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There might be El Niño in the making:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2635
Decreasing Arctic albedo boosts global warming
A new paper in PNAS, called Observational determination of albedo caused by vanishing sea ice, reminds me of scientific work Peter Wadhams published a year and a half ago wherein he showed Arctic ice melt is 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions'. He based this assertion on calculations, as ca...
But how about happy thoughts: Maybe ice free Arctic will provide more snow fall to Greenland, the mass balance will go positive and Happy Times will be here again?
Or maybe ice free Arctic will provide massive warm rain fall to Greenland, the cold base glaciers will turn temperate and flow away as from broken honey jar.
Fortunately we have had comments from real glaciologists the latter would be most improbable outcome.
Models are improving, but can they catch up?
All models are wrong, but some are useful, as the saying goes. However, when looking at how Arctic sea ice decline is modeled, one might be tempted to say that all sayings are useful, but some are wrong. To be fair, I should be the last person taking a piss at climate models. Hundreds of brill...
For glacial rebound to happen, asthenosphere must flow underneath the sank plate. That movement is measured in millimetres per year. Yes it is slow in human time scale. Parts of Scandinavia and North America are still rising (less than 1 m/century from some 7 metres immediately after deglaciation) even as the ice sheets disappeared over 10 000 years ago.
Models are improving, but can they catch up?
All models are wrong, but some are useful, as the saying goes. However, when looking at how Arctic sea ice decline is modeled, one might be tempted to say that all sayings are useful, but some are wrong. To be fair, I should be the last person taking a piss at climate models. Hundreds of brill...
Philip, that's the theory. But has there been any empirical evidence of surface water salinity decrease around Antarctica? One day I looked for the stuff, but didn't find anything. SSS maps didn't show any trend at first glance neither.
Models are improving, but can they catch up?
All models are wrong, but some are useful, as the saying goes. However, when looking at how Arctic sea ice decline is modeled, one might be tempted to say that all sayings are useful, but some are wrong. To be fair, I should be the last person taking a piss at climate models. Hundreds of brill...
Forbes used not to be a bad magazine. But it leans to one side of political spectrum. Sorry state is, that an issue of science has become a matter of political stance. And in this I accuse the domestic politics of United States to affect discussion all over the world about a process (artificial climatic change) which should be separated from minor issues of a single nation -- however superpower that nation happens to be.
Joe Bastardi found a cherry
Now that fake skeptics have dropped the IMS sea ice extent chart to call the results of this stunning melting season into question, Joe Bastardi comes up with another try (hat-tip to Chris Biscan) to imply that the melting season is over, something that is wanted so desperately by fake skeptics ...
And in the lighter side, as I've been reading various articles about science communication. How to deliver a message:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V06qgl2w4zM
Signs of Arctic climate change
And when I say 'Arctic', I of course automatically imply 'Northern Hemisphere'. You know, the place where most of the world's agriculture is based. One thing I have noticed this melting season, is how high pressure areas persistently remained over Greenland (causing, for instance, the decrease i...
So, will CT area go below 2? Probably not, but a few years ago most of us thought this wouldn't be a relevant question in our life times.
Signs of Arctic climate change
And when I say 'Arctic', I of course automatically imply 'Northern Hemisphere'. You know, the place where most of the world's agriculture is based. One thing I have noticed this melting season, is how high pressure areas persistently remained over Greenland (causing, for instance, the decrease i...
This might be a duplicate, but I haven't noticed these links before. English language pages about the trip to the Arctic by the icebreaker Oden.
Official LOMROG III expedition pages:
http://a76.dk/greenland_uk/north_uk/gr_n_expeditions_uk/lomrog_2012_uk/index.html
A blog by Swedish researchers:
http://www.geo.su.se/index.php/re-search/expedition-logs/528-lomrog-iii
ASI 2012 update 10: (wh)at a loss
During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) and Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2011 period (NSIDC h...
You needed some volcano to suddenly rise from 2km deep :) I suppose the quake was quite an ordinary event on a strike-slip fault by the mid ocean ridge.
Not Greenland glacial rebound. Yet.
Why Arctic sea ice shouldn't leave anyone cold
The sea ice is leaving us a bit more every year. It's time to start contemplating its absence, which is why I teamed up with Kevin McKinney to write an extended version of the shorter piece you might see pop up here and there. Because you know, disappearing sea ice isn't without consequences. An...
I stumbled into this pearl! Let I introduce to you, The Great Northern Sea Route (1947):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLu6JyPjClM
Similar melts from 1938-43?
