Arctic News: Svalbard

Showing posts with label Svalbard. Show all posts

Friday, July 13, 2018

Disappearance of Arctic Sea Ice

The image on the right shows sea surface temperatures on July 6 for the years 2014 to 2018 at a location near Svalbard (at 77.958°N, 5.545°E), with an exponential trend added based on the data.

The combination image below shows sea surface temperatures on July 6 for each of these years, with the location highlighted by a green circle:
2014: -0.8°C or 30.6°F
2015: 6.2°C or 43.2°F
2016: 8.3°C or 47.0°F
2017: 14.4°C or 57.9°F
2018: 16.6°C or 61.9°F

The situation reflects the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice over the years and constitutes a stark warning of imminent sea ice collapse and its consequences for the world at large.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

The image on the right shows the sea surface temperature on July 18, 2018, at that location. It was as warm as 17.2°C or 63°F near Svalbard. This compares to a sea surface temperature of 5°C or 41.1°F in 1981-2011 at that location (at the green circle). For more background on the warm water near Svalbard, also see the earlier post Accelerating Warming of the Arctic Ocean.

The images illustrate why sea ice has fallen dramatically in volume, especially so where sea currents push warm water from the Atlantic Ocean underneath the sea ice.

The decline of Arctic sea ice volume over the years is illustrated by the Jim Pettit graph below.

As the Wipneus image below shows, Arctic sea ice volume on July 9, 2018, was at a record low for the time of the year.

The animation on the right shows a fall in volume of some 1 meter over most of the sea ice, over the period from June 21 through July 12, 2018, with a further eight days of forecasts added.

The animation illustrates the huge amount of melting taking place from underneath, due to an inflow of heat from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and from warm water from rivers that end in the Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile, sea ice extent doesn't fall very much at all.

When only looking at sea ice extent, the dramatic fall in sea ice volume may be overlooked.

Complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice in September 2018 is within the margins of a trend based on yearly annual minimum volume, as illustrated by the image on the right.

Latent heat can make such disappearance come abruptly and - for people who only look at changes in extent - rather unexpectedly.

Latent heat is energy associated with a phase change, such as the energy absorbed by solid ice when it changes into water (melting). During a phase change, the temperature remains constant.

Sea ice acts as a buffer that absorbs heat, while keeping the temperature at zero degrees Celsius. As long as there is sea ice in the water, this sea ice will keep absorbing heat, so the temperature doesn't rise at the sea surface.

The amount of energy absorbed by melting ice is as much as it takes to heat an equivalent mass of water from zero to 80°C.

Oceans take up over 90% of global warming, as illustrated by the image below. Ocean currents make that huge amounts of this heat keep entering the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

Once the sea ice is gone, further ocean heat must go elsewhere, i.e. it will typically raise the temperature of the water. The atmosphere will also warm up faster. More evaporation will also occur once the sea ice is gone, which will cool the sea surface and warm up the atmosphere (technically know as latent heat of vaporization).

As temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than at the Equator, the Jet Stream will change, making it easier for warm air to enter the Arctic. More clouds will form over the Arctic, which will reflect more sunlight into space, but which will also make that less outward IR radiation can escape into space over the Arctic, with a net warming effect.

Meanwhile, El Niño is getting stronger, as illustrated by above image on the right. A warmer Arctic comes with stronger heat waves, forest fires and associated emissions, and rapid warming of water in rivers that end in the Arctic Ocean, all of which will further warm up the Arctic Ocean. Forest fires have already been burning strongly in Siberia over the past few months and methane recently reached levels as high as 2817 ppb (on July 8, 2018, pm).

One huge danger is that, as the buffer disappears that until now has consumed huge amounts of ocean heat, and the Arctic Ocean keeps warming, further heat will reach methane hydrates at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, causing them to get destabilized and release methane.

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

Additionally, disappearance of the sea ice will come with albedo changes that mean that a lot more sunlight will be absorbed, instead of getting reflected back into space as occurred previously.

Similar albedo changes are likely to take place over land in the Arctic soon thereafter. Adding up all warming elements associated with disappearance of the sea ice can result in an additional global warming of several degrees Celsius.

