Arctic News: extent

Showing posts with label extent. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Arctic Sea Ice Gone By September 2019?

Record low Arctic sea ice extent for the time of year

Arctic sea ice minimum extent typically occurs about half September. In 2012, minimum extent was reached on September 17, 2012, when extent was 3.387 million km².

On July 28, 2019, Arctic sea ice extent was 6.576 million km². How much extent do you think there will be by September 17, 2019? From July 28, 2019, to September 17, 2019, that's a period of 52 days during which a lot of melting can occur. Could there be a Blue Ocean Event in 2019, with virtually all sea ice disappearing in the Arctic?

Consider this. Extent was 6.926 million km² on September 17, 1989. Extent was 3.387 million km² on September 17, 2012, so 3.539 million km² had disappeared in 23 years. Over those years, more ice extent disappeared than what was left on September 17, 2012.

The question is how much sea ice extent will be left when it will reach its minimum this year, i.e. in September 2019. The red dashed line on the image at the top continues the path of the recent fall in sea ice extent, pointing at zero Arctic sea ice extent in September 2019. Progress is followed at this post.

Zero Arctic sea ice in 2019

Zero Arctic sea ice in 2019 sounds alarming, and there is good reason to be alarmed.

Above map shows temperatures on Greenland on July 31, 2019, with temperatures at one location as high as 23.2°C or 73.8°F and at another location - in the north - as high as 14.2°C or 57.6°F.

The map on the right shows sea surface temperature anomalies compared to 1961-1990 as on July 29, 2019. Note the high anomalies in the areas where the sea ice did disappear during the past few months. The reason for these high anomalies is that the buffer has disappeared that previously had kept consuming heat in the process of melting.

Where that buffer is gone, the heat has to go somewhere else, so it will be absorbed by the water and it will also speed up heating of the atmosphere over the Arctic.

Sea ice melting is accelerating for a number of reasons:

Ocean Heat - Much of the melting of the sea ice occurs from below and is caused by heat arriving in the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
Direct Sunlight - Hot air will melt the ice from above and this kind of melting can increase strongly due to changing wind patterns.
Rivers - Heatwaves over land can extend over the Arctic Ocean and they also heat up river water flowing into the Arctic Ocean.
Fires - Changing wind patterns can also increase the intensity and duration of such heatwaves that can also come with fires resulting in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, thus further speeding up the temperature rise, and also resulting in huge emissions of soot that, when settling on sea ice, speeds up melting (see images below).
Numerous feedbacks will further speed up melting. Heating is changing the texture of the sea ice at the top and is making melt pools appear, both of which cause darkening of the surface. Some further feedbacks, i.e. storms and clouds are discussed below in more detail.

Above combination image shows smoke from fires in Siberia getting pushed over the Laptev Sea on August 11, 2019, due to cyclonic winds over the Arctic Ocean. This was also discussed in an earlier post. The image below shows the situation on August 12, 2019.

The image below shows the situation on August 14, 2019.

In the video below, Paul Beckwith discusses the situation.

In the video below, Paul Beckwith discusses the heating impact of albedo loss due to Arctic sea ice loss, including the calculations in a recent paper.

As the Arctic is heating up faster than the rest of the world, it is also more strongly affected by the resulting extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, fires, strong winds, rain and hail storms, and such events can strongly speed up the melting of the sea ice.

All around Greenland, sea ice has now virtually disappeared. This is the more alarming considering that the thickest sea ice was once located north of Greenland. This indicates that the buffer is almost gone.

Why is disappearance of Arctic sea ice so important? Hand in hand with albedo loss as the sea ice disappears, there is loss of the buffer (feedbacks #1, #14 and more). As long as there is sea ice in the water, this sea ice will keep absorbing heat as it melts, so the temperature will not 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.

Once the sea ice is gone, further heat must go elsewhere. This heat will raise the temperature of the water and will also make the atmosphere heat up faster.

Storms and Clouds

Storms: As temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than at the Equator, the Jet Stream is changing, making it easier for warm air to enter the Arctic and for cold air to descend over continents that can thus become much colder than the oceans, and this stronger temperature difference fuels storms.

Clouds: More evaporation will occur as the sea ice disappears, thus further heating up the atmosphere (technically know as latent heat of vaporization).

In the video below, Paul Beckwith further discusses Arctic albedo change and clouds.

