The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows Arctic sea ice on June 18, 2023. While the sea ice on much of the picture is shrouded in clouds, Arctic sea ice clearly is in a poor condition, even close to the North Pole (on the bottom left of the image below).
The Uni of Bremen image below shows Arctic sea ice thickness on June 18, 2023.
The danger is that, as El Niño strengthens, there will be massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months, with water in the Arctic Ocean heating up strongly due to loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo, while huge amounts of ocean heat keep entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
The image below shows that the North Atlantic sea surface temperature was 23.1°C on June 18, 2023 (on the black line), 0.8°C higher than the 22.3°C on June 18, 2022 (on the orange line). A record high of 24.9°C was reached on Sept. 4, 2022, even while La Niña was suppressing the temperature. This time, there's an El Niño.
Furthermore, the Jet Stream is strongly deformed, threatening to result in heatwaves that extend over the Arctic Ocean and that cause hot water from rivers to enter the Arctic Ocean, while storms accelerate the flow of ocean heat into the Arctic Ocean, and while fires and storms contribute to darkening of the sea ice, speeding up its demise.
All this threatens to trigger eruption of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as has been described many times before, such as in this post, in this post and in this post.
[ Latent heat loss, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]
Loss of Arctic sea ice albedo, loss of the latent heat buffer and eruption of seafloor methane all constitute tipping points that threaten to abruptly accelerate the temperature rise in the Arctic, further speeding up loss of permafrost in Siberia and North America and thus threatening to trigger further releases of greenhouse gases.
In addition, there are further events and developments that could unfold and make things even worse.
The upcoming temperature rise on land on the Northern Hemisphere could be of such a severity that much traffic, transport and industrial activity will grind to a halt, resulting in a reduction in cooling aerosols that are now masking the full wrath of global heating. Without these cooling aerosols, the temperature is projected to rise strongly, while there could be an additional temperature rise due to an increase in warming aerosols and gases as a result of more biomass and waste burning and forest fires. Furthermore, as traffic slows down, there will be less nitrogen oxide emissions, which could result in less hydroxyl to curtail methane.
The bar on the right depicts the threat, as discussed at the Extinction page.
The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows Arctic sea ice in a poor condition on June 16, 2023, all the way up to the North Pole (on the bottom left of the image below). There is open water near the Franz Josef Archipelago, some 1000 km from the North Pole (on the right side of the image below). Clouds prevent a clearer view of the sea ice.
The Uni of Bremen image below shows Arctic sea ice thickness on June 15, 2023.
The danger is that, as El Niño strengthens, there will be massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months, with water in the Arctic Ocean heating up strongly due to loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo, while huge amounts of ocean heat keep entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
Furthermore, the Jet Stream is strongly deformed, threatening to result in heatwaves that extend over the Arctic Ocean and that cause hot water from rivers to enter the Arctic Ocean, while storms accelerate the flow of ocean heat into the Arctic Ocean, and while fires and storms contribute to darkening of the sea ice, speeding up its demise.
All this threatens to trigger eruption of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as has been described many times before, such as in this post, in this post and in this post.
[ Latent heat loss, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]
Loss of Arctic sea ice albedo, loss of the latent heat buffer and eruption of seafloor methane all constitute tipping points that threaten to abruptly accelerate the temperature rise in the Arctic, further speeding up loss of permafrost in Siberia and North America and thus threatening to trigger further releases of greenhouse gases.
In addition, there are further events and developments that could unfold and make things even worse.
The upcoming temperature rise on land on the Northern Hemisphere could be of such a severity that much traffic, transport and industrial activity will grind to a halt, resulting in a reduction in cooling aerosols that are now masking the full wrath of global heating. Without these cooling aerosols, the temperature is projected to rise strongly, while there could be an additional temperature rise due to an increase in warming aerosols and gases as a result of more biomass and waste burning and forest fires. Furthermore, as traffic slows down, there will be less nitrogen oxide emissions, which could result in less hydroxyl to curtail methane.
The bar on the right depicts the threat, as discussed at the Extinction page.
The World daily 2-meter Air Temperature (90-90°N, 0-360°E) was 16.77°C on June 9, 2023, an anomaly of 0.9°C for that day. The highest temperature on record is 16.92°C, and it was reached on August 14, 2016, and the anomaly for that day was only 0.75°C.
