Arctic News

Monday, July 8, 2024

Temperature rise threatens to accelerate even more

Global temperature

[ from earlier post ]

The above image, from an earlier post, shows that the February 2024 temperature was 1.76°C above 1885-1915, potentially 2.75°C above pre-industrial (bright yellow inset right). The image was created by Sam Carana for Arctic-news.blogspot.com with an April 2024 data.giss.nasa.gov screenshot. The red line (6 months Lowess smoothing) highlights the steep rise that had already taken place in early 2023.

The image below, created with Climate Reanalyzer content, shows that June 2024 was substantially hotter than June 2023, which is significant since we're not in an El Niño anymore. Moreover, monthly temperatures are also rising.

According to Copernicus, the global-average temperature for the past 12 months (July 2023 – June 2024) has been more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average. Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), adds: "June marks the 13th consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures, and the 12th in a row above 1.5°C with respect to pre-industrial. This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate." Note that anomalies from a genuinely pre-industrial base could be much higher, as the image at the top discusses.

Carbon dioxide growth

CO₂ at Mauna Loa was 426.91 ppm in June 2024, 3.23 ppm above June 2023, close to the 3.36 ppm growth in 2023, which is the highest annual growth on record up to now, as illustrated by the compilation image below, created with NOAA content.

Furthermore, CO₂ in June is typically lower than it is in May, but it was (slightly) higher in June 2024 than it was in May 2024.

Sea surface temperatures

On July 9, 2024, sea surface temperatures were back at about 21°C again. For more than a year, sea surface temperatures have been at around 21°C, much higher than in previous years, as illustrated by the image below.

Feedbacks and further developments

Higher temperatures come with feedbacks, as illustrated by the image below, from an earlier post.

[ from earlier post ]

Deformation of the Jet Stream enables strong winds to develop over the North Atlantic, which can at times strongly accelerate the speed at which hot water is flowing toward the Arctic Ocean along path of the Gulf Stream.

A deformed Jet Stream combined with high sea surface temperatures can temporarily speed up this flow, by strengthening storms and hurricanes along the path of the Gulf Stream, resulting in huge amounts of ocean heat to get abruptly pushed into the Arctic Ocean.

The image below shows sea surface temperatures as high as 32.5°C on July 11, 2024, with hot water getting pushed along the path of the Gulf Stream from the Gulf of Mexico toward the Arctic Ocean.

The danger is that such feedbacks and further developments will accelerate the temperature rise even more. Critical in this respect is the condition of Arctic sea ice.

Arctic sea ice decline

The image below, adapted from the Danish Metereological Institute, indicates that Arctic sea ice volume is at a record low for the time of year, as it has been for most of the year. At the same time, sea ice extent is still relatively large; Arctic sea ice extent was 3% below average in June 2024, close to the values observed most years since 2010, according to Copernicus. The implication is that sea ice must be very thin.

The combination image below, from an earlier post and adapted from the University of Bremen, indicates that most of the thicker sea ice has melted in the course of June 2024, and that the latent heat buffer may be gone soon.

Latent heat buffer

Sea ice constitutes a buffer that consumes ocean heat; the temperature of the water will not rise as long as there is ice, but once all ice has melted, further heat will raise the temperature of the water.

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.

[ The Buffer has gone, feedback #14 on the Feedbacks page ]

Loss of the latent heat buffer threatens to strongly heat up the Arctic Ocean, and this increases the danger that further heat will reach methane hydrates at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, causing them to get destabilized resulting in eruption of methane from these hydrates and from free gas underneath that was previously sealed by the hydrates.

