Arctic sea ice August 2023

Arctic Ocean heating up

There are at least five mechanisms that cause the water of the Arctic Ocean to heat up, as described below. 

1. Direct Heat. Heat from sunlight directly reaches the surface, i.e. the sea ice or the water of the Arctic Ocean.

The August 8, 2023, image on the right, from Climate Reanalyzer, shows a 1-3 days forecast of maximum surface temperatures (2m). Heatwaves over land can extend over the Arctic Ocean. 

High levels of emissions and greenhouse gases over the Arctic increase the amount of heat that is reaching the water of the Arctic Ocean and the sea ice. 

The NASA satellite image below shows smoke from forest fires in Canada moving over the Beaufort Sea and over the sea ice on August 6, 2023. 

[ click on images to enlarge ]

A recent study highlights that forest fires can strongly contribute to the temperature rise. Smoke, soot and further aerosols settling on the sea ice also darken the surface, resulting in more sunlight getting absorbed (feedback #9 on the feedbacks page). 

The image on the right, from a Copernicus news release dated August 3, 2023, shows the dramatic growth in emissions from fires in Canada up to end July 2023. 

The news release quotes Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service senior scientist, Mark Parrington, who comments: "As fire emissions from boreal regions typically peak at the end of July and early August, the total is still likely to continue rising for some more weeks."

The Climate Reanalyzer image below shows that the temperature in the Arctic was at a record high for the time of year of 5.64°C or 42.15°F on August 9, 2023. Earlier, a record temperature of 5.81°C or 42.46°F was reached (on July 27, 2023).

Arctic sea ice typically reaches its minimum extent half September, when temperatures in the Arctic fall below 0°C and water at the surface of the Arctic Ocean starts refreezing.

2. Heat from Rivers. Hot water from rivers ending in the Arctic Ocean is another way the water is heating up and this is melting the sea ice from the side.

The August 10, 2023, image below, from nullschool.net, illustrates the added impact of heat that is carried by rivers into the Arctic Ocean, with sea surface temperatures as high as 20.4°C or 68.7°F recorded at a location where the Mackenzie River flows into the Arctic Ocean (at the green circle, where the green arrow is pointing at).

On August 6, 2023, the sea surface was 14.5°C or 26.2°F hotter than in 1981-2011, at a nearby location where the Mackenzie River is flowing into the Arctic Ocean, as illustrated by the image below.

The image on the right shows that on August 10, 2023, the sea surface temperature was 17.6°C or 63.7°F at a location where the Lena River in Siberia enters the Arctic Ocean, i.e. 14.2°C or 25.5°F hotter than it was in 1981-2011 (at green circle).

The Lena River flows into the Laptev Sea which is mostly less than 50 meters deep, making it relatively easy for surface heat to reach the seafloor. 

The NOAA image underneath on the right shows sea surface temperatures in the Bering Strait as high as 19.2°C or 66.56°F on August 8, 2023.

The image illustrates that the water can heat up strongly where hot water from rivers and run-off from rainwater enters the Bering Strait.

3. Ocean Heat. Yet another mechanism is heat that is entering the Arctic Ocean from other oceans, i.e. from the North Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Sea ice underneath the sea surface is melting from below due to ocean heat. 

An earlier post discusses why we are currently facing record high sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic.

The image below shows how the Gulf Stream is pushing ocean heat toward the Arctic Ocean, while sea surface temperatures show up as high as 33.1°C or 91.58°F on August 9, 2023. 

The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that extends into the Arctic Ocean, as pictured below and discussed at this page. This ocean current is driven by the Coriolis force and by prevailing wind patterns.

[ from earlier post ]

This ocean current contributes to the stronger and accelerating rise in temperature in the Arctic (compared to the rest of the world), which in turn causes deformation of the Jet Stream that can at times cause strong winds that speed up this ocean current, as discussed in earlier post such as this 2017 one. 

[ from earlier post ]

4. Sea ice moving out. The Arctic Ocean is also heating up as sea ice is getting pushed into the Atlantic Ocean. Even the thickest sea ice can break up into pieces and move along with the flow of meltwater from glaciers, ocean currents and/or strong wind.

[ Click on images to enlarge ]

The animation below, created with NASA Worldview satellite images, shows the northern tip of Greenland at the top left of each frame. The green square on the image on the right indicates the area of the animation. It's around Prinsesse Thyra Island in Northeast Greenland National Park. 

