Arctic News

Friday, December 26, 2014

Year 2014 Pictures Dire Situation

The year 2014 is shaping up to be the warmest year on record and the heat is felt most strongly in the polar regions and in the oceans.

Surface Temperatures

Above images show that the Arctic is experiencing accelerating warming. This is causing jet stream changes, resulting in more extreme weather events. Besides creating havoc around the globe, such extreme weather events can further speed up warming of the Arctic Ocean and subsequent release of methane from its seafloor, as described in more detail in a recent post.

Ocean Heat

The primary driver of methane release from the Arctic Ocean seafloor is ocean heat. NOAA analysis shows that the global ocean surface temperature for the year-to-date (January through to November 2014) was 1.03°F (0.57°C) above average, the warmest such period on record. The anomaly is even more pronounced in the Norther Hemisphere, as illustrated by the image below.

Ocean temperatures can show much higher anomalies locally, as illustrated by the image below. The high sea surface temperatures near Svalbard give an indication of how warm the ocean current is below the surface.

2014 SST anomaly near Svalbard (green circle) Aug 26: 7.3°C, Sep 26: 6.7°C, Oct 26: 5.9°C, Nov 26: 4.2°C, Dec 26: 3.7°C

The danger is that ocean temperatures will continue to rise, especially in the North Atlantic, and that the Gulf Stream will keep carrying ever warmer water from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean, where it will destabilize methane hydrates contained in sediments under the seafloor.

Methane

Methane levels are already exceptionally high over the Arctic, as illustrated by the recent NOAA image below. Since end October 2014, huge quantities of methane have erupted from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. As said, the primary driver of methane release from the Arctic Ocean seafloor is ocean heat. Water temperatures off the coast of North America get very high in July and it takes a few months for ocean currents to carry this heat to the Arctic Ocean. Further reasons why methane levels over the Arctic suddenly get very high from the end of October are discussed in this post.

The Gulf Stream will keep carrying water into the Arctic Ocean that is warmer than the water already there. These methane eruptions will therefore continue into the new year, threatening to further accelerate warming in the Arctic and cause even more extreme weather events, wildfires and further emissions in the year 2015, in a spiral of runaway warming.

The combination image below shows the strength at which methane is erupting from the Arctic Ocean seafloor. On December 25, 2014, methane lights up the northern sky like a Christmas tree. The image shows levels at 6 km (19,820 ft) altitude, as recorded by, from top to bottom, MetOp-1 am (up to 2277 ppb), MetOp-1 pm (up to 2295 ppb) and MetOp-2 am (up to 2336 ppb).

MetOp-2 records for December 25, 2014, pm, are incorporated in the animation below, showing methane concentrations reaching levels of up to 2284 ppb at an altitude of 6 km (19,820 ft) and reaching even higher levels of up to 2329 ppb at an altitude of 9.3 km (30,570 ft).

The troposphere is deepest at tropical latitudes, where it reaches altitudes of up to 20 km (12 mi), and rather shallow at the polar regions, where it only reaches altitudes of some 7 km (4.3 mi) in winter. For high concentrations of methane to show up over the Arctic Ocean at such a high altitude is a further indication of the strength of these methane eruptions.

Furthermore, the methane that shows up in the atmosphere is only a fraction of the methane that is erupting from the seafloor, as part of the methane will be broken down by microbes as it rises up through the water and gets stuck under the sea ice.

Arctic Sea Ice

Sea ice only 1m thin at North Pole.
Click on image to enlarge.

The above Naval Research Laboratory animation shows that, while sea ice is now covering the entire Arctic ocean, it is in many places only about one meter thin or less. The December 20, 2014, image on the right shows 1m thin sea ice at the North Pole.

Meanwhile, huge chuncks of thick sea ice are moving along the edges of Greenland and Ellesmere Island into the Atlantic ocean.

An exponential trendline based on sea ice volume observations shows that sea ice looks set to disappear in 2019, while disappearance in 2015 is within the margins of a 5% confidence interval, reflecting natural variability.

In other words, extreme weather events could cause Arctic sea ice to collapse as early as 2015, with the resulting albedo changes further contributing to the acceleration of warming in the Arctic and causing further methane eruptions from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.

Demise of the sea ice and snow cover in the Arctic results in further acceleration of warming, not only due to less sunlight getting reflected back into space, but also due to loss of the buffer that currently absorbs huge amounts of heat as it melts in summer. With the demise of this latent heat buffer, more sunlight will instead go into heating up the water of the Arctic Ocean. For more on the latter, see the page on latent heat.