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

• Copernicus: June 2024 marks 12th month of global temperature reaching 1.5°C above pre-industrial
https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-june-2024-marks-12th-month-global-temperature-reaching-15degc-above-pre-industrial

Discussed at Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161520778324679

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

• Carbon dioxide keeps rising in June 2024
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/07/carbon-dioxide-keeps-rising-in-june-2024.html

• Did the climate experience a Regime Change in 2023?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/04/did-the-climate-experience-a-regime-change-in-2023.html

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice volume and thickness
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

• Copernicus - Sea ice cover for June 2024
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sea-ice-cover-june-2024

• University of Bremen - Arctic sea ice
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/start

• Latent heat
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/latent-heat.html

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

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

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

Saturday, July 6, 2024

Carbon dioxide keeps rising in June 2024

The above image shows a trend (magenta), based on NOAA August 2008 through June 2024 data (black) and added on a canvas that is 31.42-year wide. If this trend continues, the clouds tipping point could get crossed in early 2036 due to the rise in carbon dioxide (CO₂) alone.

[ from earlier post ]

Rising CO₂ emissions could originate from many sources, the more so as more sinks turn into sources.

[ from earlier post ]

Despite the many warnings and despite pledges by politicians to act decisively, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is growing rapidly. Until now, the annual peak was typically reached in May, but this year the June average was (slightly) higher than the May average, ominously pointing at an even higher growth than the record growth in 2023.

Over the past twelve months, CO₂ concentrations have at times been recorded of well over 430 parts per million (ppm) at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, as illustrated by the image below.

The clouds tipping point is at 1200 ppm CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent), so it could be crossed even earlier than in 2036 when also taking into account more methane, nitrous oxide, etc.

As illustrated by the above image, from an earlier post, a polynomial trend added to NOAA globally averaged marine surface monthly mean methane data from April 2018 to November 2022 points at 1200 ppm CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent) getting crossed in 2027 due to a rise in methane alone.

As discussed in an earlier post, peak daily average methane is approaching 2000 parts per billion (ppb) at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. A methane concentration of 2000 ppb corresponds - at a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 200 - with 400 ppm CO₂e. Together with a daily peak CO₂ concentration of 430 ppm, this adds up to a joint CO₂e of 830 ppm, i.e. only 370 ppm away from the clouds tipping point.

This 370 ppm CO₂e could be added almost instantly by a burst of seafloor methane less than the size of the methane that is currently in the atmosphere (about 5 Gt). There is plenty of potential for such an abrupt release, given the rising ocean heat and the vast amounts of carbon and methane contained in vulnerable sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as also discussed in earlier posts such as this one and at the threat page.

[ image from the Extinction page ]

There are many further developments such as tipping points and feedbacks that should be taken into account. The above image, from an earlier post, illustrates the mechanism of how multiple feedbacks can accelerate the heating up of the atmosphere.

Several feedbacks can also constitute tipping points. Decline of Arctic sea ice comes with loss of albedo and loss of the Latent Heat Buffer, and the joint loss can abruptly and dramatically increase temperatures in the Arctic Ocean.

Further increase of heat in the Arctic Ocean can in turn cause the Seafloor Methane Tipping Point to get crossed, resulting in destabilization of methane hydrates contained in sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in many earlier posts such as this one.

Self-amplifying feedbacks and crossing of tipping points, as well as further developments (such a as loss of the aerosol masking effect and sunspots reaching a peak) could all contribute to cause a temperature rise from pre-industrial of over 10°C, in the process causing the clouds tipping point to get crossed that can push up the temperature rise by a further 8°C.

Altogether, the temperature rise may exceed 18°C from pre-industrial by as early as 2026, as illustrated by the image on the right, from the extinction page.

Links

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Carbon Cycle Gases, trends in CO2

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Carbon Cycle Gases, Mauna Loa, Hawaii, U.S.
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=ccgg&type=ts

• The Clouds Feedback and the Clouds Tipping Point
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/clouds-feedback.html

Discussion at: https://www.facebook.com/SamCarana/posts/10169328525635161

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Feedbacks

Water vapor feedback

There are numerous self-amplifying feedbacks that accelerate the temperature rise. One of them is the water vapor feedback. Just the temperature rise itself will cause more water vapor to be in the atmosphere.

