Heat Wave Forecast For Russia Early June 2015

Following heat waves in Alaska and the north of Canada, the Arctic looks set to be hit by heat waves along the north coast of Russia in early June, 2015. The image below shows temperature anomalies at the top end of the scale for a large area of Russia forecast for June 6, 2015.

Meanwhile, the heat wave in India continues. It killed more than 2,100 people, reports Reuters, adding that the heat wave also killed more than 17 million chickens in May. The number of people killed by the heat wave is now approaching the 2,541 people killed by the 1998 heat wave in India, which is listed as the record number of deaths due to extreme temperatures in India by the Emergency Events Database.

Further records listed by the database are the well over 70,000 people killed by the 2003 heat wave in Europe and 55,736 people killed by the 2010 heat wave in Russia alone.

On above temperature forecast (left image, top right), temperatures over a large area of India will be approaching the top end of the scale, i.e. 50°C or 120°F. While such temperatures are not unusual in India around this time of year, the length of the heat wave is extraordinary. The heat wave that is about to hit Russia comes with even higher temperature anomalies. Even though temperatures in Russia are unlikely to reach the peaks that hit India, the anomalies are at the top end of the scale, i.e. 20°C or 36°F.

The image below shows a forecast for June 6, 2015, with high temperatures highlighted at four locations (green circles).

Below is a forecast for the jet stream as at June 7, 2015.

The animation below runs the time of the top image (June 6, 2015, 0900 UTC) to the above image (June 7, 2015, 1200 UTC), showing forecasts of the jet stream moving over the Arctic Ocean, with its meandering shape holding warm air that extends from Russia deep into the Arctic Ocean.

Below is another view of the situation.

Jet stream on June 6, 2015, 0900 UTC, i.e. the date and time that corresponds with the top image.

Clicking on this link will bring you to an animated version that also shows the wind direction, highlighting the speed (I clocked winds of up to 148 km/h, or 92 mph) of the jet stream as it moves warm air from Russia into the Arctic Ocean, sped up by cyclonic wind around Svalbard.

This is the 'open doors' feedback at work, i.e. feedback #4 on the feedbacks page, where accelerated warming in the Arctic causes the jet stream to meander more, which allows warm air to enter the Arctic more easily, in a self-reinforcing spiral that further accelerates warming in the Arctic.

The implications of temperatures that are so much higher than they used to be are huge for the Arctic. These high temperatures are heating up the sea ice from above, while rivers further feed warm water into the Arctic Ocean, heating up the sea ice from below.

Furthermore, such high temperatures set the scene for wildfires that can emit huge amounts of pollutants, among which dust and black carbon that, when settling on the sea ice, can cause large albedo falls.

The image below shows Russian rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean, while the image also shows sea surface temperature anomalies as high as 8.2°C or 14.76°F (at the green circle, near Svalbard).



The big danger is that the combined impact of these feedbacks will accelerate warming in the Arctic to a point where huge amounts of methane will erupt abruptly from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.
The image below shows that methane levels as high as 2,566 ppb were recorded on May 31, 2015, while high methane levels are visible over the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.

Below is part of a comment on the situation by Albert Kallio:

As the soils warm up the bacteria in them and the insulating capacities of snow themselves tend to lead snow cover melting faster the warmer the soil it rests on becomes. (Thus the falling snow melts very rapidly on British soil surface if compared to Finland or Siberia where the underlying ground is much colder, even if occasionally the summers have similar or even higher temperatures).

The large snow cover over the mid latitude land masses is a strong negative feedback for the heat intake from the sun if the season 2015 is compared with the season 2012, but the massive sea ice and polar air mass out-transportation equally strongly weakens formation of new sea ice around the North Pole (and along the edges of the Arctic Ocean) as the air above the Arctic Ocean remains warm. The pile up of thin coastal ice also increases vertical upturning of sea water and this could have detrimental effects for the frozen seabed that is storing methane clathrates. The sunlight intake of the sea areas where sea ice has already disappeared corresponds largely with the 2012 season.

The inevitable snow melting around the Arctic Ocean will also transport record volumes of warmed melt water from the south to the Arctic Ocean. The available heat in the Arctic may also be later enhanced by the high sea water temperatures that prevail along the eastern and western coasts of North America, as well as El Nino event increasing temporarily air and sea surface temperatures. This leads to more depressions around Japan and Korea from where the warm air, storms and rains migrate towards Alaska and pull cold air away from Arctic over Russia, while pushing warm air through the Baring Strait area and Alaska to the Arctic Ocean region.