The record high of 16.92° actually was a tie between August 13, 2016, August 14, 2016, and July 24, 2022. That latter date is important, since the record high temperature was reached even while there was a strong La Niña, suppressing the temperature. This time, we're in an El Niño, so we can expect even higher temperatures over the next few weeks.
The highest anomaly on record was reached on February 28, 2016, when there was a strong El Niño and the anomaly was 1.15°C. Note that these anomalies are compared to the mean temperature for that day in NOAA's NCEP CFSv2.
The above image, from an earlier post, uses monthly NASA Land+Ocean temperature anomalies versus 1886-1915 that are further adjusted by 0.99°C to reflect ocean air temperatures, higher polar anomalies and a pre-industral base.
The above image shows sea surface temperature on the North Atlantic (0-60°N, 0-80°W) depicted as anomalies, reaching about 1.1°C above the 1982-2023 mean on June 10, 2023.
The situation is especially critical in the North Atlantic, as vast amounts of ocean heat in the North Atlantic are moving toward the Arctic, threatening to cause rapid melting of Arctic sea ice and thawing of permafrost.
The above image shows the same data for sea surface temperature on the North Atlantic (0-60°N, 0-80°W) reaching 22.7°C on June 10, 2023 (on the black line), 0.7°C higher than the 22.0°C on June 10, 2022 (on the orange line).
The comparison with 2022 is important, as the North Atlantic sea surface temperature reached a record 24.9°C on Sept. 4, 2022, even while there was a strong La Niña, suppressing the temperature. This time, we have an El Niño, as illustrated by the NOAA image on the right.
Global sea ice extent was at a record low for the time of year on June 14, 2023, i.e. only 21.42 million km², as illustrated by the image below.
Contributing to this is very low Antarctic sea ice extent. The image below shows Antarctic sea ice extent up to June 14, 2023. Values in the column on the left are for February 16; Antarctic sea ice extent reached a record minimum on February 16, 2023. Values in the column on the right are for June 14. Highlighted are three years: 2023 (red), 2022 (blue) and 2016 (black). Antarctic sea ice extent was also very low at the end of the year 2016, which was a strong El Niño year, yet extent was even lower at the very end of the year in 2022, even though that was during a La Niña.
The annual Arctic sea ice extent minimum is typically reached in September and the North Atlantic sea surface temperature is critical in regard to melting of the Arctic sea ice. The already high sea surface temperature together with the impact of the El Niño make the outlook for Arctic sea ice for September 2023 look grim.
Sea ice concentration is getting lower in many places and there is open water off the Siberian coast and in parts of the Beaufort Sea and Baffin Bay, as illustrated by the Uni of Bremen image on the right. Rising temperatures in the Arctic threaten to trigger massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months.
The image on the right, from polarportal.dk, shows very low Arctic sea ice volume for the time of year on June 13, 2023, already much lower than the volume on the same date for any of the four previous years.
The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows Arctic sea ice in a very vulnerable state on June 11, 2023, even very close to the North Pole (on the left of the image below). Open water is also visible near the Franz Jozef Archipelago, some 1000 km from the North Pole (on the right of the image below).
The NASA satellite image on the right provides a closer look at the sea ice near the North Pole on June 14, 2023 (click on images to enlarge).
On the one hand, it's terrible to see open water close to the North Pole so early in the year, yet on the other hand, this may enable ocean heat to escape to the atmosphere and thus delay eruption of seafloor methane (image further below).
The Uni of Bremen image on the right underneath shows Arctic sea ice thickness on June 13, 2023.
As discussed in earlier posts such as this one, conditions are dire:
• Earth's energy imbalance is at record high • emissions are at record high • greenhouse gas concentrations are at record high • temperatures are very high, especially in the Arctic
• North Atlantic sea surface temperature is at record high
• sea ice is very vulnerable • the Jet Stream is strongly deformed, threatening to cause:
• heatwaves extending over the Arctic Ocean with
• hot water from rivers entering the Arctic Ocean, with
• storms pushing hot water into the Arctic Ocean, and with
• fires and storms darkening the sea ice
The image on the right shows that carbon dioxide was as high as 427 ppm recently at Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
The image below shows the extent of the deformation of the Jet Stream on June 6, 2023. No less than 26 circular wind patterns (at 250 hPa) are marked on the image, which also shows sea surface temperature anomalies. The Jet Stream is can also be seen crossing the Equator at the bottom of the image.
