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.
High levels of biomass-burning aerosols show up over North America on the above June 7, 2023 06 UTC forecast by Copernicus.
The above satellite image shows the US East Coast, with New York blanketed in a veil of smoke on June 7, 2023.
High levels of carbon monoxide are visible over North America on the above map. Carbon monoxide is forecast to be as high as 8715 parts per billion in Quebec, Canada on June 8, 2023 (at 12:00 UTC, a few hours from now, at the green circle).
The map below shows the location for this measurement in Quebec, Canada on June 8, 2023 (at red marker).
The image below also shows wind at 250 hPa, i.e. the Jet Stream. The circular wind patterns indicate how deformed the Jet Stream is.
The image below, from an earlier post, further illustrates the extent of the deformation of the Jet Stream, showing the Jet Stream on June 6, 2023, with no less than 26 circular wind patterns (at 250 hPa) marked on the image, which also shows sea surface temperature anomalies. The Jet Stream is also crossing the Equator.
As an update, below is a forecast of biomass-burning aerosols for June 14, 2023.
“All grimly true, but they can be sure that they won't be recorded for their crimes in history –
because there won't be any history” (Noam Chomsky)
No words can express the betrayal of humanity and nature as represented by the ease in which originally progressive parties and ‘leaders’ can reverse their original environmental credentials by supporting coal and gas production and export once they are in power. While claims are made of reducing domestic emissions, the export of coal, gas and oil from many parts of the world and the dissemination of greenhouse gases remains high or is rising.
No science fiction has been written exposing an elite of multi-billionaires, corporate executives, arms merchants, media moguls, megalomaniac lunatics and their political mouthpieces pushing humanity and species to extinction. The current promotion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) ensures neither human intelligence nor human sentiments would be able to stem cybernetic insanity.
The inexorable rise of mean global temperatures to above 1.5°C higher than in 1750, at a rate exceeding those of the great mass extinctions of species and, according to the IPCC toward 4°C late in the century, renders extreme consequences for many life forms as a consequence of abrupt weather events and changes in the chemistry of the oceans, including acidification and dissolution of carbonate shells.
As the electronic media diverts attention of people to trivial games, canned laughter, sport carnivals and petty crimes, real criminals squander $trillions on looming wars and billionaire playboys spend the world’s dwindling resources on space rackets, out of the mouth of hungry children. The critical issues of war and peace, the fate of future generations and survival of species are rarely overlooked in ‘democratic’ elections.
A majority of the post-WWII generation and their offspring, trapped opposite fluorescent screens that scream canned laughter, and propagate commercial and political lies, are only dimly aware of the magnitude of even a ‘limited’ nuclear war, where radioactive emanations from a single large city cloud crops and induce famine for many weeks or months.
Consequences of global warming and a nuclear exchange include:
The closest analogy to the environmental disruption during the late Anthropocene (the period during which human had a significant environmental impact on the Earth) include the Palaeocene-Eocene boundary (PETM).
The history of Anthropocene civilizations records regular bloodsheds between tribes and nations out of control, called ‘war’. Intermittent waves of hostility leading to violence and incessant fighting occurred repeatedly since the Neolithic, more recently, continuing since the 16th centuries, culminating with the threat of a nuclear war.
Wars erupt as an expression of manipulated mass unrest, even where little or no ideological gaps exist between rival states. Irrational hate and fear, mostly instilled by vested interests end up in the sacrifice of the lives of millions.
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.
But while “leaders” fail to protect the people from global warming and nuclear war, they have succeeded splendidly in hiding the truth through the denial of climate change, accounting tricks and claims of reduction in domestic emissions, while in fact opening new coal mines, oil wells and fracked coal seams, exporting hydrocarbons through the entire global atmosphere.
As mean global temperatures, storms and sea level rise keep rising toward uninhabitable conditions in many parts of the world and thousands of nuclear missiles are aimed to be triggered by accident or design is it too early or already too late for Nuremberg-type trials for those responsible for the ongoing greenhouse gas saturation of the atmosphere and the creation of a doomsday machine?
Principle II. Internal law do not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III. A person who commits a crime under international law, as a Head of State or responsible governmentofficial, is not relieved from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV. An act under the order of Government or of a superior does not relieve a person from responsibility under international law. It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my superior's orders'.
Principle V. Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.
Principle VI. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
Principle VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
Since World war II every one of these principles has been and continues to be violated by the superpowers of the world, in particular principle VI, where “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan”.
None of these infringements falls within the category of ordinary human offences, rather their consequences for the Earth’s life support system are orders of magnitude larger than even their perpetrators could imagine, namely a major mass extinction of species analogous to the end-Ordovician (86% species extinguished), Permian-Triassic (96 Species extinguished) and Cretaceous-Tertiary (76% species extinguished) (Figure 1A) consequent on carbon emission rates some 9–10 times higher than those during onset of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
End Cretaceous (65 my) – the event that killed off the dinosaurs.
Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum
The current rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas levels at a rate faster than any of the previous mass extinction (Figure 1B) of species, including the K-T event and the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Peak (PETM), the latter roughly 55 million years ago lasting approximately 100,000 years.
The termination of the last glacial maximum (17.5–10 kyr ago) when the CO₂ rise rate was ~0.010 ppm CO₂/year and temperature ~0.00046°C/year as compared to the extreme modern rates during 1750-2020 of 0.0074°C/year and 0.04 ppm CO₂/year.
The coating of the Earth biosphere with the toxic residues of buried hydrocarbon and their processed plastic products in the form of carbon particles, oil spills, methane and carbon gases, microplastics and related rise in temperatures are threatening the fate of species, including human civilization.
Taking no heed of this warning, the species Homo “sapiens” has perfected a virtual doomsday machine under which it is living on borrowed time. Believing it is a ‘chosen species’ sapiens has rarely asked itself what has it been chosen for?
Leaders, so-called, forcing the atmosphere into a >4 degrees Celsius-high radioactive hell, including corporate chiefs, top executives, billionaires and their conscious-free political mouthpieces, members of parliaments, ministers and presidents, will be recorded in history as first in line to hell, driving the innocent hapless masses into oblivion.
But if “leaders” failed to protect the people from global warming and nuclear war, they succeeded splendidly in hiding the truth, starting with climate change denial, proceeding with accounting tricks and with claims of domestic emission reduction, while at the same time opening new coal mines, oil wells and coal seam gas fracking, exporting the hydrocarbons throughout the atmosphere.
These people know who they are, even if they do not fully understand the monstrous consequences of what they are doing or avoiding doing!
But if Nuremberg Trials are not conducted now, then when?
Andrew Glikson
A/Prof. Andrew Y Glikson Earth and Paleo-climate scientist