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

Links

• Can we weather the Danger Zone?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/07/can-we-weather-the-danger-zone.html

• How much warmer is it now?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-much-warmer-is-it-now.html

• Accelerating Warming of the Arctic Ocean
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/12/accelerating-warming-of-the-arctic-ocean.html

• High Temperatures Over Arctic Ocean In June 2018
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/high-temperatures-over-arctic-ocean-in-june-2018.html

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

• Latent Heat
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/latent-heat.html

• How much warming have humans caused?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/05/how-much-warming-have-humans-caused.html

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

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

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

Friday, December 23, 2016

Accelerating Warming of the Arctic Ocean

Stronger Winds causing further Warming of the Arctic Ocean

Warming is accelerating in the Arctic. On December 22, 2016, the Arctic was on average 3.33°C or 5.99°F warmer than it was in 1979-2000.

Within the Arctic, the Arctic Ocean is warming most rapidly. The image below gives a snapshot of the situation on December 22, 2016 at 06:00 UTC. The Arctic as a whole was as much as 3.34°C or 6.01°F warmer than in 1979-2000. At the same time, temperatures over much of the Arctic Ocean were at the top end of the scale, i.e. as much as 30°C or 54°F warmer than in 1979-2000 (pink color at 90°N latitude).

The temperature in the Arctic (north of 80°N Latitude) is also illustrated by the image below. The red line of the temperature for 2016, up to December 22, 2016. The green line is the 1958-2002 temperature.

Over the entire year 2016, warming was most profound over the Arctic Ocean, which was more than 2.5°C or 4.5°F warmer than 1981-2010, as illustrated by the image below.

The animation below illustrates how this anomaly developed over the past few years, each time showing a 365-day period, starting in 2014 and each time shifted by roughly one month.

These high temperatures over the Arctic Ocean reflect warm water of the Arctic Ocean, with heat added from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The image below shows ocean warming, with temperatures rising particularly rapidly on the Northern Hemisphere.

[ Ocean warming, from earlier post ]

Warmer water of the Atlantic Ocean is pushed by the Coriolis force toward the Arctic Ocean. The huge amounts of energy entering the oceans translate not only into higher temperatures of the water and of the air over the water, but also into higher waves and stronger winds.

Above image shows winds on December 29, 2016.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

As above image shows, waves were as high as 7.65 m or 25.1 ft in between Norway and Svalbard on December 29, 2016.

Sea surface temperatures west of Svalbard were as high as 14.6°C (58.2°F) on December 29, 2016. Sea surface temperature went up at the end of December at this spot, while the longer-term average went down in line with the change in seasons.

Underneath the surface of the North Atlantic, the water is much warmer than at the surface, and this temperature difference increases as winds get stronger and cause stronger evaporation, which has a cooling effect on the sea surface. This is illustrated by the image below, showing both the North Pacific and the North Atlantic on November 28, 2016.

The fact that the North Pacific shows a huge cold area, while the cold area in the North Atlantic has virtually disappeared, suggests that the cold area in the North Pacific is not the result of melt-water. The path of the cold areas and the low temperatures over the continents at higher latitudes, give further indications that strong winds are causing such cold areas. The image below shows that a cold area reappearing in the North Atlantic as it gets hit by strong winds (see video further below).

Above images and the image below, from an earlier post, illustrate how stronger evaporation and the resulting precipitation, at times in combination with melt-water, could create cold freshwater lids on both the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. The situation in the North Atlantic is very dangerous, as such a lid can cause much more heat to get carried into the Arctic Ocean underneath the sea surface of the North Atlantic, due to reduced heat transfer to the atmosphere from water on its way to the Arctic Ocean.

The image below, from an earlier post, shows the depth of Barents Sea, which is relatively shallow around Svalbard.

As the image on the right shows, this spot warms up due to a sea current that brings warm water from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean.

Above images give an indication of the temperature of the water in the Atlantic Ocean underneath the sea surface, as the water comes to the surface near Svalbard, as also illustrated by the plot on the right.

The Arctic Ocean is now warming underneath the sea ice due to the inflow of warm water from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

The Arctic Ocean is also warming due to feedbacks such as increased levels of water vapor in the atmosphere, warmer river water running into the Arctic Ocean and soot from wildfires that can settle on snow and ice, resulting in further albedo changes.

Further feedbacks of global warming include warmer air temperatures, higher waves and stronger winds that all speed up the demise of snow and ice.

