All posts for the month September, 2016

“We are Suffocating from Smoke” — For Russia, Climate Change is Already Producing Fires that are Too Big to Fight

“For one month we are suffocating from the smoke. The weather is hot, and there is a strong smell of burning…” — Residents of Bratsk, northwest of Lake Baikal, in a petition to Vladimir Putin pleading him to fight the fires now raging there.

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Let’s take a snapshot of the current moment from the climate change perspective: This year, global temperatures will probably hit between 1.2 and 1.25 degrees Celsius hotter than 1880s averages. This new heat, in a range likely not seen for 115,000 years, is catapulting us into dangerous new climate states. We’re starting to see the hard changes happen. Weather is growing more extreme, wildfires are worsening, the seas are rising, the glaciers are melting, and ocean health is declining. Threats of destabilization and disruption are ramping up. But compared to what we will see in the future if the world continues to warm, if we continue to burn fossil fuels, the seemingly rough changes we are experiencing now are minor and easy to manage.

These are the early, easy outliers of human-forced climate change. But for some, even for a nation as powerful as Russia, certain events have already overwhelmed emergency response capabilities.

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(Fire season should have ended by late August around the region of Lake Baikal in Russia. However, due to climate change-related influences, massive fires continue to burn through September. The above image is from today, September 28. Bottom edge of frame represents approximately 600 miles. Lake Baikal is visible in the right side of frame. Smoke from large fires currently covering approximately 2.5 million acres is visible throughout the shot. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

Climate Change Spikes Fire Incidence in Siberia

Over the past decade or so, a rapid warming of Siberia has resulted in a dramatic increase in fire incidence. The vast boreal forests were thrust into hotter, dryer conditions by a human-forced warming of the globe. Meanwhile, permafrost thaw added its own massive and growing volumes of peat-like fuel for burning. As the years progressed, very large fires have erupted with rising frequency. Mostly underreported, according to Greenpeace and independent satellite analysis by experts, these fires have covered millions of acres year after year after year:

“If you look at the whole area over the past 30 years, there’s a significant increase in burned area that is very clear by the early 2000s,” Susan Conrad, a former U.S. Forest Service scientist who has spent decades researching the impact of fire on Siberia, told ClimateWire.

Often, fighting such fires has required the effort of thousands of emergency responders supported by hundreds of pieces of equipment. As a result, the growing size of these fires and the lengthening of the season in which they burn has put a strain on the coffers of an already cash-strapped Russia. Firefighting has thus been cut or set aside for instances when a city, town or vital piece of infrastructure requires defending. More and more, these great fires have been abandoned to burn on, uncontrolled.

2016 Lake Baikal Fires Too Dangerous to Fight

This year around the region of Lake Baikal, an unrelenting (climate change-related) drought combined with abnormal heat to produce massive fires. The fires raged and flared throughout the summer. As the typical wildfire season came to an end during late August, the fires continued to burn and spread. According to Greenpeace, the fires burning during September in this region alone covered nearly 5 million acres. That’s an area about the size of Massachusetts. Satellite shots of the massive fires were dramatic, revealing plumes of dense smoke spewing out over hundreds or even thousands of miles. Residents of cities and towns around Lake Baikal experienced terrible conditions due to a suffocating pall of dense smoke covering the area.

Despite the risk to public health and increasing cases where schools, communities and infrastructure were threatened by the fires, the Russian Emergencies Ministry has claimed that such large fires are increasingly uncontrollable. Spokespeople with the agency note that the fires are so intense that they present a danger to firefighting personnel. According to Radio Free Europe:

Aleksandr Bruykhanov, senior researcher at the Forestry Institute in Krasnoyarsk, told the Siberian Times that massive wildfires have become more frequent and cannot be fully controlled by the government. He said they will only be extinguished when rain returns to the region. …”The Emergencies Ministry won’t be able to help here but will only cause some extra work for foresters, who will have to rescue rescuers.” [emphasis added]

For One Month We are Suffocating From Smoke

Hundreds of firefighters have been deployed throughout the region in isolated efforts to stem the more eminent blazes. Near the city of Bratsk, 600 firefighters and about 123 pieces of heavy equipment were reported to be engaged with the fires on September 23. Unfortunately the firefighting has, thus far, been mostly unsuccessful.