This is where typically the thickest sea ice is located. The animation shows the sea ice breaking up and moving out of the Arctic Ocean. What is left of the pieces will eventually melt in the Atlantic Ocean. Pieces of sea ice that are pushed out of the Arctic Ocean reduce the latent heat buffer, as they can no longer consume heat in the Arctic Ocean through melting.  

5. Sea ice sealing off the Arctic Ocean from the atmosphere

The sea ice used to reach its lowest extent approximately half September. With the change in seasons, air temperatures decrease and sea ice starts increasing in extent at the sea surface. The image below illustrates how, as the Arctic Ocean starts freezing over, less heat will from then on be able to escape to the atmosphere. Sealed off from the atmosphere by sea ice, greater mixing of heat in the water will occur down to the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in FAQ#21.

[ From the post September 2015 Sea Surface Warmest On Record ]

In October, sea ice has stopped melting and is increasing in extent at the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Also, as land around the Arctic Ocean freezes over, less fresh water will flow from rivers into the Arctic Ocean, while hot, salty water will continue to flow into the Arctic Ocean. As a result, the salt content of the Arctic Ocean increases, all the way down to the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, increasing the danger that ice in cracks and passages in sediments at the seafloor will melt, allowing methane contained in the sediment to escape and enter the atmosphere.

[ Pingos and conduits. Hovland et al. (2006) ]

Warmer water reaching these sediments can penetrate them by traveling down cracks and fractures in the sediments, and reach the hydrates. The image on the right, from a study by Hovland et al., shows that hydrates can exist at the end of conduits in the sediment. Such conduits were formed when some of the methane did escape from such hydrates in the past. Heat can travel down such conduits relatively fast and reach methane hydrates that keep methane in cages of ice. As heat reaches the ice cages, a temperature rise less than 1°C can suffice to destabilize such cages, resulting in a huge abrupt eruption, as the methane expands more than 160 times in volume.

[ The Buffer has gone, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]

Further increasing the danger, this return of the sea ice results in less moisture evaporationg from the water, which together with the change of seasons results in lower hydroxyl levels at the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, in turn resulting in less methane getting broken down in the atmosphere over the Arctic.

Feedbacks and further developments

More generally, the rapid temperature rise threatens to cause numerous feedbacks to accelerate and further developments to occur such as crossing of tipping points, with the danger that the temperature will keep rising.

In the video below, Peter Carter, Paul Beckwith and Dale Walkonen discuss the situation.

One such feedbacks is the formation and growth of a cold freshwater lid at the surface of the North Atlantic that enables large amounts of salty and relatively hot water to flow underneath this lid and underneath the remaining sea ice, to enter the Arctic Ocean, as discussed earlier here, as well as here and at the feedbacks page.

This further increases the danger of destabilization of methane hydrates contained in sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. 

Ominously, some very high methane levels were recorded recently at Barrow, Alaska, as illustrated by the NOAA image below.

Conclusion

The situation is dire and the outlook is getting more grim every day, calling for a Climate Emergency Declaration and implementation of comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan and as most recently discussed at Transforming Society.

Links

• Climate Reanalyzer - Outlook Forecast Maps

https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/fcst_outlook/?dm_id=arc-lea&ndays=d1-3

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

• Shortwave absorption by wildfire smoke dominated by dark brown carbon - by Rajan Chakrabarty et al.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01237-9

discussed at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10160935394954679

• Feedbacks

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

• Climate Reanalyzer - Daily 2-meter Air Temperature

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily

• Nullschool
https://earth.nullschool.net

• NOAA - Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Contour Charts

https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/contour/index.html

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Barrow, Alaska

https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=BRW&program=ccgg&type=ts

• Feedbacks in the Arctic

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

• Record high North Atlantic sea surface temperature

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/07/record-high-north-atlantic-sea-surface-temperature.html

• NASA Worldview

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov

• Copernicus news release - 2023 Canada wildfires emissions have already doubled previous annual record (August 3, 2023)

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/2023-canada-wildfires-emissions-have-already-doubled-previous-annual-record

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

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2017/02/warning-of-mass-extinction-of-species-including-humans-within-one-decade.html

• Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/cold-freshwater-lid-on-north-atlantic.html

• Dire situation gets more dire every day
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/07/dire-situation-gets-more-dire-every-day.html

• The Threat
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/threat.html

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

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html

What the IPCC impacts report is hiding

[ click on images to enlarge ]

Above image is adapted from content by IPCC AR6 WGII and Peter Carter, expert IPCC reviewer and director of the Climate Emergency Institute. 