Stronger winds are pushing warm water from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean. Why are these winds getting stronger? As the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the world, the temperature difference between the Arctic and the Equator decreases, making the Jet Stream wavier, with longer loops extending to the north and to the south. At the same time, the temperature difference between the oceans and the continents (Europe, Asia and North America) is increasing, speeding up the Jet Stream as it travels, e.g., over the North Atlantic towards the Arctic Ocean.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

The above 14.6°C SST on December 29, 2016, near Svalbard is the result of warm water being pushed from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean. The situation is illustrated by the above combination image that shows that the Jet stream is forecast to reach speeds as high as 319 km/h or 198 mph in between North America and Greenland on December 31, 2016 (left panel). At the same time, surface winds are forecasts to reach speeds as high as 95 km/h or 59 mph (center panel) and waves as high as 8.96 m or 29.4 ft in between Norway and Svalbard (right panel).

The situation is further illustrated by the video below, showing winds over the North Atlantic from December 27, 2016 to January 3, 2017, as forecasts by cci-reanalyzer.org.

The fact that this is not a one-off event is also illustrated by the image on the right, showing that the Jet Stream reached speeds of 384 km/h or 239 mph over the Pacific Ocean on December 27, 2015. At the same day and time in 2015, the Jet Stream reached speeds as high as 430 km/h or 267 mph as it moved over North America on its way over the North Atlantic.

In conclusion, increasingly stronger winds are causing huge amounts of heat to enter the Arctic Ocean from the North Atlantic, and also from the Pacific Ocean. As the water of the Arctic Ocean keeps warming, the danger increases that methane hydrates at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean will destabilize.

The danger is illustrated by the two images above and below, recorded by the MetOp2 satellite on the afternoon of Christmas eve and Christmas.

Continued warming could trigger huge abrupt methane eruptions leading to mass destruction and extinction.

Potential warming by more than 10°C or 18°F by 2026 (from: Climate Plan Summary, see also: the extinction page)

The image below shows the associated temperature rise from preindustrial to 2026, with figures discussed in more detail on the Temperature page.

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

Two videos complement this. Have a look at the video entitled Abrupt Climate Disrupting Arctic Changes: Part 2 of 2 by Paul Beckwith, in particular the segment from 8:30 to 12:00 minutes where Paul discusses how wind patterns are changing over the Arctic.

For further thoughts on the situation, also have a look at the video below in which Jennifer Hynes interviews Peter Wadhams.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Gulf Stream brings ever warmer water into Arctic Ocean

The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic as at June 9, 2015.

The image below shows the Arctic from a 180° rotated angle, while also showing the high sea surface temperature anomalies that are so prominent in the North Pacific (note also that the scale of sea surface temperature anomalies differs).

One may wonder why sea surface temperature anomalies below zero are visible in the North Atlantic, given that ocean heat is rising rapidly. As the IPCC said in AR5, more than 60% of the net energy increase in the climate system is stored in the upper ocean (0–700 m) during the relatively well-sampled 40-year period from 1971 to 2010, and about 30% is stored in the ocean below 700 m.

Global heat content at 0-2000 m is rising even faster than at 0-700 m

The image below further pictures the situation as at June 9, 2015, with large blue and purple areas showing in the North Atlantic where meltwater from the Arctic has spread over time.

Indeed, the accumulation of meltwater over time has created a huge area with relatively cold water that tends to float at the surface, rather than sink, as the meltwater's salt content is very low.

In other words, the ocean underneath the meltwater at the sea surface is much warmer than the temperatures shown on above images. This can be illustrated by the situation near Svalbard. The image below shows the depth of Barents Sea, which is relatively shallow around Svalbard,

As the image shows, cold meltwater with low salt content floats around Svalbard where the water is most shallow. A 'polar front' separates cold and warm water, following the borders of the area where the seafloor is high. Warm, salty water is carried by the Gulf Stream from the (much deeper) Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean. This warm water collides with cold water east of Svalbard where the seafloor rises steeply, making this warm water come to the surface.

Warm water from the Atlantic also comes to the surface west of Svalbard, where warm and cold water are similarly separated by the height of the seafloor.

The image below shows that on June 8, 2015, sea surface temperatures as high as 11.4°C (52.52°F) were recorded to the south-east of Svalbard (a 9.8°C or 17.64°F anomaly), while sea surface temperatures as high as 7.4°C (45.32°F) were recorded to the west of Svalbard (a 3.5°C or 6.3°F anomaly).

Sea surface temperatures (top) and sea surface temperature anomalies (bottom) on June 8, 2015.