Forecasting seasonal out comes is likely to be increasingly difficult to make due to increasing number of variables in the seasonal melting processes and the resulting lack of historic precedents when the oceans and Arctic has been as warm as today. Thus the interplay of the opposing forces makes increasingly chaotic outcomes, in which the overall trend will always be for less ice and snow at the end of the season. Because of these reasons - including many others not explicitly mentioned here - the overall outcome for the blue ocean, or the ice-free Arctic Ocean, will be inevitable.

Whether the loss of sea ice happens this summer, or next, or one after that, the problem isn't going to go away and more needs to be done to geoengineer to save Arctic ice and wildlife dependent on summer sea ice.

John Davies responds:

Albert Kallio is absolutely right in saying that warmer temperatures are leading to a blue ocean event though the problem remains in which year this will happen. Additionally Methane is being released from the bottom of the ocean leading to increased Methane concentrations and all that means for a destabilising global climate. Frustratingly, the higher temperatures and increasing Methane concentrations are not yet quite sufficient for us to persuade the scientific community and the public that Armageddon is on the way. Hence it is not yet possible to be in a position to persuade the world community of the urgent need for Geo-engineering to save the Arctic and Global climate. However we may reach this situation in the near future and that will be the only time when it might be possible to save the global climate and prevent Armageddon.

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

This image shows Russian rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean, while it also shows sea surface temperature anomalies...
Posted by Sam Carana on Monday, June 1, 2015

How many deaths could result from failure to act on climate change?

A recent OECD analysis concludes that outdoor air pollution is killing more than 3.5 million people a year globally. The OECD estimates that people in its 34 Member countries would be willing to pay USD 1.7 trillion to avoid deaths caused by air pollution. Road transport is likely responsible for about half.

[ from an earlier post ]

A 2012 report by DARA calculated that 5 million people were dying each year from climate change and carbon economies, mostly from indoor smoke and (outdoor) air pollution.

Back in 2012, a Reuters report calculated that this could add up to a total number of 100 million deaths over the coming two decades. This suggests, however, that failure to act on climate change will not cause even more deaths due to other causes.

Indeed, failure to act on climate change could result in many more deaths due to other causes, in particular food shortages. As temperatures rise, ever more extreme weather events can be expected, such as flooding, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and subsequent crop loss, famine, disease, heat-stroke, etc.

So, while currently most deaths are caused by indoor smoke and outdoor air pollution, in case of a failure to act on climate change the number of deaths can be expected to rise most rapidly among people hit by heat stress, famine, fresh water shortages, as well as wars over who controls access to land, food, fresh water, etc.

How high could figures rise? Below is an update of an image from the earlier post Arctic Methane Impact with a scale in both Celsius and Fahrenheit added on the right, illustrating the danger that temperature will rise to intolerable levels if little or no action is taken on climate change. The inset shows projected global number of annual climate-related deaths for these two scenarios, i.e. little or no action, and also shows a third scenario of comprehensive and effective action that instead seeks to bring temperature rise under control.

[ click on image to enlarge ]

For further details on comprehensive and effective climate action, see the ClimatePlan.


Links

• The Cost of Air Pollution | OECD analysis, published May 2014
http://www.oecd.org/environment/cost-of-air-pollution.htm

• DARA Climate Vulnerability Monitor
http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/

• 100 mln will die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate - report | REUTERS
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/25/climate-inaction-idINDEE88O0HH20120925

• Arctic Methane Impact
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/11/arctic-methane-impact.html

• Is death by lead worse than death by climate? No. | by Paul Beckwith
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/10/is-death-by-lead-worse-than-death-by-climate-no.html

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

How to avoid mass-scale death, destruction and extinction

The image below shows the FAO Food Price Index (Cereals), updated to October 2012.

[ image from earlier post ]

The above FAO Food Price Index shows that high food prices have been around for the past few years. The FAO, in its recent Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, explains that we can expect prices to rise, as illustrated below.

The Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture mentions, in its Food Price Outlook, 2012-2013, that the "drought has affected prices for corn and soybeans as well as other field crops which should, in turn, drive up retail food prices".

Global food supply is under stress as extreme weather becomes the new norm. Farmers may be inclined to respond to drought by overusing ground water, or by slashing and burning forest, in efforts to create more farmland. Such practices do not resolve the problems; instead, they tend to exacerbate the problems over time, making things progressively worse.

