Arctic Winter Heatwave

The Arctic is experiencing a heatwave in winter, with temperature anomalies on February 23, 2016, averaging 7.84°C or 14.11°F higher than what was common 1979-2000.

The forecast for 6:00 UTC on February 23, 2016, shows an anomaly of 8.17°C or 14.71°F.

Temperatures in January 2016 over the Arctic Ocean were 7.3°C (13.1°F) higher than in 1951-1980, according to NASA data, as illustrated by the graph on the right, from an earlier post.

These high temperatures go hand in hand with sea ice extent that is much lower for this time of year than since records started.

As discussed in an earlier post, low sea ice extent is fueling fears that this year's maximum extent was already reached on February 9, 2016.

A much higher ocean temperature is behind both the low sea ice extent and the high temperature anomalies.

Ocean temperatures are particularly high where the Gulf Stream pushes water from Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean, as illustrated by the image below that compares sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic between the years 2015 and 2016 for February 22nd.

This spells bad news for the sea ice in 2016, since El Niño is still going strong and ocean temperature keeps rising, as illustrated by the NOAA global ocean temperature anomalies graph for January below.

 The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.

ARCTIC WINTER HEATWAVE The Arctic is experiencing a heatwave in winter, with temperature anomalies on February 23,...
Posted by Sam Carana on Tuesday, February 23, 2016

East Siberian Heat Wave

The image below illustrates the intensity of the heatwave over western Europe, with temperatures forecast to keep hitting the top end of the scale for days to come.

Global warming is strengthening heatwaves. The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world, so the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator is getting smaller. It is this temperature difference that powers the jet stream. The result is that the speed at which the jet stream circumnavigates the globe is falling. Furthermore, the path of the jet stream is changing, sometimes extending far to the north, then deeper to the south, just like a river will meander more where the land is flatter.

Above image illustrates that these changes to the jet stream make that warm air from the south can more easily move up north, to higher latitudes, while cold air from the Arctic can more easily move down to lower latitudes, in both cases further decreasing the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator, which makes these changes to the jet stream a self-reinforcing feedback loop that is rapidly making the situation worse.

While such developments have been documented for years, e.g. see this feedbacks page, the media rarely inform people about them. And while the media do cover the suffering caused by the heatwaves that have been hitting populous countries such as India, Pakistan, the U.S., Spain and France recently, less attention is given to heatwaves hitting the Arctic.

High temperatures close to the Arctic Ocean are very worrying, for a number of reasons, including:

• They are examples of heatwaves that can increasingly extend far to the north, all the way into the Arctic Ocean, speeding up warming of the Arctic Ocean seabed and threatening to unleash huge methane eruptions. 
• They set the scene for wildfires that emit not only greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, but also pollutants such as carbon monoxide (that depletes hydroxyl that could otherwise break down methane) and black carbon (that when settling on ice causes it to absorb more sunlight). 
• They cause warming of the water of rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean, thus resulting in additional sea ice decline and warming of the Arctic Ocean seabed.

June 24, 2015 - Smoke from wildfires in Alaska - from: wunderground.com

The video below was created by Stuart Thrupp from a NASA animation showing carbon monoxide from Alaska wildfires spreading over the Arctic from June 17th to 29th, 2015.

Short movie of carbon-monoxide levels over Alaska. June 17th- June 29th. Thanks for NASA Eyes on earth for there animation.
Posted by Stuart Thrupp on Wednesday, July 1, 2015

The heatwaves that hit Alaska and Russia recently are now followed up by a heatwave in East Siberia.

The image below shows a location well inside the Arctic Circle where temperatures as high as 37.1°C (98.78°F) were recorded on July 2, 2015. The top panel shows temperatures, while the bottom panel also shows the depth of the Arctic Ocean and the location of the Gakkel Ridge, in between the northern tip of Greenland and the Laptev Sea.

As the image below shows, the jet stream is forecast to move up high into the Arctic north of Siberia over the next few days. The image shows the jet stream as at July 8, 2015.