Furthermore, there are circumstances that could coincide in a cataclysmic alignment: El Niño is on the way, sunspots are higher than predicted and the Tonga submarine volcano did add large amounts of water vapor high into the atmosphere.
All this looks set to jointly result in massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months, with loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo threatening to trigger eruption of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as has been described many times before, such as in this post, in this post and in this post.
[ Latent heat loss, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]
Both loss of Arctic sea ice and eruption of seafloor methane constitute tipping points that threaten to abruptly accelerate the temperature rise in the Arctic, thus also accelerating loss of permafrost in Siberia and North America that threatens to trigger further releases of greenhouse gases.
In addition, there are further events and developments that could unfold and make things even worse.
The upcoming temperature rise on land on the Northern Hemisphere could be of such a severity that much traffic, transport and industrial activity will grind to a halt, resulting in a reduction in cooling aerosols that are now masking the full wrath of global heating. Without these cooling aerosols, the temperature is projected to rise strongly, while there could be an additional temperature rise due to an increase in warming aerosols and gases as a result of more biomass and waste burning and forest fires. Furthermore, as traffic slows down, there will be less nitrogen oxide emissions, which could result in less hydroxyl to curtail methane.
The bar on the right depicts the threat, as discussed at the Extinction page.
The above image shows high temperature anomalies over the Arctic on June 3, 2023.
The above image shows sea surface temperature on the North Atlantic (0-60N, 0-80W) depicted as anomalies, reaching 1.04°C above 1982-2023 on June 8, 2023. The situation is especially critical in the North Atlantic, as vast amounts of ocean heat in the North Atlantic are moving toward the Arctic, threatening to cause rapid melting of Arctic sea ice and thawing of permafrost.
The above image shows the same data for sea surface temperature on the North Atlantic (0-60N, 0-80W) reaching 22.5°C on June 7, 2023 (on the black line), 0.6°C higher than the 21.9°C on June 7, 2022 (on the orange line).
The comparison with 2022 is important, as the North Atlantic sea surface temperature reached a record 24.9°C on Sept. 4, 2022, even while there was a strong La Niña, suppressing the temperature. This time, we have an El Niño, as illustrated by the NOAA image on the right.
[ click on images to enlarge ]
The annual Arctic sea ice extent minimum is typically reached in September and the North Atlantic sea surface temperature is critical in regard to melting of the Arctic sea ice. The already high sea surface temperature together with the impact of the El Niño make the outlook for Arctic sea ice for September 2023 look grim.
Sea ice concentration is getting lower in many places and there is open water in parts of the Beaufort Sea and Baffin Bay, as illustrated by the Uni of Bremen image on the right.
Rising temperatures in the Arctic threaten to trigger massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months.
The image on the right, from polarportal.dk, shows very low Arctic sea ice volume for the time of year on June 8, 2023, already much lower than the volume on the same date for any of the four previous years.
The NASA Worldview image below shows, on the left, that Arctic sea ice is very thin on June 4, 2023, with open water close to the North Pole.
On the right of the image below, the Franz Jozef Archipelago, some 1000 km from the North Pole.
The image below shows the situation on June 6, 2023.
The image on the right, from the Uni of Bremen, shows Arctic sea ice thickness on June 3, 2023.
On the one hand, it's terrible to see open water close to the North Pole so early in the year, yet on the other hand, this may enable ocean heat to escape to the atmosphere and thus delay eruption of seafloor methane (image below).
As discussed in earlier posts such as this one, conditions are dire:
• Earth's energy imbalance is at record high
• emissions are at record high
• greenhouse gas concentrations are at record high
• temperatures are very high, especially in the Arctic
• North Atlantic sea surface temperature is at record high
• sea ice is very vulnerable
• the Jet Stream is strongly deformed
The image below shows the extent of the deformation of the Jet Stream on June 6, 2023. No less than 26 circular wind patterns (at 250 hPa) are marked on the image, which also shows sea surface temperature anomalies. The Jet Stream is also crossing the Equator.