The IPCC keeps hiding how much the temperature could already have risen and could rise over the next few years, the associated dangers, and the policies that could most effectively improve the situation. 

1. Hiding the potential rise that has already unfolded
One of the first issues that springs to mind is the IPCC's use of 1850-1900 as a baseline, which isn't pre-industrial as the Paris Agreement called for.

Above image, adapted from a NASA image, shows a January 2022 temperature rise of 1.31°C versus 1885-1915. As the box underneath indicates, a further 0.1°C could be added for ocean air temperatures and another 0.1°C for higher polar anomalies. When calculating the temperature rise from pre-industrial, a further 0.79°C could be added for the period from 3480 BC to 1900, resulting in a total temperature rise from pre-industrial to January 2022 of 2.3°C.

2. Hiding the potential rise to come

While a huge temperature rise has already unfolded, the rise is accelerating, as discussed at earlier posts such as this one and as illustrated by the image below, an example from an earlier post. 

In other words, an even larger temperature rise threatens to unfold soon, i.e. this could happen over the course of at few years, as illustrated by the stacked bar next to the cartoon above and as discussed at the extinction page.

3. Hiding the largest dangers

The rise that has already unfolded, i.e. the rise from pre-industrial to 2020, could be as much as 2.3°C, as discussed above and at the pre-industrial page. Furthermore, the temperature rise is accelerating. In other words, Earth is already in the danger zone and the question remains what the implications are of a 3°C, 4°C and 5°C rise.

What would be the impact of a 3°C, a 4°C, or a 5°C rise? 

At a 3°C rise, humans will likely go extinct, as habitat for humans (and many other species) will disappear. Such a rise will cause a rapid decline of the snow and ice cover around the globe, in turn making that less sunlight gets reflected back into space. Associated changes are discussed in more detail at this page and this page, and include that the jet stream will further get out of shape, resulting in more extreme weather events such as droughts, heatwaves and firestorms. Changes to the jet stream will also contribute to a further strengthening of storms, which threatens to at times push large amounts of hot, salty water into the Arctic Ocean, triggering eruptions of more and more seafloor methane, as discussed in an earlier post.

[ from an earlier post  ]

From a 4°C rise, Earth will experience a moist-greenhouse scenario. As the temperature rise gains further momentum, runaway heating may well turn Earth into a lifeless planet, a danger that was discussed in this 2013 post, warning that, without anything stopping the rise, it will continue to eventually destroy the ozone layer and the ice caps, while the oceans would be evaporating into the atmosphere's upper stratosphere and eventually disappear into space.

At 5°C rise, most life on Earth will have gone extinct. A 2018 study by Strona & Bradshaw indicates that most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise (see box on the right). As the temperature keeps rising, chances are that all life on Earth will go extinct, as Earth would be left with no ozone layer to protect life from deadly UV-radiation. Furthermore, Earth would no longer have water, an essential building block of life. Soil moisture, groundwater and water in oceans would evaporate and eventually disappear into space, as discussed in an earlier post.

Much of the above was discussed earlier at Most Important Message Ever.

[ from the post When will we die? ]

A rise of more than 5°C could happen within a decade, possibly by 2026. Humans will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise and most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise. In the light of this, we should act with integrity.

4. Hiding the very policies that can most effectively improve the situation

The IPCC creates a perception that pollution can continue for decades to come. The IPCC does so by downplaying the size of the temperature rise and the threat of a huge rise within years. The IPCC promotes the idea that there was a “carbon budget” to be divided among polluters that would enable polluters to keep polluting for decades to come. Most importantly, the IPCC has once more failed to do what the Paris Agreement calls for, i.e. for the IPCC to specify the pathways that can best improve the situation, specifically the policies that are needed to facilitate a better future. 

The speed at which a huge temperature rise can unfold makes that many adaption efforts could be wasted or even counter-productive. A 2021 report by Neta Crawford estimates the budgetary costs and future obligations of the post-9/11 wars at about $8 trillion in 2021 dollars. Much of that money was spent on securing the supply and transport of fossil fuel. Governments spend $1.8tn a year on subsidies that harm the environment, a study by Doug Koplow et al. finds. Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020 or about 6.8% of GDP and are expected to rise to 7.4% of GDP in 2025, a 2021 IMF report finds. 