[ from Moistening Atmosphere ]

The February 2024 temperature was 1.76°C above 1885-1915, which could be as much as 2.75°C above the pre-industrial temperature.

A 2.75°C rise corresponds with almost ⅕ more water vapor in the atmosphere, as the extinction page points out.

The increase in water vapor in the atmosphere is a self-amplifying feedback, since water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, accelerating the temperature rise, as illustrated by the image on the right.

As illustrated by the image below, created with NOAA data, surface precipitable water reached 26.741 kg/m² in June 2024.

As the above image also illustrates, surface precipitable water reached a record high of 27.139 kg/m² in July 2023, and was much higher for each of the first six months in 2024 than for the same months in 2023.

More emissions of greenhouse gases (from earlier post)

As temperatures rise, due to stronger emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, there will be a corresponding extra amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

Studies such as by Hubau (2020) warn that the uptake of carbon into Earth’s intact tropical forests peaked in the 1990s. Thawing permafrost can cause huge emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Studies now warn that the Arctic has also changed from sink to source.

A study by Del Vecchi et al. (2024) suggests that a gradual thawing of Arctic permafrost could release between 22 billion and 432 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2100 if current greenhouse gas emissions are reined in — and as much as 550 billion tons if they are not.

An analysis by Ramage et al. (2024) concludes that Arctic terrestrial permafrost now emits more greenhouse gases than it stores, and the trend is likely to accelerate as temperatures keep rising in the Arctic. The highest carbon dioxide emissions over the 2000-2020 period came from inland rivers and wildfires. The non-permafrost wetlands exhaled the most methane, and dry tundra released the most nitrous oxide.

The prospect of further releases looks dire. The analysis gives estimates that the upper three meters of permafrost region soils store 1,000 Gt of soil organic carbon, while deeper deposits could store an additional amount of as much as 1,000 Gt C. The analysis concludes that the permafrost region is the largest terrestrial carbon and nitrogen pool on Earth.

Note that the joint CO₂e of emissions in this analysis only covers part of global emissions, e.g. the analysis excludes emissions from Arctic subsea permafrost and from oceans in general, from many mountain areas and from the Southern Hemisphere. The study also appears to have excluded emissions caused by anthropogenic disturbances such as clear-cutting, logging and fracking activities in the region, while calculations typically use a low global warming potential (GWP) for methane (100-year horizon).

Miesner et al. (2023) warn that an additional 2822 Gt of organic carbon is stored in subsea Arctic shelf permafrost and Huang et al. (2024) warn that the top two meters of soil globally holds about 2300 Gt of inorganic carbon, which has been left out of environmental models, and 23 Gt of this carbon may be released over the next 30 years.

The transition from sink to source of the region is an important feedback of the temperature rise that is not fully reflected in many climate models. According to the IPCC, 14–175 Gt CO₂e (in carbon dioxide and methane) gets released per 1°C of global warming, which is likely to underestimate the situation by downplaying many feedbacks. Despite the dire situation, the IPCC keeps promoting less effective policies such as support for biofuel and tighter fuel efficiency standards, as discussed in earlier posts such as this 2022 one.

Further feedbacks

The image below illustrates the mechanism of how multiple feedbacks accelerate the heating up of the atmosphere.

Feedback #1: albedo loss (loss of reflectivity) as sea ice melts due to rising temperatures and due to the ice getting covered by soot, dust, algae, meltpools and rainwater pools;

Feedback #14: loss of the latent heat buffer - as sea ice disappears, heat can no longer be consumed by the process of melting, and the heat will instead go into increasing the temperature;

Feedback #16: eruptions of seafloor methane - as more heat reaches the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, sediments and hydrates contained in them destabilize, resulting in methane releases;

Feedback #25: extra water vapor feedback - rising temperatures will result in more water vapor in the atmosphere (7% more water vapor for every 1°C warming), further amplifying the temperature rise, since water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas;