Furthermore, there are circumstances that could coincide in a cataclysmic alignment: El Niño is on the way, sunspots are higher than predicted and the Tonga submarine volcano did add large amounts of water vapor high into the atmosphere.
All this looks set to jointly result in massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months, with loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo threatening to trigger eruption of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as has been described many times before, such as in this post, in this post and in this post.
[ Latent heat loss, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]
Both loss of Arctic sea ice and eruption of seafloor methane constitute tipping points that threaten to abruptly accelerate the temperature rise in the Arctic, thus also accelerating loss of permafrost in Siberia and North America that threatens to trigger further releases of greenhouse gases.
In addition, there are further events and developments that could unfold and make things even worse.
The upcoming temperature rise on land on the Northern Hemisphere could be of such a severity that much traffic, transport and industrial activity will grind to a halt, resulting in a reduction in cooling aerosols that are now masking the full wrath of global heating. Without these cooling aerosols, the temperature is projected to rise strongly, while there could be an additional temperature rise due to an increase in warming aerosols and gases as a result of more biomass and waste burning and forest fires. Furthermore, as traffic slows down, there will be less nitrogen oxide emissions, which could result in less hydroxyl to curtail methane.
The bar on the right depicts the threat, as discussed at the Extinction page.
A Blue Ocean Event occurs when virtually all sea ice disappears and the surface color changes from white (sea ice) to blue (ocean). According to many, a Blue Ocean Event starts once Arctic sea ice extent falls below 1 million km².
The image on the right shows a trend pointing at zero Arctic sea ice volume by September 2027.
Note that the volume data in the image are averages for the month September — the minimum for each year is even lower. Furthermore, since zero volume implies zero extent, this indicates that a Blue Ocean Event (extent below 1 million km²) could happen well before 2027.
Sea ice extent
The image below, adapted from NSIDC, shows the extent of Arctic sea ice on July 26, 2022.
[ click on images to enlarge ]
The extent of Arctic sea ice was among the lowest on record for the time of year on July 26, 2022. Furthermore, Antarctic sea ice extent is currently at a record low for the time of year, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from Vishop and showing the situation up to July 27, 2022.
As a result, global extent of sea ice is close to record low for the time of year, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from Vishop and showing the situation up to July 27, 2022.
Both Vishop and NSIDC use 15% concentration as the threshold for including an area in calculations of sea ice extent. This makes it important to look at the concentration of the sea ice.
Sea ice concentration
The image below, adapted from University of Bremen, shows Arctic sea ice concentration on July 22, 2022, with concentration in many areas close to the North Pole down to 0%.
The image below, adapted from NSIDC, shows Arctic sea ice concentration on July 26, 2022, with very low concentration of sea ice visible close to the North Pole.
Sea ice thickness
The Naval Research Laboratory one-month animation below shows Arctic sea ice thickness up to July 25, 2022, with 8 days of forecasts added.
The combination image below shows the fall in Arctic sea ice thickness from June 8 through August 6, 2022.
[ click on images to enlarge ]
The above combination image shows that most sea ice on June 8 (left) was forecast to be over 2 meters thick, that most sea ice on July 8 (center) was forecast to be over 1 meter thick, and that most sea was forecast to be under 1 meter thick on August 6, 2022 (right).
While the fall in extent over this period wasn't as dramatic, due to the suppression of air temperatures by the current La Niña, note that the green and yellow colors where the sea ice on June 8 was more than 2.5 meters thick, north of Greenland and north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, have virtually disappeared in the August 6 forecast.
The above maps show a dramatic fall in sea ice thickness over a large area. This fall in thickness is mostly due to warm water from the Atlantic Ocean that is melting the sea ice hanging underneath the surface. This is where the sea ice constitutes the latent heat buffer, consuming incoming heat in the process of melting.
The above Naval Research Laboratory maps may be conservative. The NASA Worldview and University of Bremen images below indicate that Arctic sea ice may be even thinner than that, especially north of the North Pole.
The NASA Worldview combination image below shows the sea ice north of the North Pole on July 22, 2022 (left), and on July 23, 2022 (right), indicating that at many places there is no sea ice left at all. Note that the view in many places is obscured due to clouds.