The image below shows a forecast of temperature anomalies for July 7, 2015.

The four images below illustrate how the heatwave is forecast to develop over the next few days (hat tip to Mark Richardson).

Rain close to the North Pole (forecast July 7, 2015)

The image on the right, also created with a Climate Reanalyzer image, shows rain over the Arctic, over the East Siberian Sea and over an area close to the North Pole.

Rain over sea ice will create melt ponds with associated loss in albedo (reflectivity), making that light that was previously reflected back into space by the sea ice will instead be absorbed by the water, further speeding up the demise of the sea ice.

The picture below was taken July 2, 2015, by WebCam#1, mounted on a satellite-reporting buoy. The camera provides a wide-angle 120° horizontal field of view and was installed in April 2015, about 1.5 m above the ice surface, at a location some 25 miles from the North Pole. The buoy has meanwhile drifted some distance away from the North Pole, see map at this page.

WebCam#1 showing water on July 2, 2015

The presence of water can indicate that the sea ice has completely disappeared in the respective area, which could in turn be caused by sea ice melting and/or bubbling up of methane, so it's important to keep monitoring this. More likely though, the water is probably surface water on top of the ice, caused by melting and/or rain. Anyway, water reflects less sunlight back into space than sea ice, so the result will be that more sunlight is instead absorbed by the water and/or the sea ice.

With temperatures as high as the 37.1°C (98.78°F) recorded on July 2, 2016 (image further above), huge melting can be expected where there still is sea ice in the waters off the coast of Siberia, while the waters where the sea ice has already gone will warm up rapidly.

Note that the waters off the coast of Siberia are less than 50 m (164 ft) deep, so warming can quickly extend all the way down to the seabed, that can contain enormous amounts of methane in the form of free gas and hydrates.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the Climate Plan.

While the media gives wide coverage to the heatwaves that have been hitting populous countries such as India, Pakistan,...
Posted by Sam Carana on Thursday, July 2, 2015

Heat Wave Forecast For Russia Early June 2015

Following heat waves in Alaska and the north of Canada, the Arctic looks set to be hit by heat waves along the north coast of Russia in early June, 2015. The image below shows temperature anomalies at the top end of the scale for a large area of Russia forecast for June 6, 2015.

Meanwhile, the heat wave in India continues. It killed more than 2,100 people, reports Reuters, adding that the heat wave also killed more than 17 million chickens in May. The number of people killed by the heat wave is now approaching the 2,541 people killed by the 1998 heat wave in India, which is listed as the record number of deaths due to extreme temperatures in India by the Emergency Events Database.

Further records listed by the database are the well over 70,000 people killed by the 2003 heat wave in Europe and 55,736 people killed by the 2010 heat wave in Russia alone.

On above temperature forecast (left image, top right), temperatures over a large area of India will be approaching the top end of the scale, i.e. 50°C or 120°F. While such temperatures are not unusual in India around this time of year, the length of the heat wave is extraordinary. The heat wave that is about to hit Russia comes with even higher temperature anomalies. Even though temperatures in Russia are unlikely to reach the peaks that hit India, the anomalies are at the top end of the scale, i.e. 20°C or 36°F.

The image below shows a forecast for June 6, 2015, with high temperatures highlighted at four locations (green circles).

Below is a forecast for the jet stream as at June 7, 2015.

The animation below runs the time of the top image (June 6, 2015, 0900 UTC) to the above image (June 7, 2015, 1200 UTC), showing forecasts of the jet stream moving over the Arctic Ocean, with its meandering shape holding warm air that extends from Russia deep into the Arctic Ocean.

Below is another view of the situation.

Jet stream on June 6, 2015, 0900 UTC, i.e. the date and time that corresponds with the top image.

Clicking on this link will bring you to an animated version that also shows the wind direction, highlighting the speed (I clocked winds of up to 148 km/h, or 92 mph) of the jet stream as it moves warm air from Russia into the Arctic Ocean, sped up by cyclonic wind around Svalbard.

