It's been a while since I posted anything about the state of the Arctic, but when I checked the National Snow and Ice Database website this morning I thought it was worth a few words.
The graph below shows the Arctic sea ice extent between Nov 2013 and Feb 12, 2014. There are a couple of notable things here. First, the ice extent has been between 250,000 and 500,000 square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average the entire time. This doesn't come as a shock to anyone who follows the Arctic, but it's just an ongoing confirmation of a warming Arctic.
BTW, did you know that according to the National Climactic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that the last time that an annual global average temperature was cooler than the 20th century average was in 1976? Yep, that's 37 years ago (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/). I shared this with one of my classes of university students yesterday and realized as I said it that all of them were born well after 1976, so they have known only a warming world. That's a sobering thought.
The second thing the graph shows that's interesting, though not yet significant is what happened over the last week or two. If you notice the average sea ice extent usually reaches its maximum coverage around the end of February or early March. The extent does show some ups and downs, as clearly shown in the 2011-2012 (dotted) line. This year's data are shown on the blue line. Anyway, so what? Data of the last week or two show a leveling off and then decline in sea ice cover. If this continues, and I'd be extremely surprised if it did this early in the season, we could really be in for a doozie of a sea ice loss year in the Arctic. It's much more likely that this is just a temporary blip.
It's been a while since I posted anything about what's happening in the Arctic Ocean. In a word, the summer 2013 sea ice melt is "on". So far this spring/summer, sea ice cover has declined from a winter maximum ice extent of just over 15 million km2 down to 10.5 million km2 as of yesterday (6-30-2013).
The maps below shows that sea ice melt is progressing much faster than the 1981-2010 average in Hudson Bay, the Barents Sea, Baffin Bay, and other areas around the Canadian Archipelago. Sea ice melt in the Bering and Chukchi Seas are right on the historical average.
The graph below courtesy of NSIDC.org shows the relationship between the 2013 Spring/Summer melt and that of the 1981-2010 average and the 2012 all time record low sea ice melt. The current melt is currently about midway between the historic average melt and the record melt for this time of year. The rate of sea ice melt has really increased (as indicated by the steep downward turn in the blue line on the graph below) over the past week or so. The rate of sea ice melt will really have to speed up, though, if it's going to have a chance of catching last year's record pace.
If you follow these kinds of data on a regular basis, like I do, you might be surprised to see the current rate of sea ice melt is as close as it is to the historic rate of sea ice melt. That's because NSIDC recently updated their baseline data for comparisons from a 22-year average (1979-2000) to a 30 year average (1981-2010), since that is standard practice for baselines whenever possible. You can read more about that change by clicking this link: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2013/06/updating-the-sea-ice-baseline/. FYI, the NSIDC made this change on June 18, 2013.
So as of now, the 2013 sea ice melt is not threatening to break last year's record minimum sea ice extent. But the only way to know what is going to happen is to be patient and keep checking back.
Have a great summer, but I hope that not too much sea ice melts!
I'm not an alarmist, but there are times to be alarmed - like when your house is on fire, or when you see the headlong approach of unswerving headlights.
When it comes to global climate, is the house on fire?
Record-settting number of high temperature records
The most recent data I could find on daily temperature records in the USA was from July 2012. According to the National Climate Data Center, there were 23,283 new record high temperatures set across the United States from Jan-July 2012.
There are also some other troubling data and scenarios out there.
In mid-July a compelling article on climate change and current weather and climate patterns by Bill McKibben appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine. You can read it in its entirety by clicking the link below.
Building on data presented in that article we are now entering the 329th consecutive month with average temperatures above the 20th century average. Yes, you read that right...329th month...that's nearly 27.5 years where EVERY month's average was above the 1900-1999 average temperature. Now it is expected that any set of data from a natural system would include variability - year to year rainfall totals, temperature fluctuations, your heart rate, your annual body mass fluctuations, etc. But when we see over 27 years of monthly average temperature data above the average of that for an entire century of temperature readings, we should probably sit up and think about what's going on.
If temperature fluctuations were behaving completely randomly, with no long-term temperature increase or decrease, we would predict that a given month's average temperature has a 50% chance (probability = 0.5) of being above average. The chances of two consecutive months being above average would be 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25 (= a 25% chance of happening by random chance alone). So, what are the odds of observing 329 consecutive months with average temperatures above the 1900-1999 average temperature by random chance alone? to get the answer to this question you need to multiply 0.5 by itself 329 times. The answer is, according to the Rolling Stone article 3.7 x 10^-99. That means that there is a 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000037% chance of that happening by random chance alone. That's such a small likelihood of happening that it's time to look for things that could be driving that other than random chance.
The prime suspect? A trend of global climate change, i.e., global warming.
