We are near the traditional end of the Arctic sea ice melt season, so I thought I'd check in and post a quick update. Two years ago, 2012 set the the all-time recorded sea ice melt record (so far) with a minimum sea ice extent over 3 million square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average. By comparison the 2014 Arctic sea ice melt season looks fairly tame, but don't be fooled, the current sea ice extend is creeping up on 1.5 million square kilometers below the long-term average, and it's still declining.
This year's minimum sea ice extend will almost certainly not reach the record set in 2012, but it was a significant melt all the same. This melt qualifies 2014 to be the 6th largest Arctic sea ice melt year on record, exceeded only by 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012. The other years, 2009 and 2013 were just shy of this year's mark. This also means that the eight years with the greatest Arctic se ice melt were the past 8 years. It looks like a trend is forming....the bottom line, the sea ice melt is becoming more extensive as time goes on.
(Graphs courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Univ of Colorado at Boulder, NSIDC.org)
I haven't posted anything about much here lately, though there has been a lot going on. For example the launch of the Carbon Observatory Satellite (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/02/carbon-observatory-2-satellite_n_5550826.html?utm_hp_ref=green), but I just had to place a short post when I checked the Arctic sea ice extent today at the NSIDC.org site.
The graph below shows the relationship between the current sea ice extent (blue line) and the extent in 2012 (green dashed line), the year that generated the smallest sea ice extent so far, and the long-term average sea ice extent (dark gray line). The rate of sea ice melt through mid-June 2014 wasn't really much out of the ordinary, just 500,000 km2 below the long term average (just!?), but over the past couple of weeks the sea ice extent has plummeted! It's now about 1.2 million km2 below the average extent for this time of year.
Yikes!
If this sea ice melt rate keeps up we could see another record low extent or close to it. And yet another indicator from the high Arctic that the effects of climate change are not going to be going away anytime soon.
This is also the second month running where the atmospheric carbon dioxide level did not dip below 400 ppm, the second month it's ever been this high in human history...at least for the last several hundred thousand years.
Hang on, it could get interesting and exciting to see just how far things will go before there is general acceptance and outcry that something be done, at least in the USA.
Every summer some of the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean melts. And, it's once again that time of year. The Arctic sea ice melt is on!
There is no way to know how much sea ice will be left at the end of any melt season, but there's one thing we can be pretty sure of, and that's that there will be less sea ice up there at the end of this melt season than the 1981-2010 average of 6.3 million square kilometers.
2001 was the last year the sea ice minimum was greater than long-term average.
The data below show the annual minimum sea ice extent for the Arctic Ocean between 1979 and 2013 (data courtesy of the NSIDC.org). There is a lot of variability in the data (which is normal for any natural system), but the interesting and worrisome thing is that on average the amount of sea ice remaining at the end of the summer melt season is dropping at an increasing rate (see the trend line through the data).
The increasing steepness of the slope is what worries me. These data indicate that not only do we have a trend of increasing sea ice melt in the Arctic, but that the rate ice is melting is accelerating.
Climatologists have long projected that the effects of global climate change will be observed earliest and most clearly in the Arctic. The rate of melting sea ice is just one of those indicators, but it's a powerful one!
Global warming is not just some wild-eyed idea; the reality of global warming is a scientific conclusion based on decades of multiple lines of evidence.
Will we see a new record Arctic sea ice minimal this summer? No one can know this, but science can with a high degree of confidence predict that there will be less ice on average this summer than we've seen in the past.
The data below show the current sea ice extent and recent extent history comparing 2014 and 2012, the year with the current minimum sea ice extent) so far.
So what!?
The answer to the so what question is this. Global warming is real, and unless we get busy doing what we can to mitigate the effects of climate change we are in for some serious trouble.
America...the alarm clock is ringing. Are you waking up?
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!
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC.org) just posted data on the 2012 Greenland ice cap melt. It smashed all previous satellite records.
According to the NSIDC this was the first time since 1979 (the first satellite coverage of Greenland) that every point on the entire Greenland ice cap reached melt conditions for at least part of the melt season. This is shocking news, since some of the ice cap is over 2 miles above sea level, and should be high enough in both latitude and altitude to stay below freezing all year long. But, alas, temperatures climbed above freezing everywhere on the ice cap.
The graph below shows the historical average percentage of the Greenland ice cap that experienced melt conditions on a daily basis. You should note that historically essentially no ice melts from Jan to April and Oct through December, and that the historical melt season starts in April and runs through September. The data also show that on average only about 25% of the ice cap experiences melt conditions.
The red line in the graph below shows the 2012 melt extent. Compare it to dashed blue line showing the historical average. What should you be seeing here? (Continued below the graph.)
You will, I hope, notice a few things. One is that there was a spring melt event in late March where more than 10% of the ice cap reached melt conditions. This was at least two months earlier than the historical average reaches that extent. It was a short event, but it occurred all the same. The biggest thing you should see is that the melt extent during the summer reached up 90%. Historically only about 25% of the ice cap experiences melt conditions. In short, the 2012 Greenland ice cap melt exceeded anything observed so far in modern times.