Disappearance of the sea ice causes more clouds to form over the Arctic. This on the one hand makes that more sunlight gets reflected back into space. On the other hand, this also make that less outward infrared radiation can escape into space. The net effect of more clouds is that they are likely cause further heating of the air over the Arctic Ocean (feedbacks #23 and #25).

More low-altitude clouds will reflect more sunlight back into space, and this occurs most during Summer when there is most sunshine over the Arctic. The image below, a forecast for August 17, 2019, shows rain over the Arctic. Indeed, more clouds in Summer can also mean rain, which can devastate sea ice, as discussed in an earlier post.

Regarding less outward radiation, the IPCC has long warned, e.g. in TAR, about a reduction in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR): "An increase in water vapour reduces the OLR only if it occurs at an altitude where the temperature is lower than the ground temperature, and the impact grows sharply as the temperature difference increases."

While reduction in OLR due to water vapor is occurring all year long, the impact is particularly felt in the Arctic in Winter when the air is much colder than the surface. In other words, less OLR makes Arctic sea ice thinner, especially in Winter.

The inflow of ocean heat into the Arctic Ocean can increase strongly as winds increase in intensity. Storms can push huge amounts of hot, salty water into the Arctic Ocean, as discussed earlier, such as in this post and this post. As also described at the extreme weather page, stronger storms in Winter will push more ocean heat from the Atlantic toward the Arctic Ocean, further contributing to Arctic sea ice thinning in Winter.

Seafloor Methane

[ The Buffer has gone, feedbacks #14 and #16 ]

As the buffer disappears that until now has consumed huge amounts of heat, the temperature of the water of the Arctic Ocean will rise even more rapidly, with the danger that further heat will reach methane hydrates at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, causing them to get destabilized and release huge amounts of methane (feedback #16).

Ominously, high methane levels were recorded at Barrow, Alaska, at the end of July 2019, as above image shows.

[ from an earlier post ]

And ominously, a mean global methane level as high as 1902 ppb was recorded by the MetOp-1 satellite in the afternoon of July 31, 2019, as above image shows.

As the image on the right shows, mean global levels of methane (CH₄) have risen much faster than carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), in 2017 reaching, respectively, 257%, 146% and 122% their 1750 levels.

Temperature Rise

Huge releases of seafloor methane alone could make marine stratus clouds disappear, as described in an earlier post, and this clouds feedback could cause a further 8°C global temperature rise.

Indeed, a rapid temperature rise of as much as 18°C could result by the year 2026 due to a combination of elements, including albedo changes, loss of sulfate cooling, and methane released from destabilizing hydrates contained in sediments at the seafloor of oceans.

[ from an earlier post ]

Below is Malcolm Light's updated Extinction Diagram.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

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

Link

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

• Smoke Covers Much Of Siberia
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/07/smoke-covers-much-of-siberia.html

• Extreme Weather
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extreme-weather.html

• Albedo and more
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/albedo.html

• Radiative Heating of an Ice‐Free Arctic Ocean, by Kristina Pistone et al. (2019)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019GL082914

• High cloud coverage over melted areas dominates the impact of clouds on the albedo feedback in the Arctic, by Min He et al. (2019)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44155-w

• ESD Reviews: Climate feedbacks in the Earth system and prospects for their evaluation, by Christoph Heinze et al. (2019)
https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/10/379/2019/esd-10-379-2019-discussion.html

• Contribution of sea ice albedo and insulation effects to Arctic amplification in the EC-Earth Pliocene simulation, by Jianqiu Zheng et al. (2019)
https://www.clim-past.net/15/291/2019

• Far-infrared surface emissivity and climate, by Daniel Feldman et al. (2014)
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/46/16297.abstract

• Extreme Weather
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extreme-weather.html

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

• Rain Storms Devastate Arctic Ice And Glaciers
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/01/rain-storms-devastate-arctic-ice-and-glaciers.html

• A rise of 18°C or 32.4°F by 2026?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-rise-of-18c-or-324f-by-2026.html

• As El Niño sets in, will global biodiversity collapse in 2019?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/as-el-nino-sets-in-will-global-biodiversity-collapse-in-2019.html

• Dangerous situation in Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/dangerous-situation-in-arctic.html

• 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

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Greenhouse Gas Levels Keep Accelerating

Carbon Dioxide

Weekly CO₂ (carbon dioxide) levels at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, in May, 2019, reached 415.39 ppm, as above image shows. An ominous trendline points at 420 ppm in 2020.