(High carbon monoxide readings north and west of Lake Baikal, Russia on September 28. This expansive plume of carbon monoxide is coming from very large fires burning in the region. Residents in a nearby city recently complained of carbon monoxide poisoning in a petition to Vladimir Putin to fight the fires. Emergencies Ministry spokespersons have claimed that the fires are increasingly uncontainable and that the best hope for stopping the fires is when rains return to the area. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Failure to control the massive burning has resulted in abysmal air quality for the region. In some cases, life-threatening conditions have been reported, with adults and children hospitalized. In Bratsk, a city of 250,000 people, thousands of residents are complaining of stifling smoke and incidents of carbon monoxide poisoning. A heavy pall of dense smoke has hung over the city for more than a month. The conditions there are so bad that 3,000 people have signed a petition to Vladimir Putin, urging him to deploy more resources to fight the fires, and stating that:

For one month we are suffocating from the smoke. The weather is hot, and there is a strong smell of burning and smoke. It is not possible to open windows, we cannot go out because we soon feel dizziness… Some adults and children are in hospital with severe carbon monoxide poisoning. We are for clean air! We want to breathe. We have that right. Do not remain indifferent to our health and our future!

Signs of Exhaustion at the Start of a Rough Climate Future

Exhaustion of emergency response resources is one of the big threats posed by climate change. In instances where entire regions see extreme weather conditions that are far outside the norm for an extended period of time, such as as severe droughts, floods, and fires, instances of exhaustion are more likely to occur. Exhaustion also occurs when events appear that are too large or intense to manage. It appears that firefighting efforts in Russia are starting to show some signs of exhaustion. Not good, especially considering the fact that these conditions are tame compared to what will happen in future years without some very serious climate change mitigation and response efforts now.

Whether they realize it or not, the residents of Bratsk are living at the start of a much rougher climate future. And they are just now starting to see a hint of bad conditions that will get worse as the world continues to warm and Siberia becomes one of the places to see the worst of it. It’s a situation caused by the very fossil-fuel burning that Putin currently promotes. This crisis of warming will cause more forests to burn, the fires to continue to enlarge, and the peat-like permafrost to become a fuel as it thaws.

The only way to stop this trend is to halt global temperature rise. That requires a very heavy lift, an international effort on a scale which the world has not yet fully committed to — an effort that would result in the fossil fuels Putin seeks to exploit being left in the ground in favor of far more benevolent energy sources.

Links:

Wildfires Increasingly Consuming Siberian Forests, Scientists Warn

People in Bratsk Petition Kremlin over Pollution from Forest Fires

LANCE MODIS

Wildfires Scorch World’s Largest Freshwater Lake

Oil Pipelines Threatened by Wildfires Amid Disputes over the Scale of the Destruction

Earth Nullschool

Hat tip to mlparrish

Hat tip to Colorado Bob

301 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 28, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged Bratsk Carbon Monoxide Poisoning, Bratsk Wildfires, Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Wildfires, climate change, environment, extreme weather, Fossil Fuel Burning, global warming, Hothouse Wildfires, Human Hothouse, Lake Baikal Drought, Lake Baikal wildfires, science, Siberian Warming, siberian wildfires, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 28, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/for-one-month-we-are-suffocating-from-smoke-for-russia-climate-change-is-already-producing-fires-that-are-too-big-to-fight/

From Maryland to the Caribbean to Asia, Record-Hot Ocean Waters Give Extreme Weather Potentials a Big Boost

The forecasts began coming in this morning: Heavy rainfall expected over the next two days. Possible flash flooding. Turn around, don’t drown.

These advisories buzzed up from local news media for the DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia metro areas as a crazy, wavy Jet Stream spawned an upper-level low that’s predicted to gorge on an insane amount of moisture spewing up off the record-hot Atlantic Ocean.

Forecast GFS model guidance shows an upper-level low-pressure system situated over the Great Lakes region in association with a big trough dipping down from the Arctic. Over the next 24 to 48 hours, the low is expected to shift south and east. Becoming cut off from the upper-level flow, the low is then predicted to set up a persistent rainfall pattern over DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia.