The University of Bremen combination image below shows the difference in sea ice thickness between June 1, 2022, June 30, 2022, and July 22, 2022. The images at the center and on the right show large areas where sea ice is less than 20 cm thick, indicating that the latent heat buffer had already disappeared in June 2022, as also discussed further below.
[ click on images to enlarge ]
The NASA Worldview combination image below shows the sea ice north of Greenland on July 19, 2022 (top), and on July 22, 2022 (bottom), indicating that even at places where the sea ice once was the thickest, it can melt away rapidly. The mechanism behind this is that, as thick ice breaks off and fragments, it additionally gets heated up from the sides, and this further accelerates the melting as the sea ice breaks up further, into ever smaller pieces.
The image below was created with a screenshot of a July 26, 2022, NASA Worldview satellite image, with the Earth at Night layer activated and brightness and contrast enhanced, which enables a closer look to be taken through the clouds. The image shows very little sea ice near the North Pole.
The image below, a screenshot of a July 26, 2022, NASA Worldview satellite image, further shows that there is little sea ice close to the North Pole.
Conditions behind the danger
One reason why sea ice has fallen so much in thickness so close to the North Pole is that around the time of the June Solstice (June 22, 2022) the North Pole receives more insolation than anywhere else on Earth.
Around this time of year, the sunlight has less distance to travel through the thinner atmosphere over the Arctic, so less sunlight gets absorbed or scattered before reaching the surface. In addition, the high angle of the Sun produces long days and sunlight is concentrated over a smaller area. Above the Arctic Circle, the Sun does not set at this time of year, so solar radiation continues all day and night.
How much sunlight does reach the surface further depends on weather conditions such as clouds and how much heat gets pushed by the wind toward the North Pole. As temperatures have risen over the years, the Jet Stream has become more deformed, increasing the chance that heatwaves over land extend over the Arctic Ocean. Deformation of the Jet Stream can also lead to increasingly strong winds speeding up ocean currents that can abruptly push huge amounts of ocean heat into the Arctic ocean, as further discussed below. For more background, also see the feedbacks page.
Ocean heat
On July 19, 2022, the sea surface was as warm as 1.8°C or 35.2°F north of Greenland, as the nullschool.net image below shows.
The above image also shows how cold water (blue) flows down to the east of Greenland, while warm water (green) flows off the west coast of Norway toward to Arctic Ocean, diving under the sea ice north of Svalbard and reaching areas north of Greenland where sea surface temperatures rise above freezing point.
Of the extra heat from Earth's energy imbalance, about 93% ends up in the ocean as increasing ocean heat content (see image below), 3% goes into melting ice, 4% goes into raising temperatures of land and melting permafrost, and less than 1% remains in the atmosphere, as discussed in an earlier post.
Sea ice has disappeared in the Bering Strait, in part due to warm water from rivers in Alaska, as illustrated by the NOAA image below, which shows sea surface temperatures as high as 18.6°C or 65.48°F.
On July 19, 2022, the sea surface temperature anomaly from 1981-2011 in the Arctic Ocean was as high as 14.0°C or 25.2°F (at green circle), as illustrated by the screenshot below of a nullschool.net image (with text added). In 1981-2011, the sea surface temperature at this spot (at the green circle in the Kara Sea) at this time of year was around freezing point.
The above image also shows a distorted Jet Stream (at 250 hPa) moving over the Arctic ocean, instead of circumventing the Arctic and thus keeping heat out of the Arctic and keeping cold inside the Arctic, as it used to be.
The above NOAA image illustrates how the Gulf Stream is pushing warm water toward the Arctic, with sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic reaching as high as 32.6°C or 90.68°F on July 23, 2022.
Latent heat
Latent heat is heat that is (less and less) going into melting the sea ice. The reason this heat is called latent (hidden) heat, is that it doesn't raise the temperature of the water, but instead gets consumed in the process of melting the ice. Latent heat is energy associated with a phase change, such as the energy consumed when solid ice turns into water (i.e. 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.
Once most of the sea ice that was hanging underneath the surface is gone, further heat will still keep moving underneath the sea ice from the Atlantic Ocean and - to a lesser extent - from the Pacific Ocean into the Arctic Ocean. Without the latent heat buffer, this 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 occur once the sea ice is gone, further warming up the atmosphere.
