Arctic temperatures.

[Old Rocks]

Intereresting to see how this is going to play out. In the meantime, temperatures over central Greenland have been as much as 20 F above normal. And the area of the Arctic Ice is taking a nosedive. Winds?
Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis


Unusual Arctic warmth as north hemisphere shivers | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While much of the Northern Hemisphere has shivered in a cold snap in recent weeks, temperatures in the Arctic soared to unusually high levels, U.S. scientists reported.

Green Business

This strange atmospheric pattern is caused by natural variability and not by rising levels of greenhouse gases. However, it could affect Arctic ice which in turn may impact global warming, said Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado.

"It's very warm over the Arctic, with air temperatures locally at 10 to 15 degrees F (5.6 to 8.4 degrees C) warmer than they should be in certain areas," Serreze said in a telephone interview on Monday.

This contrasts with record or near-record cold over much of the eastern United States and Canada, Europe and Asia for the last two weeks of December and the first days of January, the data center reported.

It's due to a large area of high pressure over the Arctic, and a big area of low pressure at the mid-latitudes, where much of the Northern Hemisphere's population is concentrated.

Usually these areas of differing air pressure would shift and mix in a phenomenon known as the Arctic oscillation. Instead, they've remained stationary in what scientists term a negative phase of the oscillation. A positive phase would have low pressure over the Arctic and high pressure over the mid-latitudes.

Serreze said that as of December, the oscillation was in the most extreme negative phase seen since modern record-keeping began in 1950.

"Normally the circulation of the atmosphere would mix these two (areas of varying air pressure) together, and it's not doing a very good job of that right now, so we have these blobs of warm air over the Arctic and these blobs of cold air over the mid-latitudes, just sitting there," he said.

The blobs appear to be starting to shift, a sign that the negative phase is weakening.

 

[Chris]

We just had a foot of snow.

God is punishing us for Pat Robertson's "pact with the devil."

 

[waltky]

Granny wantin' to know, "Den how come dat polar vortex is freezin' our butts off?...

Arctic warming hits overdrive, at twice the global pace
Thu, Dec 15, 2016 - Warming at the top of the world has gone into overdrive, happening twice as fast as the rest of the globe and extending unnatural heating into fall and winter, according to a new US federal report.

In its annual Arctic Report Card, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday tallied record after record of high temperatures, low sea ice, shrinking ice sheets and glaciers. Study lead author Jeremy Mathis, the agency’s Arctic research chief, said it shows long-term Arctic warming trends deepening and becoming more obvious, with a disturbing creep into seasons beyond summer, when the Arctic usually rebuilds snow and ice. Scientists have long said that human-induced climate change would hit the Arctic fastest.

Mathis and others said the data is showing that is what is now happening. “Personally, I would have to say that this last year has been the most extreme year for the Arctic that I have ever seen,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who was not part of the 106-page report. “It’s crazy.” The agency’s peer-reviewed report said air temperatures over the Arctic from October last year to September were “by far the highest in the observational record beginning in 1900.” The average Arctic air temperature at that time was 2°C warmer than the 1981 to 2010 average. It is 3.5°C warmer than 1900.

A fisherman drives a boat during US Secretary of State John Kerry’s tour of the Jakobshavn Glacier and the Ilulissat Icefjord, located near the Arctic Circle in Ilulissat, Greenland​

Other extremes the report detailed: Ocean temperatures were 5°C higher than the 30-year average off the coasts of Greenland. Arctic sea ice did not set a record for the annual minimum, but in October and last month when sea ice normally starts growing back, it did not. Sea ice from mid-October through last month was the lowest on record.

Dartmouth University professor Donald Perovich, author of the chapter on sea ice, said sea ice conditions have sunk from a B-plus grade 11 years ago to a D-minus grade “and that’s because I’m an easy grader.” Snow cover in North America reached a record low for spring, falling below 3.9 million square kilometers in May for the first time since satellite observations began in 1967. Though not a record, Greenland’s ice sheet continued to shrink, starting early, on April 10. It was the second-earliest start of the Greenland melt season on record. What is happening is due to artificial warming and a large El Nino that just ended, Mathis said.