(NOAA’s precipitation forecast model shows extreme rainfall predicted for the DC area over the next seven days. Note that record global heat and, in particular, excessively hot sea-surface temperature anomalies off the U.S. east coast are providing an unprecedented amount of fuel for storms. Should such storms fire off, they could produce rainfall totals in excess of those currently predicted. Image source: NOAA.)

Easterly winds are expected to be drawn into the low from a record-hot Atlantic Ocean. These winds will bear upon them an extraordinary burden of atmospheric moisture which has been continuously evaporating up from a very warm Gulf Stream. Such moisture is fuel for powerful rainstorms. Given the destabilizing kick provided by the upper-level low, it is expected to deliver some pretty intense downpours on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

NOAA model guidance shows rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches over the area for the next five days. However, given the high atmospheric moisture content and the record atmospheric and ocean heat that’s spiking storm energy potentials, there is a possibility for locally higher amounts.

Extreme Ocean Heat Contributes to Severe Weather

As the DC area prepares for what could be another record or near-record rainfall event, various other regions over the Atlantic and on the other side of the world are also facing the possibility of intense weather. Very warm sea-surface temperatures are the common thread that links all these events.

(Hot sea surfaces are loading up the atmosphere with moisture and helping to produce convective updrafts that heighten storm tops. Such are the results of climate change, which has now dumped an extraordinary amount of heat energy into the Earth’s ocean and atmosphere — energy that now provides fuel for both extreme rainfall events and more-intense hurricanes. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

In the Atlantic Ocean, just off Maryland and DC, sea-surface temperatures running at an amazing 5.7 degrees Celsius above average are helping fuel this week’s possible extreme rainfall event. For reference, ocean temperatures over the course of the 20th century tended to range between 2 C above average to 2 C below average. Any deviation beyond a 2 C departure for any significant length of time was considered pretty out of the ordinary. But off the U.S. east coast over the past couple of years and concurrent with record-hot global temperatures, sea surfaces have regularly hit such high ranges. The heat bleeding off those waters has contributed to a growing number of intense precipitation events.

Possible Strong Cyclone to Form in Caribbean, Track Toward U.S. Coast

Farther south, the Caribbean is also quite hot. Ranging from 1-2 C above average, this region of warmer-than-normal ocean water is about to receive a strong tropical wave running in from the east. Over the next week, this wave is expected to gorge on these hot waters, firing off intense thunderstorms with rising tops around a tightening center of circulation, and developing into a tropical cyclone that could reach hurricane strength by late this week or early next week. Long-range model runs predict all kinds of possible rough weather related to this potential storm for the U.S. east or Gulf coasts or even for the Canadian Maritimes.

(Most recent ECMWF model run shows an extremely powerful 938-millibar hurricane threatening southeast Florida on October 7. If such a storm does form, it will be fueled by hotter-than-normal ocean conditions brought about by human-caused climate change. Image source: Tropical Tidbits.)

One of the most accurate forecast models, the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), is pointing toward the possibility of a major hurricane of 938-mb intensity threatening the southeast coast of Florida by October 7. Though such long-range forecasts are highly uncertain so far out, the underlying models are obviously picking up on the potential energy provided by all that ocean heat. The result is a kind of climate roulette — with a few extra bullets in the chambers. In other words, with all that ocean heat laying around, the potential for a big storm is just sitting there, waiting for something big to come along and suck it up. This ongoing, worsening situation could result in some serious added weather consequences over the next ten days or so.

Megi is Third Tropical Cyclone to Impact Taiwan

All across the world this year, big rainfall and related storm events have been popping up. Louisiana alone saw two 30-inch plus rainfall events while nearby Texas got hit again and again and again. This week, major floods in Iowa spurred officials to urge thousands to evacuate. Meanwhile, the recent Ellicott City, Maryland flood has people in the DC area on edge over this week’s potential for very heavy rainfall.

Half a world away today, Typhoon Megi roared ashore in Taiwan as a Category 4 tropical cyclone with top sustained winds of 132 miles per hour. Knocking out power for 3 million people across the island, the storm is now reported to have resulted in 250 injuries and the loss of 4 lives. Meanwhile, as much as 36 inches of rain has fallen over parts of the island.

It’s worth noting that rainfall hasn’t stopped over Taiwan yet, even as the massive circulation of Megi plows toward China — which is likely to receive heavy rainfall from the storm as well.

