Arctic warming: Why record-breaking melting is just the beginning

[Lumpy 1]

Now what do you think that the climate treaty signed by 194 nations was all about? You fellows are so fucking stupid.

Eh, mostly sucking the US taxpayers for bucks to finance moronic climate control bullshit to make suckers like you happy. Alas .. failure and are you ever happy moldy Rocks?

 

[Cougarbear]

The rapid warming in the Arctic circle, much faster than the rest of the planet, and the enormous loss of Arctic ice - shrinking of ice extent and volume/loss of older thicker ice - has been reported by climate scientists for decades. Although the denier cultists created by the fossil fuel industry have tried to deny the reality of this ice loss and warming and ignore the trend, reality is bitch-slapping them harder every year.....and this year looks likely to be one of the worst for destroying the reality-challenged denier cultists' demented delusions.

Here is the beginning of what is happening to the Arctic this year.....almost certain to be the year of the newest record low ice extent and volume...probably by a large margin over the last new record low that occured in 2012.

Arctic warming: Why record-breaking melting is just the beginning
It has been an ‘absurdly warm’ winter in the Arctic this year, as temperatures within 200 miles of the North Pole peaked above freezing
The Independent
Geoffrey lean
February 27, 2015
Rapidly disappearing Arctic sea ice is about to set a new record after an “absurdly warm” winter at the top of the world. For the second year running, it will have grown to cover less of the Arctic Ocean than ever before.

The revelation comes as scientists are increasingly worried that the heating of the region could escalate out of control, as growing numbers of “feedback mechanisms” – which reinforce and accelerate the process – are being discovered.

Most attention on the melting sea ice so far has been focused on the increasingly low minimum levels it reaches each September. Its nine smallest-ever extents have all occurred in the last nine years, with the record being reached in 2012, when it covered only 3.41 million square kilometres - 44 per cent less than the average of the previous three decades, and a full 16 per cent lower than the previous record, in 2007.

But the amount by which the ice recovers each winter, peaking at the end of February and the beginning of March, though little publicised, is at least as important. Last year it reached only 14.54 million sq km on 25 February, its peak day – the lowest ever. Exactly a year later, at the end of last week, it was just 14.27 million sq km, a fall of 270,000 sq km.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado (NSIDC) – the world’s foremost authority on the issue – are not quite ready to proclaim a new record, as the ice may yet spread further over the next days. But, with another week of unseasonably warm weather forecast for the region, they privately believe it is almost certain.

January has already set a new record for the month, with ice cover averaging just 13.53 million sq km, over a million sq km below its average extent between 1981 and 2010. And Professor Julienne Stroeve of the NSIDC said last week that February would also hit a record low.

Any new ice that now forms will be very thin and will melt quickly as temperatures begin to rise in the spring. And, indeed, Arctic ice has been growing thinner even as its extent has shrunk: across the region it is now less than half as thick as it was in 1980.

This year’s record low has been driven by what NSIDC calls an “absurdly warm” winter: its director, Mark Serreze, has described it as the strangest ever observed in the region. The US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the warming is “off our chart”.

In late December, temperatures within 200 miles of the North Pole actually peaked above freezing point. During January they averaged 13F above normal across the Arctic; even the coldest reading, recorded in Svalbard, north of the Arctic Circle, was warmer than the average highest temperature in previous years.

Fairbanks, Alaska, received less snowfall in the whole of December and January than fell on New York in just a single hour last month. Anchorage’s famous 50 km cross-country ski race was forced to transfer on to a 4km loop of artificial snow. And the Barents and Kara seas north of Norway and Russia have remained almost ice-free all winter.

The warmth has partly been driven by natural factors – a strong el Niño in the Pacific and, much more importantly, a shift in the Arctic oscillation weather pattern, which weakened the atmospheric barrier between polar and milder latitudes.

But scientists are in no doubt that global warming is the fundamental factor, and that similar conditions will reoccur. Such ice as there is in the Barents and Kara seas, for example, is starting to form two months later than in the past, and scientists say that this year’s freak temperatures near the North Pole will not be unique.

Last year was the warmest ever recorded worldwide, by a large margin, and some scientists believe that this one will exceed it.

The melting itself causes greater warming, because it replaces a white surface, which reflects heat back into the atmosphere, with dark water, which absorbs it. By one calculation this effect has added a further 25 per cent of warming since 1979 to what has been caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

Two new studies published last week by the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, reported new evidence of such self-reinforcing “feedback mechanisms”.