Feedbacks

Above image illustrates some of the self-reinforcing feedback loops that have been highlighted in this post. Further feedbacks are pictured in the image below.

from the Feedbacks page

Situation Calls For Comprehensive And Effective Action

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

Post by Sam Carana.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Another Heatwave Hits Arctic

As parts of Canada, Greenland and Russia are hit by -40 degrees temperatures (anomalies at the bottom end of the scale), parts of the Arctic are experiencing temperatures above freezing (anomalies at the top end of the scale), as illustrated by the image below.

[ click on image to enlarge ]

Temperatures in the Arctic are much higher than they used to be and this situation further accelerates warming in the Arctic, due to a number of feedbacks.

One such feedbacks has been coined the ‘open doors feedback’. Indeed, the situation is much like leaving the fridge door open. This allows cold air to more easily move out of the fridge, i.e. the Arctic, resulting in the cold temperatures over North America that have received extensive news coverage in the media. At the same time, warm air can move more easily into the fridge, i.e. the Arctic, and this is one of the reasons why the Arctic is hit by temperatures that are so much higher than what used to be normal.

The situation has been described in a number of earlier posts such as this one, as well in a recent interview with Jennifer Francis. As the Arctic warms more rapidly than the rest of the world, there's less temperature difference between the Arctic and the equator, resulting in the jet stream going around the globe at a lower speed with more elongated loops.

The left chart on above image shows such an elongated loop going north along the east coast of Greenland, then bending before Scandinavia and moving over the north of Greenland, then going around the North Pole and moving back to Scandinavia. This loop is not very visible on the chart, because the jet stream moves faster along straight tracks, and this chart highlights wind speed more than it highlights the path of the jet stream. Yet, the shape of this loop is very important, as it traps warmer air north of Greenland.

BTW, a weaker jet stream also elevates the chance of heat waves elsewhere, which can indirectly warm up the Arctic. Examples of this are heat waves over the Gulf Stream as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in warmer water being carried into the Arctic Ocean, and heat waves over Siberia and North America, resulting in warming up of rivers that end in the Arctic Ocean.

Anyway, to get back to the current heatwave, there are a number of reasons why temperatures in the Arctic are so high at the moment. One of the biggest reasons is ocean heat, which has reached very high levels, especially in the North Atlantic, while the Gulf Stream keeps transporting warmer water from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean (i.e. water that is warmer than the water in the Arctic Ocean). This warms up the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, resulting in methane erupting from the seafloor, with a strong immediate local warming impact in the Arctic, thus further accelerating warming in the Arctic in another one of these self-reinforcing feedback loops, as pictured in the image below.

Further feedbacks that accelerate warming in the Arctic are discussed at the feedbacks page.

Without effective and comprehensive action, these feedbacks threaten to lead to runaway warming, i.e. abrupt climate change causing mass death and destruction, and resulting in extinction at massive scale, as depicted in the image below and as described in this earlier post.

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

Post by Sam Carana.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

IPCC too conservative?

Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 5th Assessment Report (AR5), stating that: "Surface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century under all assessed emission scenarios. It is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer, and that extreme precipitation events will become more intense and frequent in many regions. The ocean will continue to warm and acidify, and global mean sea level to rise. Many aspects of climate change and associated impacts will continue for centuries, even if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are stopped. The risks of abrupt or irreversible changes increase as the magnitude of the warming increases."

That does sound scary. So, what would happen if the IPCC's projections are too conservative? Could humans, together with many other species, go extinct within the next few decades? What are the risks that this could eventuate? Below follows an assessment using graphics by Sam Carana.

1. Ocean Heat

Below is what the IPCC says:

Below is a graph produced by Sam Carana, based on NOAA data. For more background, see this earlier post.

2. Sea level Rise

The image below shows what the IPCC says.

If ocean heat will continue to rise as pictured in the image by Sam Carana, then thermal expansion alone will cause more sea level rise than foreseen by the IPCC. Furthermore, extensive melting on Antarctica and Greenland can result in additional sea level rise. Below is a sea level rise graph produced by Sam Carana, based on NASA/GSFCs data, as discussed in this earlier post.

3. Arctic Sea Ice

The image below shows what the IPCC says.

If ocean heat will continues to rise as pictured in the image by Sam Carana, then Arctic sea ice will disappear much earlier than anticipated by the IPCC. An exponential trendline based on sea ice volume observations shows that sea ice looks set to disappear in 2019, while disappearance in 2015 is within the margins of a 5% confidence interval, reflecting natural variability.

A linear trend would be inappropriate, given the growing impact of feedbacks that can each be expected to reinforce sea ice decline, while there can also be interaction between these feedbacks, further accelerating sea ice decline. Albedo change is one such feedback, but there are numerous other ones, such as storms that have more chance to grow stronger as the area with open water increases.

In conclusion, an exponential trendline is more appropriate than a linear trendline, as also illustrated by above comparison, which shows that a linear trendline has 9 years fall outside its 95% confidence ionterval, versus 4 years for an exponential trendline, as discussed at the FAQ page.