Perverse subsidies are even higher when also including money that now goes into constructing transport infrastructure such as roads, highways, tunnels, bridges, railways, airports, etc. Redirecting such funding could enable more people to work and study from home with time to spare and gardens to grow their own food, instead of commuting by car over roads to offices, schools, etc.

[ from earlier post ]

Electric VTOL air taxis can replace a huge part of the traffic that now demands expensive infrastructure such as roads, railways including service stations, parking buildings and strips, bridges, tunnels, etc. Air taxis can facilitate a dramatic reduction in the need for traffic infrastructure, which also includes space now used for garages and parking.

If much of this traffic instead takes place by air taxis, then urban design can have more space for outdoor dining, parks, markets, tree-lined footpaths, bike-tracks, etc. 

Furthermore, drones could be used for transport and delivery of cargo, pharmaceuticals, etc. In many places, cities can become more compact and buildings can be put closer together, thus reducing overall cost and enabling people to reach destinations quicker, either by walking or cycling. Air taxis can bring people to many destinations fast, while people can also using online facilities to further reduce the need for transport and travel infrastructure.

In other places, the space now used for roads and parking could instead be used to create urban forests, to extend gardens and to create community gardens and markets where people can get locally-produced vegan-organic food such as fruit and vegetables.

Much additional infrastructure can also change, such as traffic lights and road signs, streetlights and the electricity grid. Supply of natural gas could be replaced by electric devices such as heat-pumps, induction-cookers and electric water-heaters. Organic waste can be pyrolysed with the resulting biochar added to the soil.

For more on the Urban Heat Island effect, see:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/airtaxis/posts/419568755612304

For more on electric water heaters, see:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/geoengineering/posts/4415470995176206

For more on biochar and pyrolysis, see:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/biochar

Conclusion

The situation is dire and calls for the most comprehensive and effective action, as described at the Climate Plan.


Links

• IPCC AR6 WGII - Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii

• Is the IPCC creating false perceptions, again?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/08/is-the-ipcc-creating-false-perceptions-again.html

• Human Extinction by 2022?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/11/human-extinction-by-2022.html

• NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (v4)

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/

• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• Aerosols
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/aerosols.html

• Clouds feedback
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/clouds-feedback.html

• When Will We Die?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Could Earth go the same way as Venus?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/could-earth-go-same-way-as-venus.html

• Accelerating Methane Rise
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/02/accelerating-methane-rise.html

• Protecting Nature by Reforming Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: The Role of Business Prepared - by Doug Koplow and Ronald Steenblik (2022) 
https://www.earthtrack.net/sites/default/files/documents/EHS_Reform_Background_Report_fin.pdf

• The U.S. Budgetary Costs of the Post-9/11 Wars - by Neta Crawford (2021)
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Costs%20of%20War_U.S.%20Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Post-9%2011%20Wars_9.1.21.pdf

• IMF - Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right: A Global and Country Update of Fossil Fuel Subsidies
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004

• Which policy can help EVs most?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/10/which-policy-can-help-evs-most.html

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

Wake

by Malcolm Light

~ Wake represents the last chance for humanity to “Wake Up” to the extreme global extinction nightmare facing us; a Wake is also a Celtic “Death Watch” on our Planet Earth’s near term demise. ~

Above image shows the exponential increase of the Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly in Degrees Celsius (Light 2021, Carana 2022, 2021; Carter, 2022) and the relative increase in Volume of Heat Transport and Temperature of the Gulf Stream–Svalbard Current into the Arctic Ocean (Smedsrud et al., 2021; Carter 2022). 

[ from earlier post ]

The Volume of Gulf Stream Heat Transport has increased by 30% in the last 100 years (Smedsrud et al., 2021) and is estimated to be some 33.6% larger by 2030.

The Gulf Stream Temperature–Heat Transport Volume Trend intersects the Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly Trend at 2030 with an equal and combined Arctic Atmospheric and Ocean Temperature of 11.7°C.

By this time the sub-sea Arctic shelf edge methane hydrates will be exponentially destabilizing, releasing vast volumes of methane gas into the Arctic Ocean, and this will convert the sea into a ‘Methane Bubble Foam’, vastly increasing the rate of evaporation of Arctic Ocean water.

By the Northern Summer of 2035, the Arctic Ocean and Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly will together have reached 107.5°C and will pass 117.4°C by the Northern Summer of 2036.