They showed that, as the region’s permafrost thaws, rapid changes in the functioning of microbes in the soil increase emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, an even more potent warming gas. Partly as a result, the tundra – which contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere – has turned from being a system that absorbs greenhouse gases, to one that emits them, accelerating climate change even further.
***

Rapidly warming Arctic is 'possibly catastrophic' for planet, climate scientist warns

READ MORE
* UK's youngest Arctic adventurer urges world to act on climate change
* The cost of climate change has been revealed - and it isn't pretty
* Global warming: National Geographic map shows 'striking' retreat of Arctic ice sheet

Nothing about the increases Ice in Antartica offsetting the decrease in the Arctic. Typical poor science and journalism.

 

[Crick]

Nothing about the increases Ice in Antartica offsetting the decrease in the Arctic. Typical poor science and journalism.

Two questions:

1) How exactly would such an offset work?

2) What increase?

The solid red line is the combined Antarctic ice mass balance.

Climate Change Indicators: Ice Sheets | US EPA

This indicator examines the balance between snow accumulation and melting in the ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica.

www.epa.gov

 

[jc456]

Two questions:

1) How exactly would such an offset work?

2) What increase?

The solid red line is the combined Antarctic ice mass balance.

Climate Change Indicators: Ice Sheets | US EPA

This indicator examines the balance between snow accumulation and melting in the ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica.

www.epa.gov

from your link... no loss of ice.

 

[Crick]

from your link... no loss of ice.

View attachment 802226

You really ought to read what you're posting. My graph is ice mass balance. Yours is sea ice extent. Apples and Oranges.

 

[Mac-7]

Musk is taking prepaid reservations for the next rocket ship to Mars for libs who take the doomsday predictions seriously

 

[Crick]

Musk is taking prepaid reservations for the next rocket ship to Mars for libs who take the doomsday predictions seriously

I heard he had crafted the cabin to be a perfect echo chamber and wanted nothing but Republicans, AGW deniers and anti-vaxxers.

 

[Mac-7]

I heard he had crafted the cabin to be a perfect echo chamber and wanted nothing but Republicans, AGW deniers and anti-vaxxers.

If so it will be a lonely trip for him

 

[Crick]

If so it will be a lonely trip for him

Personally, I think anyone signing up to go to Mars with little or no chance of returning should be declared mentally incompetent.

 

[Mac-7]

Personally, I think anyone signing up to go to Mars with little or no chance of returning should be declared mentally incompetent.

I dont think anyone is going to Mars in our lifetime

 

[Crick]

I dont think anyone is going to Mars in our lifetime

I don't know about my lifetime, but I'd think it'd be almost certain within the next 30 years. But we're getting off-topic.

 

[Crick]

The rapid warming in the Arctic circle, much faster than the rest of the planet, and the enormous loss of Arctic ice - shrinking of ice extent and volume/loss of older thicker ice - has been reported by climate scientists for decades. Although the denier cultists created by the fossil fuel industry have tried to deny the reality of this ice loss and warming and ignore the trend, reality is bitch-slapping them harder every year.....and this year looks likely to be one of the worst for destroying the reality-challenged denier cultists' demented delusions.

Here is the beginning of what is happening to the Arctic this year.....almost certain to be the year of the newest record low ice extent and volume...probably by a large margin over the last new record low that occured in 2012.

Arctic warming: Why record-breaking melting is just the beginning
It has been an ‘absurdly warm’ winter in the Arctic this year, as temperatures within 200 miles of the North Pole peaked above freezing
The Independent
Geoffrey lean
February 27, 2015
Rapidly disappearing Arctic sea ice is about to set a new record after an “absurdly warm” winter at the top of the world. For the second year running, it will have grown to cover less of the Arctic Ocean than ever before.

The revelation comes as scientists are increasingly worried that the heating of the region could escalate out of control, as growing numbers of “feedback mechanisms” – which reinforce and accelerate the process – are being discovered.

Most attention on the melting sea ice so far has been focused on the increasingly low minimum levels it reaches each September. Its nine smallest-ever extents have all occurred in the last nine years, with the record being reached in 2012, when it covered only 3.41 million square kilometres - 44 per cent less than the average of the previous three decades, and a full 16 per cent lower than the previous record, in 2007.

But the amount by which the ice recovers each winter, peaking at the end of February and the beginning of March, though little publicised, is at least as important. Last year it reached only 14.54 million sq km on 25 February, its peak day – the lowest ever. Exactly a year later, at the end of last week, it was just 14.27 million sq km, a fall of 270,000 sq km.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado (NSIDC) – the world’s foremost authority on the issue – are not quite ready to proclaim a new record, as the ice may yet spread further over the next days. But, with another week of unseasonably warm weather forecast for the region, they privately believe it is almost certain.

January has already set a new record for the month, with ice cover averaging just 13.53 million sq km, over a million sq km below its average extent between 1981 and 2010. And Professor Julienne Stroeve of the NSIDC said last week that February would also hit a record low.