Arctic warming hits overdrive, at twice the global pace - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd says it's due to a split jet stream...

'Unprecedented' Jet Stream Pushing Warm Air Into Arctic
February 08, 2017 - For the second consecutive year, the northern reaches of the planet are experiencing unprecedented waves of warm air. And climate researchers say they've never seen anything like it.

Unprecedented warm weather

To try and understand what is going on, VOA spoke with Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) based in Denver, Colorado. The center does all kinds of things, from helping the Navy spot and avoid sea ice, to monitoring the temperatures, weather systems and extent of the sea ice covering the Arctic and Antarctic throughout the year. The weather pattern of the past two years, according to Serreze, is "unprecedented in my memory."

Polar bear and cubs in the Arctic​

The unprecedented part is what Serreze calls "pulses of extremely warm air over the [Arctic] Ocean, extreme to the point where at the North Pole it's getting near to the freezing point." The cause is "an unusual jet stream pattern that has helped to guide lots of very strong storms into the Arctic, coming in from the Atlantic" Ocean. Jet streams are narrow bands of air that move extremely fast around the globe. The polar jets are the strongest, circling the globe between nine and 12 kilometers above sea level. They can move at more than 100 kilometers per hour.

This winter and last, those polar jets are doing what they always do, picking up a lot of hot moist air from the tropics and pushing it up into the arctic. That's how weather works, Serreze says, moving warm, moist energetic air from the lower latitudes near the equator to higher latitudes at the poles to cool down and release all that energy. The difference here, he says, is we're experiencing an unusually strong jet stream, combined with unusually strong storms. That combination is creating these pulses of very warm weather.

New normal, or just weather?

 

[Billy_Bob]

TO Funny;

"The breakdown of methane hydrates due to warming climate is unlikely to lead to massive amounts of methane being released to the atmosphere, according to a recent interpretive review of scientific literature performed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Rochester."

I guess goldierocks will need a new meme now that the USGS has declared the methane emergency "not so much of an emergency"..

Good news: Methane hydrate breakdown unlikely to cause massive greenhouse gas release

 

[Crick]

The only thing that study concludes should be ruled out is a catastrophic release in the near future.

 

[SSDD]

The only thing that study concludes should be ruled out is a catastrophic release in the near future.

As if you could get anything from the study...hell crick...you can't even identify a simple graphic depicting the mechanism of the greenhouse effect as described by climate science.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Intereresting to see how this is going to play out. In the meantime, temperatures over central Greenland have been as much as 20 F above normal. And the area of the Arctic Ice is taking a nosedive. Winds?
Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis


Unusual Arctic warmth as north hemisphere shivers | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While much of the Northern Hemisphere has shivered in a cold snap in recent weeks, temperatures in the Arctic soared to unusually high levels, U.S. scientists reported.

Green Business

This strange atmospheric pattern is caused by natural variability and not by rising levels of greenhouse gases. However, it could affect Arctic ice which in turn may impact global warming, said Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado.

"It's very warm over the Arctic, with air temperatures locally at 10 to 15 degrees F (5.6 to 8.4 degrees C) warmer than they should be in certain areas," Serreze said in a telephone interview on Monday.

This contrasts with record or near-record cold over much of the eastern United States and Canada, Europe and Asia for the last two weeks of December and the first days of January, the data center reported.

It's due to a large area of high pressure over the Arctic, and a big area of low pressure at the mid-latitudes, where much of the Northern Hemisphere's population is concentrated.

Usually these areas of differing air pressure would shift and mix in a phenomenon known as the Arctic oscillation. Instead, they've remained stationary in what scientists term a negative phase of the oscillation. A positive phase would have low pressure over the Arctic and high pressure over the mid-latitudes.

Serreze said that as of December, the oscillation was in the most extreme negative phase seen since modern record-keeping began in 1950.

"Normally the circulation of the atmosphere would mix these two (areas of varying air pressure) together, and it's not doing a very good job of that right now, so we have these blobs of warm air over the Arctic and these blobs of cold air over the mid-latitudes, just sitting there," he said.