After 2035, the loss of the Planet's ocean water will occur at an exponential rate, as the Ocean and Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomalies rise in unison and convert Earth into a high temperature, uninhabitable planet like Venus.

[ from earlier post ]

It is completely self-evident that if the Gulf Stream heat transport to the Arctic Ocean is not immediately stopped, it will cause a Catastrophic Arctic Atmospheric Global Extinction event starting in 2 to 5 years culminating around 2030 (8 Years hence) (Light 2021; Carana 2022, 2021; Carter 2022).

[ Created by Sam Carana with nullschool.net ]

Because of the very short time now left to the start of the Catastrophic Global Extinction Event, the Gulf Stream heat transport to the Arctic Ocean must be stopped.

The animation on the right shows that, on February 2, 2022, sea surface temperatures off the coast of North America were as much as 11.2°C higher than 1981-2011 (at green circle).

Present data indicates that the Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly will have reached 5°C in the Summer of 2024 when massive Global extinction will begin in earnest. Therefore the latest date for effective action is the summer of 2023.

References

• Terrifying Arctic Methane Levels - by Sam Carana (2022)
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/12/terrifying-arctic-methane-levels.html

• Terrifying Arctic greenhouse gas levels continue - by Sam Carana (2022)

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/01/terrifying-arctic-greenhouse-gas-levels-continue.html

• Will COP26 in Glasgow deliver? - by Sam Carana (2021)

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/10/will-cop26-in-glasgow-deliver.html

• Climate change: Satellites map huge methane plumes from oil and gas (BBC, 2022)

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60203683

• Global assessment of oil and gas methane ultra-emitters - by Thomas Lauvaux et al. (2022)

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj4351

• Nordic Seas Heat Loss, Atlantic Inflow, and Arctic Sea Ice Cover Over the Last Century - by Lars Smedsrud et al. (2021)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020RG000725

• The Gulf Stream has increased steadily over the last century - by University of Bergen (News Release associated with above study, 2022)
https://www.uib.no/en/climateenergy/150992/gulf-stream-has-increased-steadily-over-last-century

• Carter, Peter; 2022.
The 2021 Temperature Increase (1.1°C to 1.2°C) makes the Past Seven Years the Warmest on Record. Note Rapid Surface Heating of North America from Copernicus.

https://www.facebook.com/peter.carter.961/posts/10219962813689792

• Carter, Peter; 11 January 2022.
Arctic Sea Surface Temperature is Increasing at a Rate Far Above the Very Worst Case. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10219962747168129&set=3608730145997

• Carter, Peter; 5 January 2022. 

Through 2021 Global Warming Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases have the Planet Headed to Catastrophic Heating. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10220027727632600&set=a.3608730145997

• Hampton, Steve 2021. 

Modern climate change is 10x faster than historic global warming mass extinction events

https://thecottonwoodpost.net/2019/12/10/modern-climate-change-is-10x-faster-than-historic-global-warming-mass-extinction-events

• Light M.P.R., 2021. 

Planetary Extinction due to Arctic Atmospheric Methane Veil

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/12/planetary-extinction-due-to-arctic-atmospheric-methane-veil.html

• Light M.P.R., 2015. 

Planetary Genocide - Ecocide between 2023 and 2031
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/01/planetary-genocide-ecocide-between-2023-and-2031.html

• Light M.P.R., Hensel H. and Carana S., 2014. 

Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/06/arctic-atmospheric-methane-global-warming-veil.html

• Light M.P.R., 2013. 

Act now on methane (extract)

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/12/act-now-on-methane.html

Act now on methane (full version)

https://sites.google.com/site/runawayglobalwarming/the-non-disclosed-extreme-arctic-methane-threat

• Light M.P.R., 2012. 

Global extinction within one human lifetime as a result of a spreading atmospheric methane heatwave and surface firestorm 

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/global-extinction-within-one-human.html

• Light M.P.R., 2012. Edited by Sam Carana. 

How much time is there left to act, before methane hydrate releases will lead to human extinction?

https://geo-engineering.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-much-time-is-there-left-to-act.html

• Light M.P.R., 2011. Edited by Sam Carana. 

Use of beamed interfering radio frequency transmissions to decompose Arctic atmospheric methane clouds. 

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/decomposing-atmospheric-methane.html

• Light M.P.R., 2011. 