Any new ice that now forms will be very thin and will melt quickly as temperatures begin to rise in the spring. And, indeed, Arctic ice has been growing thinner even as its extent has shrunk: across the region it is now less than half as thick as it was in 1980.

This year’s record low has been driven by what NSIDC calls an “absurdly warm” winter: its director, Mark Serreze, has described it as the strangest ever observed in the region. The US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the warming is “off our chart”.

In late December, temperatures within 200 miles of the North Pole actually peaked above freezing point. During January they averaged 13F above normal across the Arctic; even the coldest reading, recorded in Svalbard, north of the Arctic Circle, was warmer than the average highest temperature in previous years.

Fairbanks, Alaska, received less snowfall in the whole of December and January than fell on New York in just a single hour last month. Anchorage’s famous 50 km cross-country ski race was forced to transfer on to a 4km loop of artificial snow. And the Barents and Kara seas north of Norway and Russia have remained almost ice-free all winter.

The warmth has partly been driven by natural factors – a strong el Niño in the Pacific and, much more importantly, a shift in the Arctic oscillation weather pattern, which weakened the atmospheric barrier between polar and milder latitudes.

But scientists are in no doubt that global warming is the fundamental factor, and that similar conditions will reoccur. Such ice as there is in the Barents and Kara seas, for example, is starting to form two months later than in the past, and scientists say that this year’s freak temperatures near the North Pole will not be unique.

Last year was the warmest ever recorded worldwide, by a large margin, and some scientists believe that this one will exceed it.

The melting itself causes greater warming, because it replaces a white surface, which reflects heat back into the atmosphere, with dark water, which absorbs it. By one calculation this effect has added a further 25 per cent of warming since 1979 to what has been caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

Two new studies published last week by the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, reported new evidence of such self-reinforcing “feedback mechanisms”.

They showed that, as the region’s permafrost thaws, rapid changes in the functioning of microbes in the soil increase emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, an even more potent warming gas. Partly as a result, the tundra – which contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere – has turned from being a system that absorbs greenhouse gases, to one that emits them, accelerating climate change even further.
***

Rapidly warming Arctic is 'possibly catastrophic' for planet, climate scientist warns

READ MORE
* UK's youngest Arctic adventurer urges world to act on climate change
* The cost of climate change has been revealed - and it isn't pretty
* Global warming: National Geographic map shows 'striking' retreat of Arctic ice sheet

The warm spell we seem to be going in to is going to wreak some havoc. My two primary worries are loss of albedo and methane from the thawing permafrost.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The warm spell we seem to be going in to is going to wreak some havoc. My two primary worries are loss of albedo and methane from the thawing permafrost.

Albedo, you mean from CCP soot? Filthiest fucking emitters on the planet - and you defend them

 

[Crick]

Albedo, you mean from CCP soot? Filthiest fucking emitters on the planet - and you defend them

Melting ice fool. And I'm sorry you get so upset hearing the truth but, really, that's your problem.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Melting ice fool. And I'm sorry you get so upset hearing the truth but, really, that's your problem.

Soot from Chinese coal plants would do that, right?

 

[Crick]

The rapid warming in the Arctic circle, much faster than the rest of the planet, and the enormous loss of Arctic ice - shrinking of ice extent and volume/loss of older thicker ice - has been reported by climate scientists for decades. Although the denier cultists created by the fossil fuel industry have tried to deny the reality of this ice loss and warming and ignore the trend, reality is bitch-slapping them harder every year.....and this year looks likely to be one of the worst for destroying the reality-challenged denier cultists' demented delusions.

Here is the beginning of what is happening to the Arctic this year.....almost certain to be the year of the newest record low ice extent and volume...probably by a large margin over the last new record low that occured in 2012.

Arctic warming: Why record-breaking melting is just the beginning
It has been an ‘absurdly warm’ winter in the Arctic this year, as temperatures within 200 miles of the North Pole peaked above freezing
The Independent
Geoffrey lean
February 27, 2015
Rapidly disappearing Arctic sea ice is about to set a new record after an “absurdly warm” winter at the top of the world. For the second year running, it will have grown to cover less of the Arctic Ocean than ever before.

The revelation comes as scientists are increasingly worried that the heating of the region could escalate out of control, as growing numbers of “feedback mechanisms” – which reinforce and accelerate the process – are being discovered.

Most attention on the melting sea ice so far has been focused on the increasingly low minimum levels it reaches each September. Its nine smallest-ever extents have all occurred in the last nine years, with the record being reached in 2012, when it covered only 3.41 million square kilometres - 44 per cent less than the average of the previous three decades, and a full 16 per cent lower than the previous record, in 2007.