The daily average CO₂ level recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, on May 15, 2019, was 415.64 ppm, as above image shows. The image below also shows hourly average levels from April 15, 2019, to May 15, 2019.

Current CO₂ levels far exceed levels that were common during the past 800,000 years, as the image below shows. CO₂ levels moved between roughly 180 and 280 ppm, while the temperature went up and down by some 10°C or 18°F.

The daily average CO₂ level recorded by scripps.ucsd.edu at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, on May 13, 2019, was 415.5 ppm and the May 15, 2019, level was 415.7 ppm. On May 14, 2019, one hourly average exceeded 417 ppm.

The situation is dire

This level of 417 ppm is 139 ppm above the CO₂ level in the year 1750 and more than 157 ppm above what the CO₂ level would have been if levels had followed a natural trend. As shown by the inset (from Ruddiman et al.) in above image, a natural trend points at levels below 260 ppm.

Furthermore, methane levels are rising even faster than CO₂ levels. While CO₂ levels did rise by 146% since 1750, methane levels did rise by 257% since that time and there is much potential for an even faster rise in methane levels due to seafloor hydrate releases. Levels of nitrous oxide also keep rising rapidly.

Such a rise in greenhouse gas levels has historically corresponded with more than 10°C or 18°F of warming, when looking at greenhouse gas levels and temperatures over the past 420,000 years, as illustrated by the image below.

Given that a 100 ppm rise in CO₂ did historically cause temperatures to rise by 10°C or 18°F, how much warming would be in line with a 157 ppm CO₂ and how fast could such a rise unfold?

A temperature of 10°C or 18° above 1750 seems in line with such high greenhouse gas levels. This is illustrated by above graph, based on 420,000 years of ice core data from Vostok, Antarctica, and as the post What Does Abrupt Climate Change Look Like? describes.

Why isn't it much warmer now? Why hasn't such a rise happened yet? Oceans and ice are still holding off such a rise, by absorbing huge amounts of warming. Of 1993-2003 warming, 95.5% was absorbed by oceans and ice. However, ocean stratification and ice loss are making the atmosphere take up more and more heat.

There are further warming elements, in addition to the accelerating rise in greenhouse gas levels. Mentioned above is the loss of the snow and ice cover. The domino effect is a popular way to demonstrate a chain reaction. It is typically sequential and typically uses dominoes that are equal in size. A chain reaction can be achieved with solid dominoes each as much as 1.5 times larger than the previous one. The exponential function is discussed in the video below by Guy McPherson. Rather than following a linear order, warming elements can be self-reinforcing feedback loops and can influence each other in ways that multiply (rather than pass on) their impact, which can speed up the temperature rise exponentially.

So, how fast and by how much could temperatures rise? As oceans and ice are taking up ever less heat, rapid warming of the lower troposphere could occur very soon. When including the joint impact of all warming elements, as described in a recent post, abrupt climate change could result in a rise of as much as 18°C or 32.4°F by 2026. This could cause most life on Earth (including humans) to go extinct within years.

Methane

Next to carbon dioxide, there are further greenhouse gases. Methane is important, because of its high short-term potency as a greenhouse gas and because methane levels in the atmosphere have hugely risen since 1750, and especially recently, as illustrated by the image on the right.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) levels in the atmosphere in 2017 were, respectively, 257%, 146% and 122% their 1750 levels.

A recent study by Turetsky et al. concludes that, since sudden collapse releases more carbon per square metre because it disrupts stockpiles deep in frozen layers, and since abrupt thawing releases more methane than gradual thawing does, the impact of thawing permafrost on Earth’s climate could be twice that expected from current models.

As said, there also is a huge and growing danger of large abrupt methane releases from clathrates contained in sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.

As illustrated by the image below, methane levels are rising and this rise is accelerating.

The graph shows July 1983 through December 2018 monthly global methane means at sea level, with added trend. Higher methane means can occur at higher altitude than at sea level. On Sep 3, 2018, daily methane means as high as 1905 ppb were recorded at 307 mb, an altitude at which some of the strongest growth in methane has occurred, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one.