A 2019 analysis concludes that the latent heat tipping point gets crossed when the sea surface temperature anomaly on the Northern Hemisphere gets higher than 1°C above 20th century's temperature and when there is little or no thick sea ice left. As the image below indicates, the temperature anomaly of 1°C above the 20th century average looks set to be crossed in the course of the year 2021.
As the Latent Heat Tipping Point gets crossed, there may still be a thin layer of ice at the surface, at least as long as air temperatures are low enough to keep it frozen and as long as strong winds haven't pushed the sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean. This thin layer of ice will still consume some ocean heat below the surface, but at the same time it acts as a seal, preventing heat from the Arctic Ocean to enter the atmosphere. Even if a lot of sea ice remains, the situation is dangerous, if not even more dangerous. The continuing La Niña could cause a lot of thin sea ice to remain at the surface of the Arctic Ocean this year. The more sea ice remains, the less ocean heat can be transferred from the Arctic Ocean to the atmosphere over the Arctic Ocean, which means that more heat remains in the Arctic Ocean.
One huge danger is that, as the buffer disappears that until now has consumed huge amounts of ocean heat, more heat will reach methane hydrates at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, causing them to get destabilized and resulting in releases of methane from these hydrates and from free gas underneath that was previously sealed by the hydrates.
As the latent heat buffer of the sea ice underneath the surface disappears, more of this heat could then reach sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, threatening eruptions to occur of seafloor methane (from hydrates and from free gas underneath the hydrates). The methane could similarly push up temperatures dramatically over the Arctic, and globally over the next few years.
[ feedback #14: Latent Heat ]
The above 2014 image, from the feedbacks page, shows three of the numerous feedbacks that are accelerating warming in the Arctic. Feedback #1 is the albedo feedback. Feedback #14 refers to the loss of the Latent Heat Buffer and warming of the Arctic Ocean. Feedback #2 refers to methane releases.
Heatwaves look set to continue on the Northern Hemisphere, extending heat over the Arctic Ocean and thus affecting Arctic sea ice from above, while warm water from rivers will cause more melting at the surface, and while rising ocean heat will continue to cause more melting of the ice underneath the surface. If this continues, we can expect a new record low for sea ice in September 2022 and the joint loss of the latent heat buffer and the loss of albedo could push up temperatures dramatically over the Arctic, while the additional methane could similarly push up temperatures dramatically over the Arctic, and globally over the next few years.
[ The Buffer has gone, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]
As discussed at the albedo page and the feedbacks page, albedo change, loss of the latent heat buffer and changes to the Jet Stream are important feedbacks.
The above image, adapted from an ECMWF.int forecast for July 29, 2022, 12 UTC, run at that time, shows virtually no snow and ice cover over land except Greenland. The image also shows the difference such cover or the lack thereof makes in albedo.
[ click on images to enlarge ]
The above image, adapted from NOAA Coral Bleaching Heat Stress Monitoring, shows expected coral bleaching heat stress for August to November 2022. The image on the right shows that coral bleaching alert level 2 was reached in the Barents Sea (green circle) on July 29, 2022, while a distorted Jet Stream is pushing warm, salty water from the Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean.
A 2022 study of the Blob, a warm water area in the North Pacific that began in late 2013, concludes that the unusually warm waters were transported northward from further south. The researchers found that abnormally warm temperatures extended 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) below the surface.
The above image shows the Blob on July 24, 2022, with sea surface temperature anomalies as high as 10.5°C or 18.8°F on July 24, 2022. The North Pacific Current is visible, extending eastward from the coast of Japan.
Arctic-news has long (e.g. in this 2017 post) warned that changes to the Jet Stream can strengthen storms that can in turn cause a large amount of warm, salty water to abruptly move north and enter the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and trigger destabilization of methane hydrates at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, resulting in eruption of huge amounts of methane that could drive humans into extinction in a matter of years.
Conclusion
In conclusion, temperatures could rise strongly in the Arctic soon, due to sea ice loss in combination with feedbacks and an upcoming El Niño coinciding with a peak in sunspots, with the potential to drive humans extinct as early as in 2025, while temperatures would continue to skyrocket in 2026, making it in many respects rather futile to speculate about what will happen beyond 2026. At the same time, the right thing to do now is to help avoid the worst things from happening, through comprehensive and effective action as described in the Climate Plan.