Rapid decline of the snow and ice cover on the Northern Hemisphere is furthermore supported by rapidly rising surface temperatures over the Arctic, as well as greater intensity of heatwaves. Below is what the IPCC says on this.

Before further discussing surface temperatures, let's look into one of the feedbacks that could hugely increase temperatures, methane.

4. Methane

The IPCC appears to underestimate of the amount of methane that is contained in sediments under the Arctic Ocean and prone to be released as temperatures rise, as discussed in this earlier post and at this page. In an absurd articulation of contradictionary logic, the IPCC writes on the one hand that there is little consensus on the likelihood of abrupt changes over the 21st century, while on the other hand the IPPC declares with 'high confidence' that it is very unlikely that methane from clathrates will undergo catastrophic release during the 21st century, as discussed in this earlier post.

The image below, based on data from the IPCC and the World Metereological Organization (WMO), with an added observation from a NOAA MetOp satellite image, illustrates the recent rise of methane levels and the threat that methane levels will continue to rise rapidly.

When looked at from a longer range of years, above image fits in the black square on the image below.

As ocean heat keeps increasing and warming in the Arctic keeps accelerating due to feedbacks such as Arctic sea ice decline, huge methane eruptions from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean threaten to push up methane levels even further. The image below shows exponential rise based on data of East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) releases alone, as discussed in an earlier post.

Non-linear rise is supported by the fact that methane's lifetime increases as more methane enters the atmosphere.

5. Surface Temperatures

The IPCC expects that, worst case, global average temperature could rise by 13 degrees Celsius by 2300, as illustrated by the image below.

The situation could be much worse than foreseen by the IPCC, due to the non-linear way feedbacks can hugely increase temperature rises.

The threat is that such rapid temperature rises will appear at first in hotspots over the Arctic and eventually around the globe, while also resulting in huge temperature swings that could result in depletion of supply of food and fresh water, as further illustrated by the above image, from an earlier post, and the image below, from another earlier post.

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

Saturday, November 22, 2014

How melting Arctic ice is driving harsh winters

by Nick Breeze

The very least 'global warming' could do for us is to give us warmer winters, right? Wrong, writes Nick Breeze, who met climate scientist and meteorologist Jennifer Francis in his attempt to understand the complex interactions of jet stream, polar vortex, the melting Arctic, and the extreme snowfall that's hitting the northeast US right now.

"Historic" snowfalls have the US northeast this week, with Buffalo, New York under an astonishing 2.4m (8ft) of snow - enough to cause some roofs to cave in under the pressure.

It's just the latest chapter in 2014 unprecedented range of weather extremes - from persistent storms that battered, and flooded much of the UK at the beginning of the year, before going on to record the hottest October since records began.

And in the US, extremes have ranged from California's record drought, to the early snows now under way in the northeast - and let's not forget the 'polar vortex' that hit much of the US in January, bringing Arctic conditions as far south as Texas and Florida, causing flights to be cancelled in Chicago as aviation fuel froze in the -38.3C (-37F) temperatures.

Scientists now have evidence that these persistent extreme weather patterns are increasing in their frequency, due to the rapid heating up of the Arctic that is changing the behaviour of the jet stream, and in turn, the polar vortex.

And Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, one of the leading US scientists studying the relationship between Arctic warming and changes in the jet stream, believes that it's thanks to 'global warming' that northern hemisphere weather is becoming more extreme - and it's not about to get any better.

Screenshot from Youtube video further below

The 'vast river of wind' that makes our weather

"The Arctic is generally very cold", she told me, "and the areas farther south are warm, and that difference in temperature between those two areas is really what fuels that vast river of wind moving high over our head that we call the jet stream."

"The jet stream in turn creates most of the weather that we feel all around the northern hemisphere and the middle latitudes, so anything that affects this jet stream is going to affect weather patterns. So as the Arctic warms up much faster than the areas farther south, we're seeing this temperature difference between these two regions get smaller."

The result of that, she explains, is that the atmospheric forces driving the jet stream's circular motion are getting smaller - and that means the winds themselves in the jet stream are getting weaker, and moving more slowly.

"When that happens, the jet stream tends to take a wavier path as it travels around the northern hemisphere and those waves are actually what create the stormy patterns and the nice weather patterns. As those waves get larger because of this weakening of those winds of the jet stream, they tend to move more slowly from west to east."

"That means it feels like the weather patterns are sticking around longer, because those patterns are moving much more slowly and this then makes it more likely to have the kind of extreme events that are related to persistent weather patterns."

Youtube video

Are critical findings influencing policy?

These changes in climate have huge implications. As Dr Francis points out, there are "people who worry about whether there is enough fresh water to supply cities, whether there is enough snowpack on mountains to supply reservoirs, and for agriculture ..."

