from free gas contained in sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed at this post. The image on the right illustrates the danger. On January 24, 2022, heat carried along the path of the Jet Stream from the North Atlantic to the Arctic resulted in a cyclone around Svalbard with record low pressure, record weekly loss of sea ice cover, record surface wind speeds and large waves-in-sea ice up to 2 m in amplitude more than 100 km into the ice pack, as discussed in a 2022 study. 

Latent heat loss, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page

Further feedbacks of the associated temperature rise can make the situation even more threatening, e.g. more methane over the Arctic would push up temperatures locally over the Arctic Ocean as well as over the permafrost on land. A 2020 study by Turetsky et al. found that Arctic permafrost thaw plays a greater role in climate change than previously estimated. Such eruptions of methane could, on their own, cause the 1200 ppm CO₂e clouds feedback tipping point to be crossed within years, which in turn can cause global temperatures to rise by 8°C, as discussed in an earlier post. 

Further events and developments could cause the clouds tipping point could be crossed soon, e.g. if the rise in methane kept following a trend as depicted in the image below, showing WMO 2015-2021 global annual surface mean methane abundance, with a trend added.
[ from earlier post ]
The trend points at a potential mean global abundance of methane of more than 700 ppm CO₂e by the end of 2026, implying that when including further forcers the clouds tipping point could be crossed in 2026. Furthermore, the trend points at 1200 ppm CO₂e getting crossed in 2028 due to the forcing of methane alone.


Gulf Stream, ocean currents and Jet Stream changes

• The Mechanism leading to Collapse of Civilization and Runaway Global Warming

• Warming Gulf Stream causes methane release

• Act now on methane - by Malcolm P.R. Light
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/12/act-now-on-methane.html

• Global Warming and the Gulf Stream - Our Atmospheric Pollution Roadway to Subsea Arctic Methane-Induced Climatic Hell - by Malcolm P.R. Light
• Watch where the wind blows

• Gulf Stream brings ever warmer water into Arctic Ocean 

• Warning of mass extinction of species, including humans, within one decade

• Gulf Stream is heating up

• Signs of the rise to come

• Arctic sea ice June 2022 - why the situation is so dangerous

• Climate Reanalyzer

• Nullschool.net

• Carbon release through abrupt permafrost thaw - by Merritt Turetsky et al.

• Deep-reaching acceleration of global mean ocean circulation over the past two decades - by Shijian Hu et al. 

• Ocean Heat Content

• A perspective on climate change from Earth's energy imbalance - by Kevin Trenberth et al.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2752-5295/ac6f74

• 2020: Hottest Year On Record 

• Temperatures threaten to become unbearable
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/09/temperatures-threaten-to-become-unbearable.html

• Feedbacks in the Arctic

• Arctic Hit By Ten Tipping Points

• Most Important Message Ever

• When will we die?

• Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf - by Natalia Shakhova et al. 
• 2020 Siberian Heatwave continues

• Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic (2020) 
https://www.facebook.com/SamCarana/posts/10164712454510161

• Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic (SSTA and Jet Stream) (2021)
https://www.facebook.com/SamCarana/posts/10164789581420161

• Map - Permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere 
https://www.grida.no/resources/13519%20image

• Recent changes to Arctic river discharge - by Dongmei Feng et al. (2021)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27228-1

• Cyclone enters Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait (2022)
https://www.facebook.com/SamCarana/posts/10166948876390161

• The East Siberian Sea as a transition zone between Pacific-derived waters and Arctic shelf waters - by Igor Semiletov et al. (2005) 
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL022490

• Strongest Arctic cyclone on record led to surprising loss of sea ice
https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/11/29/strongest-arctic-cyclone-on-record-led-to-surprising-loss-of-sea-ice

• Record Arctic Cyclone of January 2022: Characteristics, Impacts, and Predictability - by Edward Blanchard‐Wrigglesworth et al. (2022) 
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JD037161

• The Clouds Feedback and the Clouds Tipping Point
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/clouds-feedback.html

• Methane keeps rising
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/methane-keeps-rising.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html



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