But the amount by which the ice recovers each winter, peaking at the end of February and the beginning of March, though little publicised, is at least as important. Last year it reached only 14.54 million sq km on 25 February, its peak day – the lowest ever. Exactly a year later, at the end of last week, it was just 14.27 million sq km, a fall of 270,000 sq km.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado (NSIDC) – the world’s foremost authority on the issue – are not quite ready to proclaim a new record, as the ice may yet spread further over the next days. But, with another week of unseasonably warm weather forecast for the region, they privately believe it is almost certain.

January has already set a new record for the month, with ice cover averaging just 13.53 million sq km, over a million sq km below its average extent between 1981 and 2010. And Professor Julienne Stroeve of the NSIDC said last week that February would also hit a record low.

Any new ice that now forms will be very thin and will melt quickly as temperatures begin to rise in the spring. And, indeed, Arctic ice has been growing thinner even as its extent has shrunk: across the region it is now less than half as thick as it was in 1980.

This year’s record low has been driven by what NSIDC calls an “absurdly warm” winter: its director, Mark Serreze, has described it as the strangest ever observed in the region. The US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the warming is “off our chart”.

In late December, temperatures within 200 miles of the North Pole actually peaked above freezing point. During January they averaged 13F above normal across the Arctic; even the coldest reading, recorded in Svalbard, north of the Arctic Circle, was warmer than the average highest temperature in previous years.

Fairbanks, Alaska, received less snowfall in the whole of December and January than fell on New York in just a single hour last month. Anchorage’s famous 50 km cross-country ski race was forced to transfer on to a 4km loop of artificial snow. And the Barents and Kara seas north of Norway and Russia have remained almost ice-free all winter.

The warmth has partly been driven by natural factors – a strong el Niño in the Pacific and, much more importantly, a shift in the Arctic oscillation weather pattern, which weakened the atmospheric barrier between polar and milder latitudes.

But scientists are in no doubt that global warming is the fundamental factor, and that similar conditions will reoccur. Such ice as there is in the Barents and Kara seas, for example, is starting to form two months later than in the past, and scientists say that this year’s freak temperatures near the North Pole will not be unique.

Last year was the warmest ever recorded worldwide, by a large margin, and some scientists believe that this one will exceed it.

The melting itself causes greater warming, because it replaces a white surface, which reflects heat back into the atmosphere, with dark water, which absorbs it. By one calculation this effect has added a further 25 per cent of warming since 1979 to what has been caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

Two new studies published last week by the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, reported new evidence of such self-reinforcing “feedback mechanisms”.

They showed that, as the region’s permafrost thaws, rapid changes in the functioning of microbes in the soil increase emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, an even more potent warming gas. Partly as a result, the tundra – which contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere – has turned from being a system that absorbs greenhouse gases, to one that emits them, accelerating climate change even further.
***

Rapidly warming Arctic is 'possibly catastrophic' for planet, climate scientist warns

READ MORE
* UK's youngest Arctic adventurer urges world to act on climate change
* The cost of climate change has been revealed - and it isn't pretty
* Global warming: National Geographic map shows 'striking' retreat of Arctic ice sheet

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum | NASA Global Climate Change

Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

climate.nasa.gov

Polar Science Center » PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis

 

[ding]

Perfectly normal for an interglacial period. Especially one that is 2C cooler than previous interglacial periods and has 120 ppm more atmospheric CO2.

 

[Crick]

Perfectly normal for an interglacial period. Especially one that is 2C cooler than previous interglacial periods and has 120 ppm more atmospheric CO2.

So, we've got another 2C of warming already on order eh? Any explanation why the current rate of warming is 7 to 10 times faster than any interglacial warming in history and why the planet was actually cooling for 5,000 years before this warming started and why this warming is perfectly coincident with human GHG emissions and why adding CO2 to the atmosphere WOULDN'T cause greenhouse warming? Eh?

 

[ding]

So, we've got another 2C of warming already on order eh? Any explanation why the current rate of warming is 7 to 10 times faster than any interglacial warming in history and why the planet was actually cooling for 5,000 years before this warming started and why this warming is perfectly coincident with human GHG emissions and why adding CO2 to the atmosphere WOULDN'T cause greenhouse warming? Eh?

Yes, there's another 2C of natural variability in order. No, there is no data that supports the ridiculous notion of unprecedent warming. In fact, D-O events during the last glacial period saw 5C to 8C swings in temperature over a few decades.

By your logic you must believe that CO2 saved the planet from a glacial period. Brilliant.

 

[ding]

this warming is perfectly coincident with human GHG emissions

The geologic record is littered with examples of warming and cooling trends that were not caused by orbital or CO2 forcing.

The planet cooled for millions of years with CO2 levels between 600 to 1000 ppm. According to your beliefs about the role CO2 plays in the earth's climate, that shouldn't have happened.