Stratospheric methane global warming veil

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/stratospheric-methane-global-warming.html

• Light M.P.R. and Solana C., 2002. 

Arctic Methane Hydrates: A Potential Greenhouse Gas Hazard

https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002EGSGA..27.4077L

• Light M.P.R. and Solana C., 2002. 

Arctic methane hydrates - Mapping a potential greenhouse gas hazard. Abstract and Poster, EGS, Nice. In: Light, M.P.R. and Carana, S., 2011. Methane linked to Seismic Activity in the Arctic

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/seismic-activity.html

• Light M.P.R. and Posey, H.H., 1992. 

Chapter 10 Diagenesis and its Relation to Mineralization and Hydrocarbon Reservoir Development: Gulf Coast and North sea Basins

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0070457108705727

• Light M.P.R., Posey, H.H., Kyle, J.R., and Price P.E., 1987. 

Integrated hydrothermal model for the Texas Gulf Coast Basin; origins of geopressured brines and lead-zinc, uranium, hydrocarbon, and cap rock deposits

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284819891_Integrated_hydrothermal_model_for_the_Texas_Gulf_Coast_Basin_origins_of_geopressured_brines_and_lead-zinc_uranium_hydrocarbon_and_cap_rock_deposits

• Light M.P.R., Posey, H.H., Kyle, J.R., and Price P.E., 1987. 

Model for the origins of geopressured brines, hydrocarbons, cap rocks and metallic mineral deposits: Gulf Coast, U.S.A.. In: Lerch, Ian, and O'Brien, J.J., Dynamical geology of salt and related structures: Orlando, Florida, Academic Press, pp. 787-830

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124441705500257

• Light M.P.R., 1985. 

Structure, facies, continuity and internal properties of the Frio "A" sandstone, N.E. Hitchcock Field, Galveston County, Texas. In: Dorfman, M.H. and Morton, R.A. eds., Geopressured-Geothermal Energy, Proceedings of the Sixth U.S. Gulf Coast Geopressured-Geothermal Energy Conference: Pergamon, p. 229 - 238.

https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/1630274

Temperature Rise

Surface Temperature Rise

How much have temperatures risen over the past 100 years or so? In the image below, Peter Carter points at the aerosols from volcanic eruptions and fossil fuel combustion that temporarily delay the full impact of global warming.

Temperature Rise hits Arctic most strongly

In above image, temperature anomalies are compared to a 3-decade base period from 1951 to 1980. To highlight the full wrath of global warming, it is more informative to compare anomalies with an earlier base period. Furthermore, a short running mean better shows how high peaks can reach.

NASA typically compares temperature change relative to 1951-1980, because the U.S. National Weather Service uses a three-decade period to define "normal" or average temperature. The NASA GISS analysis effort began around 1980, so the most recent 30 years at the time was 1951-1980.¹

But as said, it is more informative to use a 30-year base period that starts earlier. To show Gobal & Arctic Temperature Change, James Hansen and Makiko Sato used a 1951-1980 base period next to a 1880-1920 base period. For this post, a 1883-1912 base period was selected to create the above image, and this same base period was selected to create the image below.

Above image shows that the Arctic is hit most strongly by the temperature rise. Note that the anomalies in above image are visualized by latitude, but are averaged by longitude globally, masking even higher anomalies that can be experienced at specific longitudes. At times, some areas in the Arctic do already experience anomalies of over 20°C, as shown in the animation below, based on NOAA data for the period December 7, 2011 - January 21, 2012.

The Obama Climate Plan: Disappointing and Hopeless

by Peter Carter

The Obama plan is a phony fossil fuel PR plan to keep increasing American fossil fuel production, which, under Obama, has reached an all-time high. We have to get atmospheric CO2 down below 350ppm fast – with a planetary emergency climate action plan. Today it is 400ppm. Under the Obama plan, it will only keep going up fast.

It is easy to rate a climate plan, but it seems America doesn’t know the climate science basics. Basic climate science fact number one is “zero carbon” (see onlyzerocarbon.org). If we don’t stop emitting carbon, we can’t stop, or even slow down, global warming.

It is definite that the global temperature and ocean acidification cannot stop increasing unless industrial carbon emissions get to zero. You probably haven’t heard this fact because it means the end of the fossil fuel industry.