The map below shows the 1979-2007 average of the cumulative number of days areas of the ice cap reached melt conditions. Historically, the north edge of the ice cap experienced about 10-15 days of melt conditions. The central east coast had even fewer than that. And the SW coast experienced the most. Now let's take a look at the cumulative number of melt days across the ice cap during 2012...look at the second map down.
The map below shows a frightening increase in the number of melt days even in regions mainly resistant to melting in previous years. For example, the northern edge of the ice cap experienced 100+ days of ice melt, the central east coast had 50-60 days, and the SW coast also had 100+ days. In fact, all ice cap edges experienced shocking numbers of days of melt conditions during 2012. And, as mentioned above, even the center of the ice cap reached melt conditions for a few days.
The map below shows air temperature anomalies for June-August 2012 compared to historical averages. What this means is that the closer a region is to the red end of the scale, the warmer is is compared to historical averages, and the closer it is to the purple end, the cooler it was. The map shows that the entire ice cap experienced increased temperatures compared to the historical average.
The SW coast was especially hard-hit with temperatures in the +3.0oC range, while the center of the ice cap had temperatures that were 1oC to 2oC above average. Nowhere in Greenland experienced below average temperatures during this time period.
The bottom line is that during 2012 Greenland's ice cap experienced unprecedented ice melt conditions compared to data from the satellite record (since 1979).
Should we be concerned about this? I am.
Well, there is a chance that this could have been an isolated warmer than average year, but all other data from the Arctic in terms of temperatures, sea ice cover, etc., indicates that this kind of extreme melt year will most likely become more frequent if the forcing factors driving climate change are not mitigated.
Climatologists and oceanographers predict that if the entire Greenland ice cap were to melt, we would most likely see global sea level rise of about +7.0 meters (that's over 20 ft). That would be catastrophic and make the flooding that occurred during Hurricane Sandy look like a nice day in the park.
Come on people, it's time to get to work doing things that will mitigate the effects of climate change.
It's been quite a while since I gave you an update on what's happening in the Arctic.
First of all, the Arctic Oscillation shifted recently from its Positive Phase to its Negative Phase; it has been mostly in the Positive Phase since the 1970s . During the Positive Phase there is a large low pressure region dominating the Arctic, but during the Negative Phase there is a large high pressure system there. This switch means that masses of cold Arctic air are more likely to push south and perhaps stay longer than they used to. This is especially true for western North American. This also helps explain the ice-box conditions we have been experiencing lately in the mountain west.
In other news, the Arctic Ocean sea ice freeze is well under way. After the record ice melt of the summer of 2013, climatologists are keeping an interested eye on 2013's freeze up. As the map below from the NSIDC.org shows, sea ice extent is at or sightly above normal in the Bering Sea and beyond the Kamchat peninsula. At the same time, it is well below historical averages east of Scandinavia and south of Greenland.
If you recall, the Bering Sea produced above average sea ice coverage last year, and the lower than average sea ice in east of Greenland also lagged behind historical averages.
Though sea ice production and sea ice extent are still rising - as is to be expected this time of year - current sea ice extent is about 1 million km2 below historic averages (see the graph below from the NSIDC.org)
FYI - The last time sea ice cover reached or exceeded the historic average for this time of year was in 1998 - yep, 15 years ago. Every year since then, mid-January sea ice extent has been below average. The take home message is that the Arctic continues to warm, and that sea ice extent continues to decline (on average) as the years go by.
Record sea ice melting in the Arctic Ocean receives a lot of attention from the media - as far as climate change news goes - but you don't hear that much about what is happening in the Antarctic.
First of all, a quick reminder about sea ice in the Arctic Ocean:
Sea ice melt in the Arctic Ocean in 2012 smashed the previous record by 750,000 km2. The map below shows the observed sea ice extent in Sept 2012 (white area) compared to the 1979-2000 average extent (pink line) Wow!
Sea ice extent is defined as the area of the sea with at least 15% sea ice cover. The graph below shows the Arctic sea ice extent for the years 2007-2012 and the 1979-2000 average. Sea ice melt for all individual years shown (2007-2012) have minimum sea ice extents that are significantly (statistically) less than the 1979-2000 average (dark gray line; lighter gray area is + 2 standard deviations around the 1979-2000 average). The bottom line for the Arctic is that it is warming significantly, and much faster than even the fastest climate models developed to date.
Ok, let's take a look at what's happening in the Antarctic:
The map below shows the Antarctic maximum sea ice extent (white area) for 2012 compared to the 1979-2000 average sea ice extent (orange line). 2012 sea ice extent in the Arctic set a new sea ice maximum record. The graph below the map shows the sea ice extent for 2012 compared to the 1979-2000 average.