Feedback #19: distortion of the Jet Stream as the temperature difference narrows between the Arctic and the Tropics, in turn causing further feedbacks to kick in stronger, such as hot air moving into the Arctic and cold air moving out, and more extreme weather events bringing heavier rain and more intense heatwaves, droughts and forest fires that cause black carbon to settle on the sea ice;

Feedback #28: freshwater lid on the North Atlantic - melting of sea ice and glaciers and thawing of the permafrost results in meltwater accumulating in the North Atlantic, where it forms a cold freshwater lid on top of the water; this lid grows further due to more rain falling on top of this lid. This results in less evaporation and transfer of heat from the North Atlantic to the atmosphere, and more ocean heat getting carried by the Gulf Stream underneath the sea surface into the Arctic Ocean.

There is interaction between feedbacks; the image's focus is on illustrating the mechanism, rather than the proportional contribution or the order of feedbacks over time. Sea ice decline comes with both loss of albedo and loss of the latent heat buffer, each of which will accelerate the temperature rise of the water of the Arctic Ocean, thus contributing to the threat that hydrates contained in sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean will be destabilized, which in turn threatens to cause eruption of huge amounts of methane.

A further danger lies in changes occurring to wind and ocean current patterns; the temperature rise will cause stronger wind, waves and storms, as well as deformation of the Jet Stream. In addition, the temperature rise causes loss of reflectivity of clouds and more ocean stratification, exacerbated by more freshwater accumulating at the surface of oceans, due to stronger ice melting, due to heavier runoff from land and rivers and due to changes in wind patterns and ocean currents and circulation. In the North Atlantic, there is the additional danger that formation of a freshwater lid will cause huge amounts of ocean heat to be pushed into the Arctic Ocean and enter the atmosphere as sea ice disappears.

Further developments

Furthermore, developments such as rising emissions from industry, transport, land use, forest fires and waste fires, ocean acidification and reductions in sulfur emissions can all contribute to further acceleration of the temperature rise.

Links

• Moistening Atmosphere
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/moistening-atmosphere.html

• Did the climate experience a Regime Change in 2023?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/04/did-the-climate-experience-a-regime-change-in-2023.html

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

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• NOAA - Physical Sciences Laboratory
https://psl.noaa.gov

• Arctic Sea Ice Alert

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/06/arctic-sea-ice-alert.html

• Will there be Arctic sea ice left in September 2023?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/05/will-there-be-arctic-sea-ice-left-in-september-2023.html

Monday, June 24, 2024

How hot will it get?

Temperatures as high as 125°F or 51.67°C are forecast to hit California on July 6, 2024, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from Climate Reanalyzer by the University of Maine.

On June 23, 2024, the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was higher than it was last year at this time of year, as illustrated by the image below, created with University of Maine content. The image shows that a temperature of 21.5°C was reached in the Northern Hemisphere on June 23, 2024. The question is: Will temperatures over the next few months exceed the high temperatures reached last year?

El Niño is no longer prevalent and La Niña conditions are expected to be dominant soon, as illustrated by the NOAA ENSO update on the right, from an earlier post.

Nonetheless, there are fears that temperatures will remain high and continue to rise, as self-amplifying feedbacks have taken over as the dominant drivers of the temperature rise. This was discussed earlier, in recent posts such as this one and this one.

There are numerous feedbacks that can further accelerate the temperature rise. Higher temperatures come with more water vapor in the atmosphere, an important feedback since water vapor is also a potent greenhouse gas.

Surface precipitable water reached a record high of 27.139 kg/m² in July 2023, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from NOAA, from an earlier post. Worryingly, a value of 26.138 kg/m² was reached in May 2024, much higher than the 25.378 kg/m² in May 2023, which raises fears that surface precipitable water will reach an even higher peak in 2024 than was reached in 2023.

