Showing posts with label ocean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ocean. Show all posts

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Will humans go extinct soon?

The image below shows the June 2025 temperature anomaly versus 1951-1980, using ERA5 data.

[ June 2025 temperature anomaly, click on images to enlarge ]
    [ from earlier post, click to enlarge ]
The above image shows relatively low anomalies over the Arctic Ocean, with a relatively cool area persisting in the North Atlantic, south of Greenland. This appears to reflect heavy melting, slowing down of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and strong evaporation followed by more rainfall further down the track of the Gulf Stream, as illustrated by the image on the right.

The above image also shows high anomalies over parts of Antarctica and Antarctic sea ice. This appears to reflect changes to the Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC).

Rising temperatures result in a loss of carbon storage, concludes a recent study led by Thomas Werner into marine heatwaves. 

   [ marine heatwave in North Pacific ]
The image on the right shows that the sea surface temperature was as much as 7.5°C (13.4°F) higher than 1981-2011 on July 16, 2025, 12:00 UTC, at the location marked by the green circle, reflecting a strong marine heatwave in the North Pacific. The image also shows a distorted Jet Stream (at 250 hPa).

Covering more than 70% of Earth’s surface, our global ocean has absorbed 90% of the warming that has occurred in recent decades due to increasing greenhouse gases, and the top few meters of the ocean store as much heat as Earth's entire atmosphere, as described by a NASA post. 

A small reduction in the 90% uptake of heat by oceans could result in a huge rise in the global air temperature, and studies warn about changes that are occurring in the AMOC and SMOC, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one. Such feedbacks could strike hard very rapidly, i.e. as fast feedbacks. 

The IPCC (AR6 WG1 SPM page 11) uses an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3°C, but James Hansen says fast-feedback equilibrium climate sensitivity is 4.8°C and equilibrium global warming for today’s amount of greenhouse gases (4.1 W/m²) is 10°C, which includes a 2°C rise that would eventuate by the falling away of the aerosols that currently mask the temperature rise. 

A 2024 study led by Judd finds that climate sensitivity has historically been about 8°C. 

[ Temperature rise vs 1901-2000 (ClimateReanalyzer) and vs 1850-1900 (IPCC, inset left) ]

The IPCC appears to be downplaying the temperature rise in multiple ways, including by using linear trends, a late baseline and a low climate sensitivity, to give the false impression that polluters could continue to pollute for decades to come. 
 
The above images illustrate what the world would look like under a CMIP6 SSP5-8.5 scenario by February 2100, compared to 1891-1910. Obviously, such a rise would devastate sea ice and permafrost, triggering and accelerating numerous feedbacks, resulting in widespread forest fires and releases of greenhouse gases.


The 36-month running average for albedo (reflectivity) for May 2025 is down to a record low of 28.711%, as illustrated by the above Eliot Jacobson image.


The 36-month running mean for the Earth energy imbalance grew in May 2025 to 11.36 Hiroshimas per second. That's roughly 980,000 Hiroshimas per day in planetary warming, adds Eliot Jacobson.

As said, the IPCC keeps downplaying the potential impact of feedbacks such as changes to ocean currents, wind patterns, clouds and water vapor, and loss of sea ice and permafrost, thus failing to warn people about a near-future in which temperatures could rise strongly due to such feedbacks, especially during an El Niño, and due to further reduction of the aerosol masking effect, developments that could rapidly speed up existing feedbacks and trigger new feedbacks, resulting in more extreme weather events striking with a ferocity, frequency and ubiquity that keeps increasing at an accelerating pace.

   [ NOAA ENSO outlook ]
The updated ENSO outlook (CFSv2 ensemble mean, black dashed line, image on the right, adapted from NOAA) favors borderline La Niña during the Northern Hemisphere fall and early winter 2025-2026.

The image below illustrates the outlook of borderline La Niña for the Northern Hemisphere fall and early winter 2025-2026. On July 29, 2025, the average temperature in Niño 3.4, an area in the Pacific that is indicative for El Niño development (inset), had fallen to 26.7°C, an anomaly of -0.35°C from 1991-2020.


The current ENSO conditions make it even more significant that on July 14, 2025, the global temperature was 16.86°C, i.e. higher than the temperature was in 2023 or 2024 on this day, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from Climate Reanalyzer. 