"Drought and agriculture is a big problem. Storminess in certain areas is another big problem. Yes, it has a huge impact for a whole range of issues that affect the way we live."

It's no wonder then that Dr Francis and her colleagues have attracted the attention of President Obama's chief science advisor, Dr John Holdren.

Dr Holdren has been reporting directly to the President on the real time effects of climate change and is keen to understand what this new research tells us about the future impact of changes to the jet stream.

Asked about this sudden interest in her work from the US Presidency, Francis muses thoughtfully. "Yes, we've had a lot of interest from policy makers", she acknowledges.

"I think we're starting to make a lot of progress now in getting policymakers to understand that this is a big problem they have to face ... I think decision makers and the policymakers at the local level get it much better because they're already seeing effects on their local areas.

"Sea level rise is an obvious one. They're already seeing changes in drought and agricultural problems and dealing with fresh water issues. It is really at the local level that we're having more success."

New research supports the case that Arctic sea ice loss is driving climate changes

So to understand the changes in the jet stream it's important to research how the vast atmospheric river of weather above our heads is connected to other climate mechanisms.

"It appears that over the north Atlantic, and towards Asia, there's a mechanism that appears to be quite robust, and several groups have found this mechanism using completely different analysis techniques", says Francis referring to new research by colleagues at the University of Alaska that has emerged in the last couple of months.

"So what we're finding is that there's an area, north of Scandinavia in the Arctic, where the ice has been disappearing particularly rapidly. When that ice disappears ... there is unfrozen ocean underneath, and that ocean absorbs a lot more energy from the sun through the summertime. So it becomes very warm there."

"Then as the fall comes around, all that heat that's been absorbed all summer long, where the ice has retreated, is put back in the atmosphere and that creates a big bubble of hot air ... over that region where the ice was lost."

And in turn, that goes on to disrupt the circumpolar winds whose behaviour determines much the weather across the northern hemisphere.

The gigantic bubble of warm air "tends to create a northward bulge in the jet stream", and in turn, "that creates a surface high pressure area that circulates in the clockwise direction. That sucks cold air down from the Arctic over northern Eurasia, and that creates a southward dip in the jet stream."

Youtube video

The bulging jet stream disrupts the polar vortex

"So what we're getting is this big northward bulge up over Scandinavia and a southward dip over Asia ... creating, first the tendency for a larger wave in the jet stream, which tends to move more slowly, but also we're seeing this mechanism that creates these colder winters that have been observed over Central Asia."

"Once the jet stream gets into this wavier pattern, it sends wave energy up into the highest levels of the atmosphere, which is called the stratosphere, where we have the polar vortex, which is kind of similar to the jet stream but it's much higher up in the atmosphere and it travels much faster."

"So as that wave energy gets sent up from this larger wave below, up into the stratosphere, it breaks down that polar vortex so that it becomes wavier as well. That wavier polar vortex sends energy back down to the lower atmosphere and it creates an even wavier jet stream in February."

"So we're seeing this connection of mechanisms that starts with Arctic sea ice loss and it makes a wavier jet stream for different reasons all the way through winter."

Will the jet stream continue to cause changes in climate?

By identifying these mechanisms and linking them back directly to loss of the Arctic sea ice, Dr Francis and her colleagues are demonstrating how man-made global warming is creating feedbacks that are changing the climate conditions in the northern hemisphere - and not for the better.

It may be counterintuitive, and it when it first happened it took scientists by surprise - but now it looks like this is one of the most important ways in which 'global warming' is hitting North America. Melting ice in the Arctic Ocean is indirectly pushing frigid Arctic air south across the continent, creating the perfect conditions for massive snowfall.

Which is all very well ... but what's coming next? "We are using these climate models, or computer simulations ... to try and project what we're expecting to see happen in the future, as greenhouse gases continue to increase.

"The early indications are that these large wavy patterns in the jet stream are going to become more frequent in the future, as far as we can tell. It is preliminary research that I haven't published yet but it does look as if they are going to increase."

Nick Breeze is a film maker and writer on climate change and other environmental topics. He has been interviewing a range of experts relating to the field of climate change and science for over four years. These include interviews with Dr James Hansen, Professor Martin Rees, Professor James Lovelock, Dr Rowan Williams, Dr Natalia Shakhova, Dr Michael Mann, Dr Hugh Hunt, among others.

Additional articles can also be read on his blog Envisionation.

Jennifer Francis is a research professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University, where she studies Arctic climate change and the link between Arctic and global climates. She has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications on these topics. She was also the co-founder of the Rutgers Climate and Environmental Change Initiative.

Article earlier posted at TheEcologist.org

- Buffalo’s Climate Change Driven Mega Snow-Flood
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/buffalos-climate-change-driven-mega-snow-flood/

Post by Sam Carana.