The image below shows the situation on June 21, 2015, when sea surface temperatures as high as 12.5°C (54.5°F) were recorded to the south-east of Svalbard (a 10.2°C or 18.4°F anomaly), while sea surface temperatures as high as 8.5°C (47.3°F) were recorded to the west of Svalbard (a 3.7°C or 6.7°F anomaly) and as high as 7.3°C (45.1°F) further west of Svalbard (a 3.7°C or 6.7°F anomaly).

Sea surface temperatures (top) and sea surface temperature anomalies (bottom) on June 21, 2015.

These spots where warm water comes to the surface give an indication of how high temperatures of the water are below the surface. As more than 90% of the extra heat caused by people's emissions continues to go into oceans, ever warmer water will be carried by the Gulf Stream into the Arctic Ocean, with the danger that this will warm up sediments under the Arctic Ocean seafloor, triggering huge methane eruptions with gigantic warming potential.

The above images picture the situation as at June 8 and June 21, 2015, when summer on the Northern Hemisphere had just started. In other words, temperatures will rise over the next few months. To get an idea of what can be expected, the image below shows the situation as at September 1, 2014, when sea surface temperatures near Svalbard were as high as 17.5°C (or 63.5°F), an anomaly of 11.9°C (or 21.42°F)

Sea surface temperatures (top) and sea surface temperature anomalies (bottom) on September 1, 2014.

On the combination image below, the image on the left shows large areas (red circles) where warmer water is visible through the sea ice, indicating the presence of even warmer water at greater depth in the Arctic Ocean. The image on the right (from an earlier post) roughly shows how ocean heat can be carried by the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North America into the Arctic Ocean, diving under the sea ice somewhere between Greenland and Svalbard.

Then, there is also the impact of the heat wave in Russia warming up the Arctic Ocean, as indicated by the red circle on the image below.

The image below shows May Northern Hemisphere ocean temperature anomalies with respect to the period 1901-2000, based on NOAA data and with a polynomial trendline added.

ACCELERATED WARMING IN ARCTIC CAUSING MORE CIRRUS CLOUDS

As oceans warm, the atmosphere can be expected to carry more water vapor. This conclusion is supported by studies such as this one. With more water vapor in the atmosphere, storms can be expected to strike with greater intensity. This conclusion is supported by studies such as this one. This situation gets worse as weather gets more extreme.

What makes things even worse is that, as the Gulf Stream keeps bringing ever warmer water into the Arctic Ocean, loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and more open water will be the result. More open water means more opportunity for storms to develop and for water to evaporate into the atmosphere. The combination of more open water, more extreme weather, and more water vapor in the atmosphere leads to ever more severe storms that can come with destructive winds and that can suddenly unleash massive amounts of precipitation.

Studies such as this one warn that plumes above the anvils of severe storms can bring water vapor up into the stratosphere, contributing to the formation of cirrus clouds that block a lot of heat that would otherwise be radiated away, from Earth into space.

More cirrus clouds thus is another self-reinforcing feedback loop of accelerated warming in the Arctic. As the Gulf Stream keeps bringing ever warmer water into the Arctic Ocean, such feedbacks will further speed up warming, as discussed at the feedbacks page.

Are there geoengineering methods to reduce cirrus clouds? Seeding of high altitude clouds with ice may be able to do this, resulting in more longwave radiation escaping into space, as discussed in this study.

The text in this box was also posted at the Geoengineering group at facebook

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

on June 8, 2015, sea surface temperatures as high as 11.4°C (52.52°F) were recorded to the south-east of Svalbard (a 9.8...
Posted by Sam Carana on Thursday, June 11, 2015

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Rain Storms Devastate Arctic Ice And Glaciers

by Veli Albert Kallio

The Norwegian Svalbard Islands are located just few hundred miles from the North Pole. It is a unique environment for glaciers: Here glaciers can survive almost at sea level. This means that ice is constantly brushed by thick low-altitude air, which also dumps increasinlgy rain instead of snow.

As a result of high ocean temperatures and of precipitation nowadays falling as rain for months, the melting of these glaciers now occurs 25 times faster than just some years ago.

This also spells bad news for Northern Greenland's low lying glaciers, which will face increasing summertime flash floods as the Arctic Ocean becomes ice free and warms up, and as precipitation falls in the form of rain, rather than snow.

Sea surface temperature of 17.5°C, west of Svalbard
click on image to enlarge

Last summer, for example, sea water west of the Svalbard reached +18C, which is perfect for swimming - but extremely bad for the cold glaciers on shore which mop up the warm moisture and rainfall from the warmed up ocean.