The earlier image below shows a preliminary 16.85°C that was later upgraded to 16.86°C (final). The point is that this is a record high for that day and 0.3°C below the highest daily temperature on record (17.16°C) that was reached on July 22, 2024 (image adapted from Copernicus).

The image below shows monthly temperature anomalies through June 2025, based on ERA5 anomalies vs 1951-1980 from Jan 2014-June 2025 (red circles). 
In the above image, data are adjusted by 1°C to reflect a pre-industrial base (black circles). Cubic trends are added to show that 3°C could be crossed late 2028 (red) or early 2027 (black). 

The image below shows surface air temperature anomalies April 1, 2023, through July 14, 2025 (final), with a red trend added that warns about a potentially huge temperature rise later in 2025.


Furthermore, sea surface temperatures are on the rise again. The image below shows the global sea surface temperature through July 20, 2025 (60°S–60°N, 0–360°E).


How much could temperatures rise? The image below is a combination image. The top image shows a trend based on annual sea surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere through 2022. The bottom image shows a trend based on annual sea surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere through 2023. The trend in the bottom image shows an even steeper rise than the trend in the top image. This shows that a polynomial trend can sometimes be a good indicator of the rise to come.


The current ENSO conditions also make it even more significant that the global sea ice area anomaly was 2.56 million km² below the 1981-2010 mean on July 30, 2025, a standard deviation of -4.33σ from 1981-2010.
Global sea ice extent was 21.92 million km² on July 31, 2025, a deviation of -4.88σ, as illustrated by the image below. 


Arctic sea ice volume was at a record daily low on August 3, 2025, as it has been for more than a year, as illustrated by the image below.

The image below shows Arctic sea ice concentration on August 3, 2025.


Seafloor methane

As the temperature of the water of the Arctic Ocean rises, more ocean heat can penetrate sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, which can destabilize methane hydrates contained in these sediments and cause eruptions of huge amounts of methane from the hydrates and from free gas kept underneath these hydrates.

The image below shows that methane concentrations as high as 2535 parts per billion (ppb) were recorded at a pressure level of 695.1 mb by the NOAA 20 satellite on July 30, 2025 AM. High concentrations of methane show up at latitudes higher than 30°N.


The image below shows hourly methane measurements taken at the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (BRW), a NOAA facility located near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, at 71.32 degrees North.


The image below repeats the IPCC's response, or rather its failure to respond.


A 3°C rise constitutes an important threshold, since humans will likely go extinct with such a rise. As illustrated by the image below, we may already be more than 2°C above pre-industrial and face a potentially huge temperature rise over the next few years.

[ from the post When will humans go extinct? ]
   [ from: When Will We Die? ]
Recent research led by David Fastivich finds that, historically, vegetation responded at timescales from hundreds to tens of thousands of years, but not at timescales shorter than about 150 years. It takes centuries for tree populations to adapt - far too slow to keep pace with today’s rapidly warming world.

Note that vegetation depends on the presence of a lot of things including healthy soil, microbes, moisture, nutrients and habitat. 

A 2018 study by Strona & Bradshaw indicates that most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise (see box on the right). Humans, who depend on a lot of other species, will likely go extinct with a 3°C, as discussed in the earlier post When Will We Die? 

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.



Links

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• IPCC AR6 WG1 Figure 4.35 | Comparison of RCPs and SSPs
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/figures/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Figure_4_35.png
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/chapter-4/figure-4-35

• Saltier water, less sea ice
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/07/saltier-water-less-sea-ice.html

• Nullschool.net
https://earth.nullschool.net

• Marine heatwaves as hot spots of climate change and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services - by Thomas Wernberg et al.
discussed on Facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10162992131044679

• Copernicus
https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu

• NASA - Ocean warming (December 2024) 
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ocean-warming/?intent=121

• Arctic Blue Ocean Event 2025? (update June 2025)
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/06/arctic-blue-ocean-event-2025-update-June-2025.html

• A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature - by Emily Judd et al. (2024) 
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705
discussed on Facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161741588279679

• Global warming in the pipeline - by James Hansen et al. 
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
discussed on Facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161110558744679

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

• NOAA - Climate Prediction Center - ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• When will humans go extinct? 