I'm supposed to be on a holiday and should let this one slide, but it's too much. I was expecting fake skeptics to remain mostly silent in face of the ice massacre up north, but apparently they acutely sense how big this blow is to the remaining shred of their credibility, and so they upped the ...
One anecdotal evidence is German cruiser Komet's passage of NSR in August 1940. It was done with strong help from Soviet icebreakers.
There was also some traffic there during the war onwards, but AFAIK it was never such a continuous support route, as those infamous convoys over Barents to Murmansk. If feasible, it could had been practically enemy free route from Western US to the Eastern Front,
I'm sure there would be plenty of information about ice conditions up there during 1850-1990 in Imperial Russian/Soviet naval archives.
Similar melts from 1938-43?
I'm supposed to be on a holiday and should let this one slide, but it's too much. I was expecting fake skeptics to remain mostly silent in face of the ice massacre up north, but apparently they acutely sense how big this blow is to the remaining shred of their credibility, and so they upped the ...
More disturbing graphs. This time from SkepticalScience:
http://skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1589#84063
Why Arctic sea ice shouldn't leave anyone cold
The sea ice is leaving us a bit more every year. It's time to start contemplating its absence, which is why I teamed up with Kevin McKinney to write an extended version of the shorter piece you might see pop up here and there. Because you know, disappearing sea ice isn't without consequences. An...
AlRodger: Most BBC radio programmes can be listened overseas, TV broadcasts are restricted to UK. I know, because I've listened Melvyn Bragg's In our Time for years. Great show.
Arctic summer storm open thread 1
As the storm is still there, big, but no longer strong, and comment threads fill up quickly, I figured it's time for an open thread. And yes, it's a bit of an update as well, with interesting comments and graphs. But first the updated animation. Now that the swathe of ice floes in the East Siber...
To paraphrase one former American President: "This sucker could go down."
Arctic summer storm open thread 1
As the storm is still there, big, but no longer strong, and comment threads fill up quickly, I figured it's time for an open thread. And yes, it's a bit of an update as well, with interesting comments and graphs. But first the updated animation. Now that the swathe of ice floes in the East Siber...
The good audience of Wunderground is very devoted in following tropical patterns. I hope they'll put some eye (pun intended) on this arctic cyclone as well.
Arctic storm part 2: the color purple
A new day with new information. Here's an animation of Uni Bremen sea ice concentration maps from August 3rd-6th: We see some more flash melting from the 5th to the 6th on the edge of the ice pack in the Beaufort Sea region, although technically I think this is more compaction than real meltin...
Oden, the Swedish ship, is at 87N now. They're reporting 0C temp and 97% humidity, so I think it's raining up there.
http://www.smhi.se/klimatdata/2.1090
Arctic storm part 2: the color purple
A new day with new information. Here's an animation of Uni Bremen sea ice concentration maps from August 3rd-6th: We see some more flash melting from the 5th to the 6th on the edge of the ice pack in the Beaufort Sea region, although technically I think this is more compaction than real meltin...
Maybe we are rushing a bit here. But due all logics arctic could be moving towards a new phase, where vast ice cover no longer could stabilize the region.
Arctic storm part 1: in progress
This is what I meant when I said 'flash melting' yesterday: Now it's there on the Uni Bremen sea ice concentration map, the next day, poof, it's gone. Mind you, not all of it is gone, the sensor is thrown off a bit due to that crazy cyclone downstairs, but it ain't exactly good for the ice if ...
In tropical areas we have huge amounts of latent heat, which is released when the air rises and condensates. But in the arctic (not antarctic, the landmass writes the rules there) we could have plenty of warmish water surrounded by cold areas covered by ice. Maybe there could be a process comparable to tropical cyclones, which could emerge from extreme high temperature and moisture gradients on upper latitudes?
Arctic storm part 1: in progress
This is what I meant when I said 'flash melting' yesterday: Now it's there on the Uni Bremen sea ice concentration map, the next day, poof, it's gone. Mind you, not all of it is gone, the sensor is thrown off a bit due to that crazy cyclone downstairs, but it ain't exactly good for the ice if ...
This might be OT, but as main discussion has moved under an other post, I want to remind here, that NASA's new rover managed to land. ("to mars"?) Awesome! That skycrane thing looked so weird when I heard it first time few years ago. But apparently it worked. Planetary sciences in extreme, I would say.
Then you could wonder, what science we could do on Earth with those billions. But let's not compare apples to potatoes.