Flash floods falling on glacier soften the compacted snow very rapidly to honeycombed ice that is exceedingly watery and without any internal strength.

Such ice can collapse simply under its own weight and the pulverised watery ice in the basin forms a near frictionless layer of debris.

Darkening of the melting ice also hastens its warming and melting.

Aggressively honeycombed glacier ice floating on meltwater lake in nearby Iceland. Image credit: Runólfur Hauksson

click on image to enlarge

Changes to the Jet Streams

As the Arctic continues to warm, the temperature difference between the equator and the Arctic declines. This slows down the speed at which the polar vortex and jet streams circumnavigate the globe and results in more wavier jet streams that can enter and even cross the Arctic Ocean and can also descend deep down over the continents, rather than staying between 50 and 60 degrees latitude, where the polar jet streams used to be (as discussed in a recent post).

Such deep descent over continents can cause very low temperatures on land, while at the same time oceans remain warm and are getting warmer, so the temperature difference between land and ocean increases, speeding up the winds between continents. On January 9, 2015, jet streams reached speeds between continents as high as 410 km/h (255 mps), as shown on above image. Also note the jet stream crossing the Arctic Ocean.

Faster winds means more water evaporation, and warmer air holds more water vapor, so this can result in huge rainstorms that can rapidly devastate the integrity of the ice.

[image and text in yellow panels by Sam Carana]

I suspect that climatically-speaking we are currently entering a methane-driven Bøllinger warming state with the Northern Cryosphere now entering a phase of rapid warming and melting of anything frozen (snow, sea ice, permafrost and sea bed methane clathrates).

This will be rapidly followed by a Heindrich Iceberg Calving event when the warmed and wet ice sheet in Greenland gives away to its increased weight (due to excessive melt water accumulation within and beneath the ice sheet).

This dislodges the ice sheet’s top, due to accumulation of “rotten ice” (honeycombed, soft ice with zero internal strength) at the ice sheet’s base and perimeters.

A huge melt water pulse to the ocean ensues with Jōkullhaups and ice debris loading the ocean with vast amounts of cold fresh water.

Within weeks an immense climatological reversal then occurs as the ocean gets loaded up with ice debris and cold water leading to the Last Dryas cooling and to world-wide droughts.

This loading of the ocean with ice and water leads to severe climatic flop, as the ocean and atmosphere cool rapidly and as falling salinity and sea water temperature briefly reverse all of the current Bøllinger warming, until the climatic forcing of the greenhouse gases again takes over the process, in turn leading to a new melt water pulse as another ice sheet or shelf disintegrates by the next warming.

Today’s rapid melt water lake formation in Greenland and the ultra-fast melting of glaciers are suggestive of near imminent deglaciation process in the Arctic.

Germany’s and Japan’s recent decisions to remove all their nuclear reactors from the sea sides may prove their worth sooner than many think in the far more conservative US and UK where “glacial speed” still means “eons of time”. Good luck UK/US!

I think cold 'Dryases' are not real Ice Ages, but hiatuses in a progressive melting process which results from changes in sea water salinity and temperature due to increases of meltwater and ice debris runoff from continental snow and ice that melt. As ocean gets less saline and colder the sea ice and snow cover temporarily grows.

But in the long run the greenhouse gas forcing and ocean wins and the warmth and melting resumes until the next big collapse of ice shelf and/or ice sheet. Hence there are meltwater pulses (such as 1a, 1b, 1c) and Heindrich Ice Berg Calving surges (2, 1, 0 - the last one being also called "Younger Dryas" as the Arctic Dryas octopetala grew in South once again after Ice Ages).

The next cooling from collapse of Greenland ice dome would be Heindrich Minus One as the zero has already been allocated to Younger Dryas ice berg surge. Here is an article worth reading on this risk. In Antarctica we see currently (already) a sea ice growth hiatus driven by increased runoff of melt water and ice debris from the continent and its surrounding ice shelves that are rapidly disintegrating.

Abrupt climate change happened in just one year

A 2008 study by Achim Brauer et al. of lake sediments concluded that abrupt increase in storminess during the autumn to spring seasons, occurring from one year to the next at 12,679 yr BP. This caused abrupt change in the North Atlantic westerlies towards a stronger and more zonal jet, leading to deglaciation.