The recent rise in methane is the more worrying in the light of recent research that calculates that methane's radiative forcing is about 25% higher than reported in IPCC AR5, implying that methane's GWP (global warming potential) over 10 years may be well over 150 times as much as CO₂.

Nitrous Oxide

Next to carbon dioxide and methane, there are further greenhouse gases, of which nitrous oxide is particularly important. Nitrous oxide is up to 300 times as potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and has a lifetime of 121 years. Several recent studies point at the danger of huge releases of nitrous oxide from permafrost.

According to a 2017 study by Voigt et al., Arctic permafrost contains vast amounts of nitrogen (more than 67 billion tons). Warming of the Arctic permafrost is accelerating, causing rapid thaw of permafrost soils, and this now threatens to cause huge releases of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere. The study concluded that nitrous oxide emissions in the Arctic are likely substantial and underestimated, and show high potential to increase with permafrost thaw.

In the video below, Paul Beckwith discusses nitrous oxide.

In the video below, Paul Beckwith discusses the recent study by Wilkerson et al.

The study by Wilkerson et al. shows that nitrous oxide emissions from thawing Alaskan permafrost are about twelve times higher than previously assumed. A 2018 study by Yang et al. points at the danger of large nitrous oxide releases from thawing permafrost in Tibet. Even more nitrous oxide could be released from Antarctica. The danger is illustrated by the image below, which shows that massive amounts of nitrous oxide were recorded over Antarctica on April 29, 2019.

Depletion of the Ozone Layer

In addition to being a potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide is also an ozone depleting substance (ODS). As the left panel of the image below shows, growth in the levels of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has slowed over the years, yet their impact will continue for a long time, given their long atmospheric lifetime (55 years for CFC-11 and 140 years for CFC-12). Since nitrous oxide levels continue to increase in the atmosphere, while the impact of CFC-11 and CFC-12 is slowly decreasing over time, the impact (as an ODS) of nitrous oxide has relatively grown, as the right panel of the image below shows.

[ from an earlier post ]

James Anderson, co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on ozone depletion, said in 2018 that "we have five years to save ourselves from climate change".

Comprehensive Action

In conclusion, while it's important to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases, reducing emissions of methane and nitrous oxide is particularly important. To both reduce polluting emissions and to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans, the Climate Plan recommends feebates as depicted in the image below. As the image also mentions, further lines of action will be needed to avoid a rapid rise in temperature.

[ from an earlier post ]

Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice reached a new record low for April, as illustrated by the NSIDC image below.

In the video below, Guy McPherson describes what threatens to eventuate soon. This is an edit of the April 22, 2019, video in which Guy McPherson was interviewed by Peter B. Collins for the community television station in Marin County, California.

In the video below, Guy McPherson gives a presentation at the Center for Spiritual Living, in Chico, April 28, 2019.

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

Links

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

• Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release, by Merritt Turetsky et al. (30 April 2019)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01313-4

• Permafrost nitrous oxide emissions observed on a landscape scale using the airborne eddy-covariance method, by Jordan Wilkerson et al. (April 3, 2019)
https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/19/4257/2019/

• Can natural or anthropogenic explanations of late-Holocene CO2 and CH4 increases be falsified?, by William Ruddiman et al. (2011)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0959683610387172

• Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: A significant revision of the methane radiative forcing, by Etminan et al. (2016)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL071930

• Magnitude and Pathways of Increased Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Uplands Following Permafrost Thaw, by Guibiao Yang et al. (July 9, 2018)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b02271

• Increased nitrous oxide emissions from Arctic peatlands after permafrost thaw, by Carolina Voigt et al.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/05/23/1702902114

• We Have Five Years To Save Ourselves From Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says - James Anderson (January 15, 2018)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/01/15/carbon-pollution-has-shoved-the-climate-backward-at-least-12-million-years-harvard-scientist-says/

• A rise of 18°C or 32.4°F by 2026?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-rise-of-18c-or-324f-by-2026.html

• Care for the Ozone Layer
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/01/care-for-the-ozone-layer.html

• What Does Runaway Warming Look Like?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-does-runaway-warming-look-like.html

• Rapid ice loss in early April leads to new record low - NSIDC
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2019/05/rapid-ice-loss-in-early-april-leads-to-new-record-low/

Monday, April 8, 2019

Blue Ocean Event Consequences

A Blue Ocean Event looks set to occur in the Arctic when there will be virtually no sea ice left. At first, the duration of this event will be a few weeks in September, but as more heat accumulates in the Arctic, the event will last longer each year thereafter.