Cyclone warning!
I have postponed this post until I was sure that what follows is going to happen. Remember the term 'flash melting'? That's when from one day to the next large swathes of ice disappear on the University of Bremen sea ice concentration maps. We witnessed one such instance last year when a relativ...
Charles, Fennica is something called "multipurpose ship" -- it acts as icebreaker on Baltic Sea during winter, but in summer months, it's rented as support vessel mostly for oil companies, is there ice or not in target area (Alaska, Brazil). I think one of these is now in Mediterranean.
This business model was developed some twenty years ago, when the state owned company operating Finnish icebreakers noted that it was a bit counterproductive to sit hugely expensive old fashioned icebreakers in harbor most of the year.
Arctic storm part 1: in progress
This is what I meant when I said 'flash melting' yesterday: Now it's there on the Uni Bremen sea ice concentration map, the next day, poof, it's gone. Mind you, not all of it is gone, the sensor is thrown off a bit due to that crazy cyclone downstairs, but it ain't exactly good for the ice if ...
Good ole Coriolis... force... eh, effect... eh, something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wda7azMvabE
Cyclone warning!
I have postponed this post until I was sure that what follows is going to happen. Remember the term 'flash melting'? That's when from one day to the next large swathes of ice disappear on the University of Bremen sea ice concentration maps. We witnessed one such instance last year when a relativ...
New 30 day ice forecasts issued by Environment Canada:
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/app/WsvPrdCanQry.cfm?subID=2008&Lang=eng
If I read correctly, they are predicting open water or "open drift first-year ice" along the whole route about mid August.
Northwest Passage as good as open
A little over six weeks have passed since I wrote the last blog post on the Northwest Passage (NWP): Still chock-full of ice. Since that post the NWP was hidden most of the time by clouds, no telling really what was going on down there. In the last couple of days I noticed on the sea ice concent...
Kimura? Nice ice drift maps with vectors paralleling isobars.
This different paper (Kawaguchi and Mitsudera 2008, not behind a paywall) about ice divergence under low pressure systems looks promising. Looks also long and exhaustingly technical:
http://journals.sfu.ca/coaction/index.php/tellusa/article/download/15308/17138
We have found a characteristic length scale, r∗1 , based on the influence of the Coriolis term.
Near the centre where r∗ < r∗1 , the outward radial velocity, which causes the divergence and
SIC reduction, quadratically increases with distance.
In contrast, where r∗ > r∗1 , the increase of ur∗ gradually becomes gentle, and consequently, ice-drift divergence assymptotically approaches a constant value.
As a result, SIC reduction is largest at about
r∗ = r∗1 .
Eh, right.
Peeking through the clouds
When low-pressure areas take over the Arctic, they do two things: make the ice pack diverge and increase cloudiness. The diverging of the pack is hidden by the clouds, but we can sometimes see the holes in the ice pack through holes in the cloud cover on the LANCE-MODIS satellite images. We saw...
I suppose, in strictly engineering point of view Dutch are right. The levees and flood control mechanisms could be upgraded to cope sea level rise and future storm surges. If the rise is somewhere around one meter during the century ballpark.
But, say in Bangladesh, the gap between needs and resources available is overwhelming. No way. Ever.
Or the lower Mississippi area, where there are resources, but also multitude of problems. Even without rising seas the geological future of New Orleans seems bleak. Lost wetlands, ever rising river, probably increase in rainfall and intensity of hurricanes. What you need is record flood, saturated levees and Cat 4 landfall... And whatever USACE manages to do, eventually the river will break to Atchafalaya, ruining the economy if climate change won't.
Oh, and in Finland we quite often forget the Baltic Sea is still a sea, connected to the ocean, and not an oversized lake. If you put half a meter more water on it and good westerly gale for a week, the life around the Gulf of Finland will be interesting say the least.
ASI 2012 update 7: steady as she goes
During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) and Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2011 period (NSIDC ha...
And about the Kimura et al. 2000 paper. There it is stated, that:
Concerning the turning angle 0, almost all areas have ranges within 4-10 degree. This result implies that sea ice moves nearly parallel to the geostrophic wind.
Nearly... practically parallel... But around a low, a little bit outward :)
Peeking through the clouds
When low-pressure areas take over the Arctic, they do two things: make the ice pack diverge and increase cloudiness. The diverging of the pack is hidden by the clouds, but we can sometimes see the holes in the ice pack through holes in the cloud cover on the LANCE-MODIS satellite images. We saw...
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