Cyclone Warning

By Harold Hensel, edited by Sam Carana

The Google Earth view below shows an Arctic Cyclone going over Alaska and entering the Arctic Ocean.

Arctic - Google Earth view

The warm rain and wind will further deteriorate the North Pole Ice Cap.

In case you're looking for news in Tropical Storm ISAAC, see the images below.

Tropical Storm ISAAC - Google Earth view

Tropical Storm ISAAC - NOAA image

Above image and the image below are from the NOAA National Hurricane Center. For updates on ISAAC, check that site!

Tropical Storm ISAAC - NOAA image

Arctic sea ice extent update

The image below shows sea ice extent as calculated by the Polar View team at the University of Bremen, Germany, updated August 25, 2012.

The image below, edited from the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), shows the situation according to the NSIDC updated at August 23, 2012. It's clear that Arctic sea ice extent looks set to reach the 2007 record low within days, if it hasn't been reached already now.

For updates, see the daily images produced by the NSIDC. Note that, to calculate extent, both the NSIDC and the Univeristy of Bremen include areas that show at least 15% sea ice. In the image below, from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), areas with ice concentration higher than 30% are included to calculate ice extent.

Record low sea ice area

Arctic sea ice area reached a record low of 2.87746 million square km on the 230th day of 2012, as illustrated on the image below by The Cryosphere Today. Below the sea surface temperature anomaly for August 20, 2012, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Rising temperatures in the Arctic threaten to trigger methane releases, as shown on the poster below. The poster forms part of the updated presentation Why act now, and how?

Tipping Points

The increasing melt may be a harbinger of greater changes such as the release of methane compounds from frozen soils that could exacerbate warming, and a thaw of the Greenland ice sheet, which would contribute to rising sea levels, NASA’s top climate scientist, James Hansen, said in an e-mail interview, reports Bloomberg.

“Our greatest concern is that loss of Arctic sea ice creates a grave threat of passing two other tipping points -- the potential instability of the Greenland ice sheet and methane hydrates,” Hansen said. “These latter two tipping points would have consequences that are practically irreversible on time scales of relevance to humanity.”

Above image shows methane levels over a period of four years, from August 1, 2008, to August 1, 2012.

Above image shows methane levels over one years, from August 1, 2011, to August 1, 2012. This shows a marked increase in methane levels on the last of the four years further above.

Above image shows methane levels from August 1, 2012, to August 15, 2012. The image shows high levels of methane across the northern hemisphere. Note the high levels above Greenland.

Arctic sea ice updates

Above diagram shows sea ice extent as calculated by the Polar View team at the University of Bremen, Germany.

Paul Beckwith warns that a second cyclone is threatening to batter the remaining sea ice soon.

View Paul's presentation by clicking on the link below.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByLujhsHsxP7cnB0bXhNNFFSQjQ/edit


Or, view the presentation in the window below (it may take some time for the file to fully load).

Opening the Doorways to Doom

Snow and ice protect the Arctic from overheating in summer. Firstly the brightness of the snow and ice cover ensures that most sunlight gets reflected back into space. Secondly, a lot of the sunlight that isn't reflected will be consumed by the process of turning snow and ice into water, which occurs while temperatures remain at the melting point of 0°C (32°F, 273.15 K). 

The Arctic is further protected from overheating by the polar jet stream, which keeps cold air in the Arctic and keeps warm air out. 

The polar jet stream can travel at speeds greater than 100 mph. Here, the fastest winds are colored red; slower winds are blue. View animated version here. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Accelerated warming in the Arctic can alter the polar jet stream in a number of ways, firstly by slowing its speed and secondly by increasing its waviness. Larger swings in the jet stream allow frigid air from the Arctic to plunge farther south, as well as warm, moist tropical air to penetrate northward, explains Jennifer Francis, research professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University. 

Accelerated warming in the Arctic comes with many feedbacks, and this "open doors feedback" is only one of them. Higher temperatures and more open water in the Arctic can also be expected to increase the danger that storms will batter the sea ice with greater ferocity. 

In many ways, it's opening the doorways to doom. The biggest danger is that Arctic methane stores will weaken, causing huge amounts of methane to be released, triggering warming that could escalate into runaway global warming.  

CryoSat

The image below shows how much the older, thicker sea ice has declined over the years. This decline doesn't become apparent when focusing on sea ice extent; volume measurements are needed to reveal this decline.

Old versus new ice in Arctic: The maps show the median age of sea ice in March 1985 (left) and March 2011 (right).
Overall, the proportion of old ice has decreased. By March 2011, ice over 4 years old accounts for less than
10% of the Arctic ice cover. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.

The screenshot below shows GHRSST volume measurements from National Centre for Ocean Forecasting website.

The European Space Agency's CryoSat promises to deliver an even clearer picture. One of the scientists analyzing the CryoSat data, Dr Seymour Laxon, said in April 2012 that CryoSat's volume estimate is very similar to that of PIOMAS, the model developed at the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington.

In a recent interview, Dr Laxon said that if the current trend continues, the Arctic could be ice-free at the height of summer by the end of the decade.

John Nissen, Chair of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG), comments: "Dr Laxon failed to mention the data on sea ice thickness that has been collected over many years by sea ice expert Professor Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge, who now considers that the Arctic Ocean will be seasonally free of sea ice most probably by September 2016. PIOMAS sea ice volume data suggest that a collapse in sea ice area could occur even sooner, as discussed on the AMEG blog posting."