The graph below shows average sea ice extent for the month of Sept for 1979-2000 and for selected individual years. Interestingly sea ice extent is increasing on average around Antarctica. When we look at data of sea ice cover in recent years in the Antarctic we see that 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2012 all had higher than average sea ice extent maxima but only 2006 and 2012 maximum extents were statistically higher (different) than the 1979-2000 average. With that being said, sea ice extent did exceed the + 2 standard deviation range in 2006 and 2012. So, what is going on in the Antarctic that is leading to increased sea ice cover?
Here's a brief summary of their report together with some additional information to increase clarity:
Temperatures are warming in the Antarctic, just not as fast as in the Arctic (the NSIDC cites references you can refer to if you want more info on this.)
Warming of the Pacific Ocean and ozone depletion over Antarctica combine to strengthen circumpolar winds.
The strongest of these circumpolar winds blows east to west, and Coriolis Effect causes these winds to deflect to the left (north).
The northerly flow of air around most of Antarctica causes sea ice to be pushed farther north than usual, spreading it out and increasing sea ice extent (remember, sea ice extent = 15% ice cover or more)
It would be very interesting to know whether the total amount of sea ice being formed in the Antarctic is increasing or decreasing. All we know right now is how the ice that is being formed is being dispersed.
In summary:
Sea ice extent around Antarctica is increasing, but it is not increasing because it is getting colder. It is increasing because winds blowing toward the north are dispersing sea ice farther away from the Antarctic coastline than usual. Don't forget that sea ice formation in the Antarctic winter is followed by nearly 100% sea ice melt in the Antarctic summer - this is different than in the Arctic where multiple-year sea ice has historically accumulated.
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.
Scientific predictions, observations, and climate models all lead to the conclusion that signs and effects of global warming will be most extreme near the north pole. I saw some data this morning that made me sit up and take notice.
We are now in the middle of the most rapid sea ice melt of the year. That's not the news. The news is that the most recent data from NASA satellites and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (nsidc.org) show a notable drop in the percentage of the Arctic Ocean and nearby waters over the past few days.
Now a few days do not a trend make, but it is worth keeping an eye on!
This map (courtesy nsidc.org) shows two things. 1) It shows orange lines that indicate the historical average limit of sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean between 1979 and 2000 for this date, and 2) the white area shows the actual sea ice cover for this date.
Just in case nsidc.org isn't one of your favorite web sites, and you don't routinely follow what's going on in the Arctic (I mean, what normal person does?), here's the scoop. During the winter of 2011-12 there was a larger than average coverage of sea ice in the Bering Sea (west of Alaska and north of the Aleutian Islands) and it hung around longer than usual. Today's map shows that the Bering Sea ice is breaking up - FAST! Also, there is quite a bit of open water showing up north of central Canada and central Russia. So, why the big news?
If you take a look at the graph below (also courtesy of nsidc.org), you will see the historical average amount of sea ice cover (1979-2000 - dark gray line), the area containing 95% of all historical observations (1979-2000), the current extent of sea ice cover for 2012 (blue line), and the extent of sea ice cover in 2007 - the year we observed the lowest sea ice extent ever (green dashed line).
OK, so what!?
The sea ice cover for 2012 fell easily within the normal range for historical sea ice cover all spring...until now. During the past few days the sea ice extent has dropped out of the average range, and even below the 2007 extent.
Does this mean we will see record sea ice melt in the Arctic this year? There's no way to tell at this point, because wind and weather conditions work together to determine the rate of ice melt and where the ice is blown. But, these data show that we should keep an eye on the Arctic. Why? The overall sea ice cover has taken a short-term dip in total cover. That may be temporary or it may be the beginning of a rapid melt. Only time will tell on that one.
Why do I follow what's happening in the Arctic Ocean? The Arctic is the Earth's climate "Canary in a Coal Mine". Coal miners used to take canaries with them into the mines. As long as the canaries sang and were healthy, they knew the air was OK. But when a canary keeled over, passing out or dying, the miners knew it was time to get out. This is because the canaries were more sensitive to air quality changes than humans. Similarly, the Arctic is more sensitive to climate change than other areas of the globe, so when we see changes there - and we ARE seeing changes there, it's time to take notice and make changes to mitigate the problem.
What changes are we seeing? For one, both winter and summer sea ice cover in the Arctic has been dropping significantly for the past 30+ years!
This graph (courtesy nsidc.org) shows the average sea ice cover for the month of May between 1979 and 2012. While there is quite a bit of noise (year to year up and down) in the data, the long-term trend clearly shows that there is on average less sea ice in the Arctic in the month of May in 2012 than there was 30 years ago. The slope showing the overall trend is statistically significant.
By the way, if noise in the data concerns you, you need to realize that EVERY natural system contains noise in the data. This includes everything from local and global average temperatures to your own heart rate. But if you collect data long enough, and scientists have, trends, if they exist in the data, will become apparent. The trend in the Arctic is that it is getting warmer up there, and as a result the sea ice cover is dropping year to year.
In other words, the canaries are having a hard time singing. They may be having a hard time breathing.
