Edge of Extinction

Guy McPherson

Guy McPherson is convinced that humunity will go extinct soon. Guy estimates that it will happen in 5 to 20 years time.

In the video below, Guy discusses a chain of events causing several degrees warming within a few years time, including failure of the electric grid and subsequent fall in aerosols from fossil fuel burning that now mask warming, and failure to maintain nuclear power plants cooling, causing them to melt down.

These events will cause rapid warming that will accelerate loss of the snow and sea ice in the Arctic and cause massive methane releases from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, both adding even further warming.

Such massive warming will result in widespread crop failure and loss of habitat for humans over a timespan of up to 20 years, while events could all unfold in just 5 years time.

In the video below, Guy discusses that we are on the edge of extinction, episode 1.

Feedbacks   Professor Peter Wadhams on albedo changes in the Arctic Conclusion from a paper presented at the 2008 EGU conference, on background of a frame from a video interview by Nick Breeze with Natalia Shakhova.

In the video below, episode 2, Guy describes how large releases of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean alone could end civilization, as they will cause crop failure on the Northern Hemisphere and subsequent collapse of civilization. This will in turn cause failure of the electric grid, etc., as described above. So, whatever event comes first, it will trigger the other events, resulting in several degrees Celsius warming within years and loss of habitat for humans.

The image below highlights some of the complexities associated with the necessary cuts in emissions, including the impact of aerosols that mask the full wrath of global warming by half. In 2007, the IPCC described aerosols as a negative (cooling) force equal to between -0.5 and -2.5 W m-2. In 2009, Murphy et al suggested an aerosol forcing about -1.5 W m-2, reducing the net climate forcing of the past century by about half. In 2011, Hansen et al, based mainly on analysis of Earth's energy imbalance, derived an aerosol forcing -1.6 ± 0.3 W m-2. [source] As David Spratt points out, this equates to a cooling of about 1.2°C. In other words, abrupt ending of aerosols emissions would result in a temperature rise of about 1.2°C in a matter of weeks.

In the video below, Guy McPherson further discusses the impact of aerosols.

Below, 'Edge of Extinction', episode 3, published on 15 January, 2015, featuring Guy McPherson in a fine moment of comedy! Excerpt from his presentation at Butte College, November 20, 2014, Chico, California.

Below, 'Edge of Extinction', episode 4, published on 21 January, 2015, in which Guy comments on the State of the Union address of January 20, 2015.

Below, 'Edge of Extinction', episode 5, published on 27 Jan 2015, featuring an excerpt from Guy McPherson's interview on Global Research December 12, 2014 on the stages of grief. 

Follow Guy McPherson's European Trip March/April 2015. 

Strong winds threaten to push sea ice out of Arctic Ocean

By Albert Kallio

The lateral viscosity of the thin Arctic sea ice cover continues to lower. In November just one quarter of the high Arctic Ocean basin above 85° north was covered by a thin this winter's ice. This has now doubled, soon covering two quarters. The ice has been pushed away from Russia towards Canada and to the Fram Strait at phenomenal rates.

 

Animation by navy.mil showing 30 days of sea ice thickness, up to January 1, 2015

This is increasingly suggesting that the remaining half in front of the Fram Strait will be sucked into the Atlantic Ocean soon. The dark blue ice is newly formed crushed ice behind the North Pole (pack ice). We may well be in course to the first recorded ice free season in the Arctic Ocean. In addition, the rear is pushed from behind Canada to the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Animation by navy.mil showing 30 days of sea ice speed and drift, up to January 1, 2015

We need to act, now. I think we need to monitor this development almost on daily basis. I am curious to see how the ice may behave after the last remainders of the second quarter are sucked into the Atlantic Ocean and the newly forming sea ice will face the force of the Atlantic waves. That could mean extremely highly fractured sea ice across the Russian side by the return of spring 2015 sunlight.

I think we are witnessing a historic transition right now with no ice in the summers.

Post by Sam Carana.

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.

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.