The blobs appear to be starting to shift, a sign that the negative phase is weakening.

^ Fake News

Kotelnly -8
Alert -18

Well you get the idea

 

[Crick]

What evidence do you have that was "fake news"?

 

[Old Rocks]

Arctic
Temperatures in the Arctic are skyrocketing — for the third time this winter

• Author: Chelsea Harvey, The Washington Post
  
• Updated: 3 hours ago
  
• Published 3 hours ago

While much of the Northeast was forced to batten down the hatches this week against strong winds, heavy snow and other icy conditions, the usually frigid Arctic experienced the opposite – a period of unseasonably mild weather and high temperatures, for at least the third time this winter.

A powerful low-pressure storm system in the northern Atlantic has helped carry warm air up to the frozen north this week, sending temperatures in the Arctic soaring. Data from the Danish Meteorological Institute suggests that, as of Thursday, temperatures in the area above 80 degrees north latitude were already more than 20 degrees warmer than the average temperature for this time of year. As a graphic from Climate Reanalyzer shows, the most unusually warm region is right over the North Pole.

It's at least the third such extreme winter-warming event for the Arctic this season – temperatures skyrocketed on two occasions in November and December as well. Similar incidents also occurred in December of 2015 and 2014.

[Report: 2016 was Earth's hottest year on record by a wide margin, especially in Arctic]

Scientists believe that a number of different factors are feeding into these warming events, including the steady march of climate change and interactions between the air and Arctic sea ice, which global warming is melting a little more each year. And a good low-pressure system, like the one that barreled through this week, can help to jump-start these kinds of sudden warming events by carrying a large amount of warm air up to the North Pole all at once.
Temperatures in the Arctic are skyrocketing — for the third time this winter

Looks like a very warm arctic right now.

 

[Old Rocks]

Arctic Oscillation and Polar Vortex Analysis and Forecasts | AER

More heat

 

[Old Rocks]

« A new Arctic feedback (?) | Main

PIOMAS February 2017
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:



Things just keep getting worse. After this year's trend line went well below all others last month, I was hoping January would bring some relief, some cold weather. The weather was cold, colder than November and December, but evidently not cold enough for some seriously anomalous ice accretion. And so the gap has widened.

According to the PIOMAS model, in the past 10 years, only twice before was there a January in which less than 3000 km3 of volume was added to the sea ice pack: in 2007 and last year. So, these are the only two years that didn't see the gap get wider. All the other years did.

PIOMAS February 2017

How long before we see a portion of September with the Arctic Ocean ice free?

 

[Old Rocks]

For at least the third time this winter, the Arctic region is about to experience relatively mild weather, provided this time by the remnants of one hurricane-force low-pressure system and a secondary low. Temperatures will still be below freezing at the North Pole, but will be nearly 50 degrees above average for early February.

Temperatures will rise above zero degrees Fahrenheit at the North Pole on Friday for a while, but the pole may not reach the melting point like it did back in December, when temperatures rose above freezing. Temperatures will rise into the 20s and perhaps low-30s near the pole. This is the third significant warm air intrusion since November to make it to the North Pole.

Several strong low-pressure systems early this week allowed subtropical air to waltz northward from the central Atlantic and across Iceland on warm and breezy southerly winds.

Winds as high as 90 mph, equivalent to a strong Category 1 hurricane, started to push the warm air northward on the east side of a strong low-pressure system that crossed the Atlantic on Sunday and Monday. A second, slightly weaker low-pressure system will approach Greenland mid- to late week, pumping warmth into the Arctic Circle.

Powerful Atlantic Storm To Send Arctic Temperatures 50 Degrees Above Average – Again

The third warm period. Already see the ice affected.

Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis | Sea ice data updated daily with one-day lag

 

[Old Rocks]

So Long, La Niña; Arctic Temperatures Soar 63°F in 24 Hours | Category 6™

Summer in February in the Arctic: temperatures surge 63°F in 24 hours in Northern Greenland
The temperature at the northernmost land station in the world, Kap Morris Jesup, located on the northern coast of Greenland at 83.65°N latitude, soared to a remarkable 35°F (1.5°C) on Wednesday—beating the previous day’s high of -22°F by a shocking 57°, and marking a temperature more typical of June at this frigid location. The mercury skyrocketed an astonishing 63°F (34.8°C) in just 24 hours, from -29°F at 15 UTC February 7 to 33°F at 15 UTC February 8. As summarized by Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang on February 6, the incredible warmth in the Arctic is due to a massive hurricane-force North Atlantic storm that bottomed out on Monday with a central pressure of 932 mb—a common reading in Category 4 hurricanes, and one of lowest pressures ever measured in a storm in this region. (He noted that the strongest North Atlantic winter storms on record—in December 1986 and January 1993—had pressures of 900 and 916 millibars, respectively.) The warm air flowing into the Arctic this week was reinforced by a second massive extratropical storm that pounded Iceland on Wednesday, which brought sustained winds of 61 mph, gusting to 91 mph, to the Reykjavik Airport. Warm air near the freezing point—about 50 to 60°F above average in temperature—likely came close to the North Pole on Thursday morning, according to the latest temperature anomaly maps from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer website. A drifting buoy located near the Pole, at about 87°N latitude, recorded temperatures above freezing once in November 2016 and once in December 2016, but fell short this time, hitting 29°F on Friday. The warm air in the Arctic this week continues a trend of record to near-record heat seen in the Arctic throughout the winter of 2016 - 2017. The warm air has helped bring about the lowest arctic sea ice extent ever recorded during January, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Good chance of the Arctic Ocean being ice free for a short period this summer.

 

[Old Rocks]

Astonishing February Heat From Colorado to Oklahoma, and Into The High Arctic - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

Not just the Arctic.

 

[SSDD]

Got to hand it to you rocks...you have all the fake news you can use...and enough altered, manipulated data to support it all.

 

[Old Rocks]

LOL Ol' SSDD claiming 'alternative facts' again. The meteorological agencies of the US, Denmark, and Japan are all recording these temperatures. And that is just the ones I have seen. So, you are saying that there is a conspiracy among these nations? Your tin hat is too tight again.

 

[mamooth]

It reached 99F in Oklahoma, on Feb. 10.

This is February? 80°F in Denver, 99° in Oklahoma, 66° in Iceland, 116° in Australia | Category 6™

Yeah, I know, not the Arctic. But let's check the Antarctic. Oh look. Lowest Antarctic sea ice level in recorded history, and still a couple weeks of melt to go.

Antarctic sea ice shrinks to smallest ever extent

And in the Arctic, back down again to lowest extent ever for this date. And the forecast is for more (relative) heat.

 

[Old Rocks]

Very shortly, the freeze is going to end, and the spring thaw begin in the Arctic. If we have a warm spring, we may well see the first of many summers where there is a short period of no ice in the Arctic.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

For at least the third time this winter, the Arctic region is about to experience relatively mild weather, provided this time by the remnants of one hurricane-force low-pressure system and a secondary low. Temperatures will still be below freezing at the North Pole, but will be nearly 50 degrees above average for early February.

Temperatures will rise above zero degrees Fahrenheit at the North Pole on Friday for a while, but the pole may not reach the melting point like it did back in December, when temperatures rose above freezing. Temperatures will rise into the 20s and perhaps low-30s near the pole. This is the third significant warm air intrusion since November to make it to the North Pole.

Several strong low-pressure systems early this week allowed subtropical air to waltz northward from the central Atlantic and across Iceland on warm and breezy southerly winds.

Winds as high as 90 mph, equivalent to a strong Category 1 hurricane, started to push the warm air northward on the east side of a strong low-pressure system that crossed the Atlantic on Sunday and Monday. A second, slightly weaker low-pressure system will approach Greenland mid- to late week, pumping warmth into the Arctic Circle.

Powerful Atlantic Storm To Send Arctic Temperatures 50 Degrees Above Average – Again

The third warm period. Already see the ice affected.

Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis | Sea ice data updated daily with one-day lag

Arctic Weather Map

4 cardinal point today

Barrow -2F
Alert -20F
Vize -6F
Kotel -26F

What the melting temperature of ice?