A 2009 study by Jostein Bakke et al. confirmed that increased flux of fresh meltwater to the ocean repeatedly resulted in the formation of more extensive sea ice that pushed the jet south once more, thus re-establishing the stadial state. Rapid oscillations took place until the system finally switched to the interglacial state at the onset of the Holocene.

References

- An abrupt wind shift in western Europe at the onset of the Younger Dryas cold period, Brauer et al.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n8/abs/ngeo263.html

- Rapid oceanic and atmospheric changes during the Younger Dryas cold period, Bakke et al.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n3/abs/ngeo439.html

Post by Sam Carana.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Sea Ice in decline between Svalbard and Greenland

[ click on image to enlarge ]

Above image shows that Earth's highest atmospheric methane concentrations are recorded over the Arctic Ocean. The insets show lower methane concentrations over various continents, North and South America (top left), Europe (mid right), Australia bottom left) and Antarctica (bottom right).

The top right inset shows sea ice thickness, illustrating that methane is escaping from the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean and is transported by currents to the thinner edges of the sea ice, where it is entering the atmosphere.

As discussed in a recent post, methane can be bubbling up in the Arctic Ocean with a force strong enough to prevent sea ice from forming in the area. This feedback is depicted in the Diagram of Doom further below as feedback #13.

Around this time of year, Arctic sea ice is typically growing rapidly, both in extent and thickness.

However, the above image shows that in the area marked by the white circle, between Svalbard and Greenland, the sea ice is actually in decline.

[ click on image to enlarge ]

This decline is caused by methane that is entering the atmosphere in the area as warmer water continues to be transported by the Gulf Stream into the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in previous posts such as this one, and as also illustrated by the image on the right.

Warmer than average waters have been entering the Arctic Ocean along the Gulf Stream since July 2013, when changes to the Jet Stream contributed to waters off the North American coast reaching record warmest temperatures, as depicted in the Diagram of Doom below as feedback #11.

In summary, the above images show that methane makes it hard for ice to form, while the warm water of the West Spitzbergen Current is pushing the ice away, breaking up even the thickest ice to the north of Greenland.

Surface temperatures in the area have been extremely high recently. This part of the Arctic Ocean was hit by an 18+°C anomaly during the week from December 16 to December 22, 2013, as illustrated by the image below.

On some days that week, anomalies of 20+°C were recorded over an even larger part of the Arctic Ocean, as described in a previous post. These anomalies show how a number of feedbacks can interact and contribute to huge warming peaks in the Arctic Ocean, such as methane releases (feedbacks #2 and #13 in the diagram below) and changes to the Jet Stream (feedbacks #10 and #11 in the diagram below).

This spells bad news for the sea ice. Some people may have hoped that the thicker sea ice north of Greenland would take decades to disappear. However, as depicted in the Diagram of Doom below, feedbacks can hugely accelerate sea ice decline. As sea ice declines further, more open water make it more likely that stronger storms and cyclones will appear that can rip the sea ice apart and move the pieces into the Atlantic Ocean in a matter of days.

The image below, by Jim Pettit, illustrates the ongoing decline of the sea ice.

Thirteen feedbacks that can accelerate warming in the Arctic are depicted in the diagram below.

Specific feedbacks are described in the following posts:
- Diagram of Doom
- Further feedbacks of sea ice decline in the Arctic
- Causes of high methane levels over Arctic Ocean
- Methane Release caused by Earthquakes
- How Do We Act in the Face of Climate Chaos?
- The astounding global warming impact on our oceans . . .
- Methane emerges from warmer areas

Feedbacks are pictured in a more general way in the image below.

Above image shows how the accumulation of the many feedbacks and their interaction leads to ever stronger albedo changes, while the resulting accelerated warming in the Arctic causes increasing quantities of methane to be released from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, in turn leading to runaway global warming, as also pictured in the image below.

[ click on image to enlarge ]

As above image shows, a polynomial trendline already points at global temperature anomalies of 5°C by 2060. Even worse, a polynomial trendline for the Arctic shows temperature anomalies of 4°C by 2020, 7°C by 2030 and 11°C by 2040, threatening to cause major feedbacks to kick in, including albedo changes and methane releases that will trigger runaway global warming that looks set to eventually catch up with accelerated warming in the Arctic and result in global temperature anomalies of 20°C+ by 2050.

To reduce these risks, comprehensive and effective action is needed, such as described at the Climate Plan blog.

Post by Sam Carana.