It simply means all fossil fuel energy must be replaced by clean, zero-carbon energy. It means that although some fossil fuels are worse polluters than others, any fossil fuel energy (including natural gas) production has to stop and be replaced by real, clean, zero-carbon energy. It means that any climate action plan that does not drop carbon emissions is a deadly dirty lie.

US Fossil Fuel Production under Obama

Some quotes:

Below from: US to become world leader in oil and gas thanks to fracking — The UK Independent, 13 November 2012.

The United States will leapfrog Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas in the next five years as the controversial practice of ‘fracking’ for hydrocarbons contained in shale rocks has enabled the country to increase production massively.

US oil and gas production is set to leap by about a quarter by 2020 as the rapid growth of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, propels the country towards providing all its own energy by 2035, according to the World Energy Outlook report from the International Energy Agency.

The fracking boom will push US oil production up from 8.1 million barrels a day last year to 11.1 million in 2020 while gas extraction will jump from 604 billion cubic metres a day to 747 billion (International Energy Agency).

Maria van der Hoeven, the IEA executive director, said: “North America is at the forefront of a sweeping transformation in oil and gas production that will affect all regions of the world.”

Below from: US may soon become world’s top oil producer — Associated Press, 19 February 2013.

Driven by high prices and new drilling methods, U.S. production of crude and other liquid hydrocarbons is on track to rise 7 percent this year to an average of 10.9 million barrels per day. This will be the fourth straight year of crude increases and the biggest single-year gain since 1951.

Planetary-scale climate change murder

Obama is getting away with planetary-scale climate change murder. His actions as the most influential leader on the planet will affect the entire planet forever.

Obama is proud of his record American oil production: “Now, we absolutely need safe, responsible oil production here in America. That’s why under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years.” (February 2012)

With atmospheric carbon at the highest level it’s been in 15 million years and ocean acidification occurring faster than in the past 300 million years, there’s no such thing as safe oil production any more.

Check the Obama climate action plan for any evidence of a decrease in fossil fuel production any time in the future. It is all continued increase, and it is locking America and the world into another 50 years of fossil fuel energy dependency. Only by then, civilization will have collapsed.

Cover up

Quotes from: The President's Climate Action Plan

Unlocking Long-Term Investment in Clean Energy Innovation.

The Fiscal Year 2014 Budget continues the President’s commitment to keeping the United States at the forefront of clean energy research, development, and deployment.  … This includes investment in a range of energy technologies, from advanced biofuels and emerging nuclear technologies – including small modular reactors – to clean coal.

Spurring Investment in Advanced Fossil Energy Projects: In the coming weeks, the Department of Energy will issue a Federal Register Notice announcing a draft of a solicitation that would make up to $8 billion in (self-pay) loan guarantee authority available for a wide array of advanced fossil energy projects under its Section 1703 loan guarantee program.

Clean Coal? Only the coal industry talks the “clean coal” oxymoron, which makes Obama a coal man in the White House, as well as an oil man. There is no such thing as clean coal or oil, and, in any case, the cleanest fossil fuels would be far from zero-carbon.

Biofuels? Burning food is an obvious obscenity. Burning biofuels emits CO2 and incurs a carbon debt from the land being used to produce biofuels – it is nowhere near a zero-carbon energy.

Where is the long-term investment in real, clean, zero-carbon, everlasting energy? Yet this is a fossil-fuel-promoting climate action plan.

All this money is being used as fossil-fuel cover-up, to deceive Americans into thinking there is such a thing as “clean coal” and “ethical oil.” All government money should be going to true clean, zero-carbon energy development if we are to survive. Obama has no intention of replacing or displacing fossil fuel energy from its longstanding energy dominance.

This climate “action” plan is designed to maintain American and world fossil fuel dominance of the energy market. Now that Obama has got US fossil fuel production up to all time record levels, he placates his environmental supporters with the clean-fossil-fuel energy big lie, and they fall for it. It is, of course, too good to be true.