• Coupled, decoupled, and abrupt responses of vegetation to climate across timescales - by David Fastovich et al. (2025)
discussed on Facebook at: 

• Danish Meteorological Institute - sea ice thickness and volume
• University of Bremen
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/start

• Kevin Pluck - sea ice visuals
https://seaice.visuals.earth

• NOAA - satellite methane measurements
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/products/atmosphere/soundings/heap/nucaps/new/nucaps_products.html

• NOAA - flask and station methane measurements
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/index.php

• When Will We Die?

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

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

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




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Saturday, July 5, 2025

Arctic Blue Ocean Event? (update July 2025)


Arctic sea ice extent was 8.35 million km² on July 4, 2025, a record low extent for this time of year. This record daily low extent is the more significant since it was reached in the absence of El Niño conditions. Instead, ENSO-neutral and borderline La Niña conditions are currently dominant.

Sea ice extent is one out of several measurements indicating the miserable state the Arctic sea ice is in, as also discussed in an earlier post. The image below shows Arctic sea ice concentration on July 31, 2025. 

The combination image below shows Arctic sea ice thickness on July 12, 2025 (left) and a sea surface temperature of 10.3°C or 50.6°F on July 10, 2025 (at the green circle, center), corresponding with a sea surface temperature anomaly of 11.4°C or 20.5°F on July 5, 2025 (at the green circle, right).

The combination below shows the Northern Hemisphere on July 27, 2025. Globe on the left: sea surface temperature anomalies. Globe at the center: sea surface temperatures. Globe on the right: the Jet Stream (at 250 hPa) lines up with the Gulf Stream on its way toward the Arctic Ocean. 


Arctic sea ice volume was at a record daily low on July 30, 2025, as it has been for more than a year, as illustrated by the image below. 


Antarctic sea ice area fell from 11.72 million km² (17th place) on July 6, 2025, to 11.30 million km² (2nd place) on July 15, 2025, as illustrated by the image below.
Global sea ice extent was 21.99 million km² on July 18, 2025, a standard deviation of -5.06σ from 1981-2010, as illustrated by the image below.


This very low global sea ice extent means loss of albedo, as a lot less sunlight now gets reflected back into space by global sea ice and instead gets absorbed by the sea surface. Low sea ice extent thus is a self-amplifying feedback loop that further drives up global temperatures, and this in turn threatens to strengthen numerous further self-amplifying feedback loops such as changes to ocean currents that cause more heat to accumulate at the ocean surface and darkening of the ocean surface, which further reduces the Earth's albedo, as warned about in a recent study led by Thomas Davies.
Will an Arctic Blue Ocean Event occur in 2025?

[ from earlier post ]
Most climate models do not anticipate an Arctic Blue Ocean Event (BOE) to occur soon. For such a BOE to occur in 2025 would therefore count as a Black Swan event, i.e. something unexpected. Having said that, there are many things that most climate models didn't expect to occur, including: 

- Very high temperatures, starting in 2023 and still persisting this year
- Very low Antarctic sea ice over the pasty few years
- Record high concentrations of greenhouse gases 
- Heat rising from the Southern Ocean into the atmosphere, as discussed in an earlier post 
- Record low Earth's albedo (as illustrated by the image below) 


[ Earth's albedo, image from Eliot Jacobson, also discussed on facebook ]

[ James Hansen: Inferred contributions
to reduced Earth albedo ]
The image on the right, from an earlier post, shows inferred contributions to this drop in albedo, by Hansen et al.

There is a compound impact in that sea ice loss comes with albedo loss that causes more heat to be absorbed by oceans, while higher global sea surface temperatures also cause further loss of lower clouds, further reducing albedo and thus accelerating the temperature rise.

Polar amplification of the temperature rise narrows the temperature difference between the poles and the Equator, which causes distortion of the Jet Stream that in turn results in more extreme weather events. A 2025 study led by Tselioudis suggests that this causes the band of clouds over the Tropics to contract. Since clouds over the Tropics reflect relatively more sunlight, this results in reduced global albedo.

The extraordinary albedo loss depicted in the above image causes the temperature to rise, increasing the probability for a Blue Ocean Event to occur in the course of 2025. 