The total global average temperature hasn't increased all that much so far in the past 100 years or so...only 0.8oC. And if we are seeing significant changes with only this small change in global temperature, what could happen when we reach 2oC? - the projected limit that we could reach without incurring MAJOR global environmental and ecological effects?
BTW, climate models suggest that the atmosphere-ocean-earth system may be able to accommodate the emission of another 595 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere before we reach the 2oC mark. But guess what? The cumulative proven reserves of fossil fuels currently controlled by energy companies and countries with nationalized mining and extraction = 2,795 gigatons of fossil fuel. That's just the fossil fuel that we know about. That's 5x the total we can emit before hitting the 2oC mark.
Are there other indicators are there that climate is shifting? Check out some of my other postings.
I know, I know, ANOTHER posting on Arctic sea ice!? No, it's more than that.
I guess I just can't help myself, plus the sea ice melt is currently on record pace. The all time record Arctic sea ice melt so far occurred in 2007, but right now there is somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 square kilometers more open water in the Arctic today than there was at this time in 2007!
The melt is really taking off north of Siberia, in Baffin Bay west of Greenland, and in the Beaufort Sea north of the Canadian Yukon, Northwest Territories, and eastern Alaska. Plus Hudson Bay will soon be ice free, well ahead of historical average melt dates. If this keeps up we will see a new record for ice melt in the Arctic later this summer.
This graph shows the comparison between the area of sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean between historical averages (1979-2000 - dark gray line), the 2007 record sea ice melt year (dotted green line) and current sea ice cover (blue line).
OK, so what? What can we do to mitigate what is going on with global climate change. While I encourage everyone out there to drive less, walk or bike more, and emit as little carbon as possible, the bottom line is that as individuals we can do little to mitigate the problem. What is desperately needed NOW is for everyone to put pressure on their local, state, and national leaders to take steps to mandate change. It's clear that the small grassroots effort that has been going on for the past few decades is not going to do the job. We need large-scale investment in cleaner, more efficient energy, reductions in carbon emissions, and transportation options.
The science is in, and no matter how much nay-sayers or skeptics want to think or say otherwise, humans are driving the current trend of global warming.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administrations's Climatic Data Center just released data showing that the months of January through June of 2012 was the warmest ever in the 118 year history of national weather statistics.
This map shows state-by-state rankings of average temperature compared to all other years of Jan-June temperature averages since the late 1800s. A score of "1" means it was the coldest average temperature in the record. A score of "118" means it was the warmest in the temperature record.
This map shows that only two states, Washington and Oregon, showed near normal average temperatures, while the rest of the country experienced above normal to record warmest temperatures. In fact, 30 states reported record warmest temperatures for this 6-month period.
Washington and Oregon were kept cool by Pacific storms that moved onshore, brought cooler temperatures, and much higher than average precipitation. The rest of the country baked.
The national average for precipitation for Jan-June 2012 scored a "16", which means that it was the 16th driest Jan-June on record. A few areas had near record precipitation, such as Coastal Washington, Oregon, northern California, and Minnesota. The Pacific storms explain the rainfall in the NW, and if you recall, there were torrential rainfalls and massive flooding in MN in June. Nevada, the four-corners states, and Wyoming in the meantime experienced near record low precipitation. That's not that surprising - it's an arid part of the country anyway, but look at the Ohio River Valley. These states routinely enjoy storm front after storm front bringing rain needed for agriculture, etc. This Jan-June, however, rainfall was WAY down.
When are we going to wake up? The individual action of a few people here and is simply not enough to make a difference when it comes to mitigating climate change.
This is our time. This is our watch. I believe that our children and grandchildren will rightly hold us responsible for our lack of action, regardless of what any other country or people do.
Carbon emissions are a responsibility of the rich. The rich are the only ones with enough wealth to emit significant amounts of carbon. And when I say rich, I mean people who earn more than $40-50K per year. Where did this number come from? This threshold was identified by two researchers, Pacala and Socolo, of Princeton University. You can learn more about their work by watching this seminar by Dr. Pacala, given a few years ago at Stanford University. It's about an hour long, but it's incredibly fascinating, and their conclusions bear consideration.
The people above the $40-50K personal wealth mark are the people rich enough to own a car, own a house, be materialistic consumers, etc. This is not something we want to hear or like to hear, but it's a serious reality. Economists looking at the emissions of anthropogenic carbon have discovered that the richest 500 million people on the planet, and that the poorest half of the global population (now over 3.5 billion people) are so poor that they emit almost nothing.
Carbon emission is a problem generated by the rich. It is a problem that needs to be shouldered by the rich.
I am sadly convinced that based on what we are doing and on what we are not doing right now, we will not be heroes in future history books. We will be branded as the generation(s) who were more concerned with short-term profits, personal wealth, and lavish lifestyle (i.e., greed) than we were with taking responsibility to be worthy stewards and caretakers of the planet for the benefit of future generations.