Indeed, a Blue Ocean Event will come with accumulation of more heat, due to loss of latent heat, as a dark (blue) ocean absorbs more sunlight than the reflective ice, etc. Consequences will extend far beyond the Arctic, as shown on the image below that features Dave Borlace's Blue Ocean Top Ten Consequences.

Dave Borlace goes into more detail regarding these consequences in the video Blue Ocean Event : Game Over?

A Blue Ocean Event could happen as early as September 2019. The image below shows that Arctic sea ice extent on April 7, 2019, was 12.97 million km², a record low for measurements at ads.nipr.ac.jp for the time of year. By comparison, on May 28, 1985, extent was larger (13.05 million km²) while it was 51 days later in the year.

In the video below, Paul Beckwith also discusses the rapid decline of the sea ice and the consequences.

Clearly, the rapid decline of the sea ice has grave consequences. When also looking beyond what's happening in the Arctic, there are further events, tipping points and feedbacks that make things worse. An earlier post contains the following rapid warming scenario:

a stronger-than-expected El Niño would contribute to
early demise of the Arctic sea ice, i.e. latent heat tipping point +
associated loss of sea ice albedo,
destabilization of seafloor methane hydrates, causing eruption of vast amounts of methane that further speed up Arctic warming and cause
terrestrial permafrost to melt as well, resulting in even more emissions,
while the Jet Stream gets even more deformed, resulting in more extreme weather events
causing forest fires, at first in Siberia and Canada and
eventually also in the peat fields and tropical rain forests of the Amazon, in Africa and South-east Asia, resulting in
rapid melting on the Himalayas, temporarily causing huge flooding,
followed by drought, famine, heat waves and mass starvation, and
collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Importantly, depicted above is only one scenario out of many. Things may eventuate in different order and occur simultaneously, i.e. instead of one domino tipping over the next one sequentially, many events reinforcing each other. Further points should be added to the list, such as falling away of sulfate cooling due to economic changes, ocean stratification and stronger storms that can push large amounts of warm salty water into the Arctic Ocean.

Global sea ice extent is also at a record low for the time of year. Global sea ice extent on April 8, 2019, was 17.9 million km². On April 8, 1982, global sea ice extent was 22.32 million km², i.e. a difference of 4.42 million km². That constitutes a huge albedo loss.

As discussed in an earlier post, this all adds up to further global warming that may eventuate very rapidly. The image below shows how a total rise of 18°C or 32.4°F from preindustrial could eventuate by 2026.

Sunday, March 31, 2019

Arctic Warming Up Fast

On March 30, 2019, Arctic sea ice extent was 13.42 million km², a record low for the measurements at ads.nipr.ac.jp for the time of year.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

As the Arctic warms up faster than the rest of the world, the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator narrows, making the jet stream wavier, thus enabling warm air over the Pacific Arctic to move more easily into the Arctic.

The image on the right shows that, on March 31, 2019, the Arctic was 7.5°C or 13.5°F warmer than 1979-2000.

The earlier forecast below shows a temperature anomaly for the Arctic of 7.6°C or 13.68°F for March 31, 2019, 12:00 UTC and in places 30°C or 54°F warmer. The inset shows the Jet Stream moving higher over the Bering Strait, enabling air that has been strongly warmed up over the Pacific Ocean to move into the Arctic.

A wavier Jet Stream also enables cold air to more easily move out of the Arctic. The inset shows the Jet Stream dipping down over North America where temperatures lower than were usual were recorded.

The later forecast below shows a temperature anomaly for the Arctic of 7.7°C or 13.86°F for March 31, 2019, 12:00 UTC.

The image below shows that El Niño can be expected to push temperatures up higher in 2019 during the Arctic sea ice retreat.

A warmer sea surface can cause winds to grow dramatically stronger, and they can push warm, moist air into the Arctic, while they can also speed up sea currents that carry warm, salty water into the Arctic Ocean.

Rivers can also carry huge amounts of warm water from North America and Siberia into the Arctic Ocean, as these areas are getting hit by ever stronger heatwaves that are hitting the Arctic earlier in the year.