This is the 'open doors' feedback at work, i.e. feedback #4 on the feedbacks page, where accelerated warming in the Arctic causes the jet stream to meander more, which allows warm air to enter the Arctic more easily, in a self-reinforcing spiral that further accelerates warming in the Arctic.

The implications of temperatures that are so much higher than they used to be are huge for the Arctic. These high temperatures are heating up the sea ice from above, while rivers further feed warm water into the Arctic Ocean, heating up the sea ice from below.

Furthermore, such high temperatures set the scene for wildfires that can emit huge amounts of pollutants, among which dust and black carbon that, when settling on the sea ice, can cause large albedo falls.

The image below shows Russian rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean, while the image also shows sea surface temperature anomalies as high as 8.2°C or 14.76°F (at the green circle, near Svalbard).



The big danger is that the combined impact of these feedbacks will accelerate warming in the Arctic to a point where huge amounts of methane will erupt abruptly from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.
The image below shows that methane levels as high as 2,566 ppb were recorded on May 31, 2015, while high methane levels are visible over the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.

Below is part of a comment on the situation by Albert Kallio:

As the soils warm up the bacteria in them and the insulating capacities of snow themselves tend to lead snow cover melting faster the warmer the soil it rests on becomes. (Thus the falling snow melts very rapidly on British soil surface if compared to Finland or Siberia where the underlying ground is much colder, even if occasionally the summers have similar or even higher temperatures).

The large snow cover over the mid latitude land masses is a strong negative feedback for the heat intake from the sun if the season 2015 is compared with the season 2012, but the massive sea ice and polar air mass out-transportation equally strongly weakens formation of new sea ice around the North Pole (and along the edges of the Arctic Ocean) as the air above the Arctic Ocean remains warm. The pile up of thin coastal ice also increases vertical upturning of sea water and this could have detrimental effects for the frozen seabed that is storing methane clathrates. The sunlight intake of the sea areas where sea ice has already disappeared corresponds largely with the 2012 season.

The inevitable snow melting around the Arctic Ocean will also transport record volumes of warmed melt water from the south to the Arctic Ocean. The available heat in the Arctic may also be later enhanced by the high sea water temperatures that prevail along the eastern and western coasts of North America, as well as El Nino event increasing temporarily air and sea surface temperatures. This leads to more depressions around Japan and Korea from where the warm air, storms and rains migrate towards Alaska and pull cold air away from Arctic over Russia, while pushing warm air through the Baring Strait area and Alaska to the Arctic Ocean region.

Forecasting seasonal out comes is likely to be increasingly difficult to make due to increasing number of variables in the seasonal melting processes and the resulting lack of historic precedents when the oceans and Arctic has been as warm as today. Thus the interplay of the opposing forces makes increasingly chaotic outcomes, in which the overall trend will always be for less ice and snow at the end of the season. Because of these reasons - including many others not explicitly mentioned here - the overall outcome for the blue ocean, or the ice-free Arctic Ocean, will be inevitable.

Whether the loss of sea ice happens this summer, or next, or one after that, the problem isn't going to go away and more needs to be done to geoengineer to save Arctic ice and wildlife dependent on summer sea ice.

John Davies responds:

Albert Kallio is absolutely right in saying that warmer temperatures are leading to a blue ocean event though the problem remains in which year this will happen. Additionally Methane is being released from the bottom of the ocean leading to increased Methane concentrations and all that means for a destabilising global climate. Frustratingly, the higher temperatures and increasing Methane concentrations are not yet quite sufficient for us to persuade the scientific community and the public that Armageddon is on the way. Hence it is not yet possible to be in a position to persuade the world community of the urgent need for Geo-engineering to save the Arctic and Global climate. However we may reach this situation in the near future and that will be the only time when it might be possible to save the global climate and prevent Armageddon.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the Climate Plan page.

This image shows Russian rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean, while it also shows sea surface temperature anomalies...
Posted by Sam Carana on Monday, June 1, 2015