Rising temperatures speed up the decline of sea ice and permafrost, which can in turn result in huge emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

The decline of permafrost results in more meltwater that speeds up the flow of rivers. The image on the right shows sea surface temperatures as high as 18.3°C in the Bering Strait on June 29, 2024.

Deformation of the Jet Stream is another important feedback and it particularly affects the Northern Hemisphere where the Arctic heats up more rapidly than the rest of the world, thus narrowing the temperature difference between the Tropics and the Arctic, which changes the shape of the Jet Stream.

The Jet Stream will meander more and can at times even form circular wind patterns in some areas, which can strongly amplify extreme weather events such as storms that come with flooding and heatwaves that come with forest fires on land.

On land, more extreme weather can cause strong rainfall, resulting in more water running off into the Arctic Ocean. As heatwaves cause the water of rivers to heat up, a lot more heat can enter the Arctic Ocean.

Heatwaves and increased lightning can also cause fires that result in emissions and cause black carbon to settle on ice, causing temperature rise due to albedo loss and speeding up the thawing of permafrost and melting of sea ice. The image below, adapted from Copernicus, shows biomass burning aerosols, i.e. a forecast for June 29, 2024.

Over oceans, the impact of deformation of the Jet Stream can be even larger, since wind tends to be stronger over oceans than over land. Near the ocean, the greater temperature difference between land and sea will result in stronger winds.

The image below shows sea surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. Heavy melting occurs in the blue-colored areas. Where the sea ice has disappeared, red and yellow colors show up, indicating temperatures higher than they used to be at this time of year in the respective area. High anomalies result from the loss of the latent heat buffer that previously absorbed heat and from the albedo changes that result in more sunlight getting absorbed by the surface.

Furthermore, the image shows a deformed Jet Stream with many circular wind patterns (at 250 hPa) over the Arctic. Deformation of the Jet Stream contributes to these high temperatures, by enabling heatwaves to extend over the Arctic Ocean, increasing not only the intensity, but also the frequency, duration and areas covered by such events.

The above image shows sea surface temperatures as high as 8.2°C or 46.7°F (i.e. 4.5°C or 8.1°F higher than 1981-2011) in the Laptev Sea (at the green circle), illustrating how a deformed Jet Stream is moving hot air over the Arctic Ocean and is also heating up the water of the Lena River and accelerating the speed at which the water is flowing into the Arctic Ocean.

The image below shows sea surface temperatures as high as 15.4°C or 59.7°F (i.e. 14.9°C or 26.8°F higher than 1981-2011) in Hudson Bay (at the green circle), while a deformed Jet Stream is moving hot air from Siberia far over the Arctic Ocean.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

A deformed Jet Stream can temporarily speed up this flow, causing huge amounts of ocean heat to get abruptly pushed into the Arctic Ocean in the path of the Gulf Stream.

The image on the right shows hot water getting pushed along the path of the Gulf Stream from the Gulf of Mexico toward the Arctic Ocean. The image shows sea surface temperatures as high as 32.3°C on June 22, 2024.

As Arctic temperatures keep rising, two tipping points threaten to get crossed as temperatures rise and Arctic sea ice disappears, i.e. the latent heat tipping point and the seafloor methane tipping point, as discussed in an earlier post.

The combination image below, adapted from the University of Bremen, indicates that most of the thicker sea ice has melted in the course of June 2024, and that the latent heat buffer may be gone soon.

As illustrated by the image below, adapted from IRI, La Niña may develop during July-September 2024. A combination of feedbacks and their interaction, including the water vapor feedback, deformation of the Jet Stream and loss of albedo and loss of the latent heat buffer, may cause a continuation of high temperatures even during this La Niña. A new El Niño may develop in 2025 and be prevalent in 2026.

In other words, we may move into the next El Niño while the temperature rise keeps accelerating, while the masking effect of aerosols gets further reduced and while sunspots are moving toward a peak (in July 2025).

Links

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• Arctic Sea Ice Alert

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/06/arctic-sea-ice-alert.html