The diagram below shows that there are many climatological feedbacks (ten of which are pictured) that make climate change worse. At the top, the diagram pictures vicious cycles that are responses by farmers that can add to make the situation even worse. Without effective action, the prospect is that climate change and crop failure combine to cause mass death and destruction, with extinction becoming the fourth development of global warming.

How can we avoid that such a scenario will eventuate? Obviously, once we are in the fourth development, i.e. mass-scale famine and extintion, it will be too late for action. Similarly, if the world moves into the third development, i.e. runaway global warming, it will be hard, if not impossible to reverse such a development. Even if we act now, it will be hard to reverse the second development, i.e. accelerated warming in the Arctic.

The most effective action will target causes rather than symptoms of these developments.

Part 1. Since emissions are the cause of global warming, dramatic cuts in emissions should be included in the first part of the responses. In addition, action is needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans. Storing the carbon in the soil will also improve soil quality, as indicated by the long green arrow on the left.

Part 2. Solar radiation management is needed to cool the Arctic.

Part 3. Methane management and further action is needed, e.g. to avoid that methane levels will rise further in the Arctic, which threatens to trigger further releases and escalate into runaway global warming. Measures to reduce methane can also benefit soil quality worldwide, as indicated by the long green arrow on the right.

Thus, the proposed action tackles the prospect of mass death and extinction by increasing soil fertility, as illustrated by the image below.

As indicated at the bottom of the image, the most effective policies to accomplish the goals set out in both part 1. and part 3. are feebates, preferably implemented locally.

Is death by lead worse than death by climate? No.

Paul Beckwith,
B.Eng, M.Sc. (Physics),
Ph.D. student (Climatology)
and Part-time Professor,
University of Ottawa 

by Paul Beckwith

Is death by lead worse than death by climate? That depends on your perspective. If you are the person dying then death by climate most likely means death by starvation. Or by dehydration. Or by painful vomiting and diarrhea from drinking contaminated water. It seems to me that this slow, painful death by climate would be much worse than catching a lead projectile from afar most likely with little or no warning.

If you are a journalist then penning death by lead stories allows you to write things that appeal to the visceral; namely to write about human conflict between “good” and “evil” and showing vivid images. People seem to innately enjoy reading about the competition of war or battle or insurgency and be able to cheer for a victor. To arms suppliers, it allows them to increase their profit margins. In addition, it allows politicians to have a rallying patriotic cry about the responsibility of their respective country to exercise some muscle with the pretense that they actually care about the well-being people being killed in another far off country. Or say that it is necessary to restore or create some democracy in such a country while ignoring the loss of democracy in their own country. Clearly hypocrisy. Almost inevitably armed intervention leads to a magnification of death and destruction.

How can western politicians, backed by an incredibly supportive and unquestioning main stream media and catering to the interests of large corporations make so much rah-rah about 20,000 people that have experienced death by lead in an internal conflict in one specific year in some other country while completely ignoring the deaths, every single year of 400,000 people?

That is the number of people, mostly children that are dying each year from climate change and carbon economies according to the DARA study that was released September 27th. Somehow this has been ignored up to now. However what politicians cannot ignore so easily is the claim in the same report that the global economy is losing 1.6% of GDP every year due to climate change. Today. Not in a decade or a century but today. This cannot be ignored so easily. In fact the Saturday Globe and Mail discussed the vanishing Arctic sea ice causing global extreme weather events causing global food supply disruption in a lengthy article on the front page of the Sept. 27th Business section. An image of the sea ice minimum of September 16th was even on the next page. Never before in the history of the Globe have I seen such a thing! Why was the article there? Not because of concern for sea ice or worry of extreme weather but because of the 1.6% GDP loss occurring today. Expected to rise to 3.5% of GDP loss 2030. Things are different now. Our world is changing rapidly, in real-time, before our very eyes. Just watch a video of the ice this summer. We have never experienced abrupt climate change before.

For decades, many climatologists have been warning that the energy balance of the earth is out of wack. Now, to the tune of the equivalent of 0.6 Watts per square meter over the entire surface of the planet. Isn’t this small, a Christmas tree bulb is a Watt or two? No. James Hansen calculated that this imbalance is equivalent to the energy of 300,000 Hiroshima sized bombs popping off every single second on every day of the year, year in and year out. Half of this energy is warming the atmosphere and half is warming the ocean. It is not small at all. Sounds like insanity to me. But I am biased. I live and breathe climatology and meteorology. Thus I know the dangers that climate change can bring much more deeply than others and I want to bring others up to speed. Quickly.