2024 temperature anomaly in the Northern Hemisphere: an 14.349σ event

Talking about probabilities, the 2024 world 2m temperature standard deviation from 1951-1980 was very high, an anomaly of 11.157 σ, as illustrated by the image below. 


In statistics, the empirical rule states that in a normal distribution, 68% of the observed data will occur within one standard deviation (1σ), 95% within two standard deviations (2σ), and 99.7% within three standard deviations (3σ) of the mean. A 4σ event indicates that the observed result is 4 standard deviations (4σ) away from the expected mean. In a normal distribution, 99.993666% of data points would fall within this range. The chance for data to fall outside of 4σ is thus infinitesimally small. The 2024 world temperature anomaly was an 11.157σ event.


In the Northern Hemisphere, the 2024 temperature anomaly was 1.701°C higher than the 1951-1980 mean, as illustrated by the above image. This constitutes a 14.349σ event, as illustrated by the image below.

The 2024 temperature anomaly in the Northern Hemisphere was much higher than the world 2024 temperature anomaly, as illustrated by the above images. The difference between the land and ocean anomalies is even larger, the 2024 temperature anomaly on land was 1.9°C, while the ocean anomaly was 0.92°C, as illustrated by the image below. 


   [ February 2024 NH anomaly ] 
Temperature anomaly peaks in specific areas can be much higher than global annual averages. As an example, temperature anomalies for February 2024 were 15-20°C higher than 1951-1980 in some areas, as illustrated by the map on the right. 

Note also that 1951-1980 is a relatively recent period; when compared with a genuinely pre-industrial base, temperature anomalies will be even higher.

In conclusion, to call the 2024 temperature anomaly on land in the Northern Hemisphere extraordinary is an understatement. There is an unacceptable danger that the temperature rise will accelerate further, hitting areas on land in the Northern Hemisphere hard, which is where after all most people live.

Danger Assessment

[ image from earlier post ]
The very continuation of life on Earth is at stake and the sheer potential that all life on Earth may be condemned to disappear due to a refusal by some people to do the right thing, that should prompt the whole world into rapid and dramatic climate action. 

Seafloor methane

As the temperature of the water of the Arctic Ocean rises, more ocean heat can penetrate sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, which can destabilize methane hydrates contained in these sediments and cause eruptions of huge amounts of methane from the hydrates and from free gas kept underneath these hydrates.

The image below shows that methane concentrations as high as 2525 parts per billion (ppb) were recorded at a pressure level of 399.1 mb by the NOAA 20 satellite on July 19, 2025 AM. High concentrations of methane show up over the Beaufort Sea and over the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). Also note the higher concentrations of methane that are showing up around Antarctica.

The image below shows the situation at a pressure level of 1000 MB (corresponding to an altitude close to the surface). The image shows that most of the highest concentrations of methane (magenta color) are coming from the oceans at the Northern Hemisphere polar and temperate zones (higher than latitude 23.5°N). No data are available for the white areas (tracks missed by satellite) and grey areas (quality control failure). 

There are only a few locations where methane data are collected, from flasks and instruments in stations. Data from Tiksi in Siberia have stopped years ago, as illustrated by the image below. 


Data are available from the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (BRW), a NOAA facility located near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, at 71.32 degrees North, as illustrated by the image below.


Extreme heat stress warning

The image below highlights an extreme heat stress warning for Memphis, Tennessee, for July 22, 2025.


The image below shows a forecast for July 22, 2025, by Climate Reanalyzer.


The image below shows an extreme heat stress warning for July 22, 2025, for locations in Tennessee.



Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.



Links

• National Institute of Polar Research Japan
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp

• Nullschool.net

• University of Bremen

• Kevin Pluck - sea ice visuals

• Darkening of the Global Ocean - by Thomas Davis et al. (2025)  

discussed on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10162720612504679

• Climate Reanalyzer

• Heads in the clouds while Earth is burning

• Saltier water, less sea ice

• Arctic Blue Ocean Event 2025? (update June 2025)

• NOAA - satellite methane measurements

• NOAA - flask and station methane measurements

• NASA - GISS Surface Temperature Analysis

• National Weather Service - National Digital Forecast Database

• NOAA - heat risk graphics










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