With Arctic sea ice at a low, it won't be able to act as a buffer to absorb heat for long, with the danger that an influx of warm, salty water will reach the seafloor and trigger methane eruptions.

As warmer water keeps flowing into the Arctic Ocean and as air temperatures in the Arctic are now starting to rise on the back of a strengthening El Niño, fears for a Blue Ocean Event in 2019 are rising, which would further accelerate the temperature rise as less sunlight gets reflected back into space.

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

Links

• Arctic sea ice extent
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• ENSO Update by Climate Prediction Center / NCEP 25 March 2019
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• Blue Ocean Event
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/09/blue-ocean-event.html

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

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Carbon dioxide emissions are rising

CO₂ emissions are rising

In models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions were expected to come down in line with pledges made at the Paris Agreement. Yet, the Global Carbon Project projects growth in CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and industry in 2018 to be +2.7%, within uncertainty margins from +1.8% to +3.7%.

This rise is in line with an image from an earlier post that shows growth of CO₂ in the atmosphere to be accelerating.

[ Growth of CO₂ in ppm, based on annual Mauna Loa data (1959-2017), with 4th-order polynomial trend added ]

Methane emissions rising as well

And it's not just CO₂ emissions that are rising. Methane emissions are rising as well. Sadly, politicians typically ignore this elephant in the room, in particular seafloor methane emissions that threaten to trigger a huge temperature rise within years.

[ ignoring the elephant in the room, i.e. seafloor methane ]

The MetOp image below shows high methane levels over oceans on December 9, 2018, pm, at 469 mb. Levels over the Arctic Ocean in particular are very high, as the large areas solidly colored magenta indicate.

The MetOp image shows many areas where no data were available, as indicated by the color grey. The NPP images don't have as many grey areas. The image below confirms very high methane levels over the Arctic Ocean on December 9, 2018 pm, closer to the surface, i.e. at 840 mb. While there still are many grey areas, the absence of data for many of them is due to altitude, since large parts of Greenland, Antarctica and the Himalayas are rather high.

As discussed in earlier posts, large amounts of methane appear to be rising from the Arctic Ocean. As the methane rises higher in the atmosphere, it moves closer to the Equator. The NPP image below shows levels at 399 mb on December 9, 2018, pm. At this altitude, there are very few grey areas, so it's possible to get a fuller picture of where the highest levels of methane are. Ominously, levels as high as 3060 ppb were reached.

El Niño events will intensify

The image on the right shows that, on December 30, 2018, sea surface temperature anomalies were as high as 9.7°C or 17.4°F in the Pacific Ocean, 11.1°C or 20°F in the Atlantic Ocean and 17.1°C or 30.8°F near Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean.

NOAA expects El Niño to form and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018-19 (~90% chance). A recent study concludes that global warming will enhance both the amplitude and the frequency of eastern Pacific El Niño events.

Albedo change

Albedo change due to decline of the snow and ice cover is another feedback that the IPCC has yet to come to grips with. The IPCC seems to have hoped that albedo loss in the Arctic was somehow compensated for by albedo gain in the Antarctic.

The IPCC (in AR5, WG1) did find a significant increase in Antarctic annual mean sea ice extent that is very likely in the range of 1.2 to 1.8 % per decade between 1979 and 2012 (0.13 to 0.20 million km² per decade) (very high confidence).

As the image below shows, global sea ice extent steadily came down, but then grew somewhat until end 2014. From end 2014 on, Antarctic sea ice extent fell rapidly, with huge repercussions for global sea ice extent, as also illustrated by the image on the right that highlights the most recent years of the graph below.

At the end of 2016, Antarctic sea ice extent was a lot smaller than it was at the end of 2014. Such a difference in sea ice extent corresponds with a huge difference in radiative forcing (RF).

Antarctic sea ice extent was 4.913 million km² on January 5, 2019, a record low for the time of year and 4.212 million km² less than it was on January 5, 2015, when extent was 9.125 million km².

This decline could make a difference of 1.3 W/m² in RF. By comparison, the IPCC estimated the net RF from all emissions by people from 1750 to 2011 at 1.6 W/m².

As the image below shows, global sea ice extent was at a record low for the time of year on Dec. 28, 2018, and looks set to go lower in 2019.

Antarctic sea ice decline is only part of the picture, there's also Arctic sea ice decline and there's decline of the snow and ice cover on land.

Joint impact