The Real Obama Plan

• Obama’s advanced fossil fuel energy projects are backward, retrogressive, and impel us faster to global climate catastrophe. These Advanced Fossil Energy Projects (Department of Energy) are designed to advance the insane planet-destroying agenda of the fossil fuel corporations. The future he has planned for American and world energy is a future that won’t last long.
• Novel oil and gas drilling, stimulation, and completion technologies, including dry fracking, that avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases
• Coal-bed methane recovery CO2 capture from synthesis gases in fuel reforming or gasification processes
• CO2 capture from flue gases in traditional coal or natural gas electricity generation
• CO2 capture from effluent streams of industrial processing facilities
• Coal or natural gas oxycombustion

DOE notes that the scope of this solicitation is intended to be broad. DOE will consider both electrical and non-electrical fossil energy use. All fossil fuels, including, without limitation:

• Coal
• natural gas
• oil
• shale gas
• oil shale
• coal bed methane
• methane hydrates

These are all projects to support the big clean-energy lie. The fossil fuel industry is not wasting money on research into “clean” fossil fuels, which are bogus. The industry knows that feigning “clean” would add huge costs to fossil fuel energy in the attempt. But these US government projects permit the fossil fuel industry to keep up the clean fossil fuel myth. It is fossil fuel PR. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) language is now being used to make fossil fuel energy projects appear to be zero-carbon.

The US oil and gas fracking technology has fast become the end-of-the-world model for the rest of the world to follow. So much for President Obama and the great climate change hope for greenhouse-gas-polluting energy change.

When President Obama talks about American leadership, he means leadership in shale oil, shale gas and methane hydrate gas. He is leading America and the world to Climate Hell.

[ Above post is an extract of the posts that appeared earlier at Uprage and at Boomerwarrior ]

Peter Carter is a retired family MD. Peter has spent many years working with environmental health development policy.
Peter has been a blogger since 2008. You can reach him at Uprage, the Climate Emergency Institute and on Facebook.
“I now focus on global climate change, because if we fail to fix this, we fail on everything,” says Peter.

Call for High-Level Risk Assessment

There is a rapid and accelerating decline of Arctic and Far North snow and summer albedo cooling, with the Arctic summer sea ice past tipping point. Several potentially catastrophic (to huge human populations and all future generations) Arctic changes are happening decades ahead of model projections. This is potentially a United States and world food security emergency, and an Arctic methane feedback planetary emergency. The pace is outstripping the capacity of the international published climate modeling science to assess the risks. The climate science assessment process is unable to rapidly assess all the risks and the combined risk of all risk factors.

In 2008 and again in 2012, after the large drops in summer sea ice extent, James Hansen made a public statement that the world is a state of planetary emergency. Starting in 2006 John Holdren presented the scientific evidence that we are beyond dangerous interference with the climate system and challenged to prevent catastrophic interference.

The problem is that the summer sea ice cover, Arctic frozen methane and world food security are not projected by the assessments to be a serious problem for many decades. This despite the fact that for many years scientists have warned that the loss of the Arctic summer sea ice cover would result in a large boost in warming, and that this would cause the release of the vast Arctic stores methane to start. Scientists call the Arctic summer sea ice cover the air conditioner of the entire Northern hemisphere.

We are seeing a multi-year heat and drought situation affecting the world’s top Northern hemisphere food producing regions of the U.S., Russia and China. Increasing drought affecting these regions is projected, but the situation developing right now may be due to the loss of Arctic albedo affecting the weather of the normally temperate climate zone of the Northern hemisphere, on top of sustained direct greenhouse gas warming.

All Arctic sources of global warming vulnerable methane are emitting more methane with the amplified increasing Arctic warming. This includes the destabilization of the methane that is contained in the form of hydrates and free gas in the Arctic seabed. Atmospheric methane is now on a renewed sustained increase - this time due to planetary methane emissions.

Without getting a rapid risk assessment of this situation there seems no hope of any measures to address it. The UN climate negotiations for world emissions reductions are on hold till 2020. Emissions have never been higher and are increasing and the only plan is to burn more fossil fuels and of the worst kind.

Leading climate experts say we are now committed to a warming over 2C, probably to 3C and possibly 4C. We are on track for 6C by 2100. Even an all out emergency scale response would not see any reduction of atmospheric GHGs for many decades.

We call for an urgent high-level risk assessment to capture all these adverse trends and situations. An Arctic climate risk assessment is needed to address the unprecedented risks that are threatening the security of the U.S., the Northern hemisphere and the world at large, and the well-being of both current and future generations.

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Above call for a high-level risk assessment was initiated by Dr. Peter Carter of the Climate Emergency Institute. Please try and improve this message and see that it finds its way to the people who need to see this and take action, including leading climate scientists, doctors, politicians and those holding public office positions with a duty of care.

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The certain catastrophic effects of allowing the Arctic snow summer sea ice to melt away

Image by Peter Carter of the Climate Emergency Institute