Like the possible extreme weather events related to very-hot surface waters in the North Atlantic and Caribbean, Megi formed over waters that are 1-3 C hotter than normal. But what’s a bit odd about Megi is that she followed almost in the exact tracks of two other cyclones — one which brushed by just to the north of Taiwan, and another which skirted the island’s south side. Typically, upwelling of cooler waters caused by hurricanes and tropical storms is enough to prevent an immediate follow-on by powerful systems, due to the fact that surface waters tend to be warmer than waters below the surface. But Megi followed these two systems and was able to tap enough ocean heat to reach Category 4 intensity even as it supported a massive outflow.

(Typhoon Megi dwarfs Taiwan. Image source: Earth Observatory.)

How did this happen? Well, considering the fact that ocean surfaces in Megi’s path are still 1-2 C hotter than normal, it’s likely that the waters at depth were also much warmer than usual, meaning storm-related upwelling wasn’t able to limit the strength of follow-on storms. This possible new feature of the Western Pacific raises the strange potential for regions to be hit by a train of tropical storms and cyclones, as happened with Taiwan over the past couple of weeks.

Conditions in Context — Record-Hot Ocean, Atmosphere Fuels More Severe Storms

The common link between the forthcoming potential severe weather along the U.S. east coast and the intensity of Typhoon Megi upon following behind two other storms is increased ocean heat. Such heat acts as a kind of energy and moisture engine for more, and more powerful, storms, such as the aforementioned extreme rainfall events and powerful, peak-intensity cyclones. In short, these are aspects of a world undergoing fundamental climate shifts — shifts that continue to ramp up due to the great and ongoing emission of greenhouse gasses into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Links:

Heavy Rain, Flood Threat

GFS Model Guidance by Earth Nullschool

NOAA

Tropical Tidbits

Typhoon Megi Smashes into Taiwan on Path to China

Typhoon Megi Passes Taiwan

Thousands Urged to Evacuate Iowa Floods, Megi’s Threat to Taiwan Escalates

Scientific Hat tip to Dr. Jeff Masters

Hat tip to DT Lange

Hat tip to Colorado Bob

114 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 27, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 97 L, Atmospheric Heat, CAPI, climate change, Climate Change as Extreme Storm Trigger, DC Extreme Rainfall, environment, global warming, Human Hothouse, human warming, Ocean Heat, Potential Storm Energy, science, Typhoon Megi, warming oceans, Weather Extreme Weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 27, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/from-maryland-to-the-caribbean-to-asia-record-hot-ocean-waters-give-extreme-weather-potentials-a-big-boost/

The Most Important Issue Facing this Generation is Climate Change. But Will it Come Up at Tonight’s Presidential Debate?

Climate change is threatening cities and island nations with sea-level rise, spurring mass die-offs of sea life, generating extreme weather events with amazing frequency, and posing a rising threat to global food and water supplies. It is no longer just an issue for future generations. It’s a global crisis now, and it’s getting worse. But will the 2016 presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, even be afforded the opportunity to mention it in tonight’s debate?

(IPCC’s global warming index just recently hit 1 C above 1861-1880 temperatures in the five-year average. These temperatures are in the range of the Eemian interglacial period when global ocean levels were 15-25 feet higher than they are today. Furthermore, the current rate of warming at 0.18 C every ten years is about 30-40 times faster than at the end of the last ice age. We’re now in the process of unleashing geological forces capable of producing a mass extinction event on human timescales. Image source: Global Warming Index.)

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The 2016 presidential candidates’ stances on the most important issue facing this generation couldn’t be clearer.

Donald Trump believes climate change is a hoax, wants to increase fossil-fuel burning until the planet bakes and the oceans putrefy, plans to shut down the EPA, wants to back out of the Paris Climate Agreement, can’t wait to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and has a noted penchant for attacking climate change solutions like wind power. Trump’s stances on climate change are so appalling that 375 of the world’s top scientists, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel Prize winners, issued an open letter to the U.S. electorate, essentially pleading that we not vote for Trump on the basis of climate change alone.

The letter notes:

The United States can and must be a major player in developing innovative solutions to the problem of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Nations that find innovative ways of decarbonizing energy systems and sequestering CO2 will be the economic leaders of the 21st century. Walking away from Paris makes it less likely that the U.S. will have a global leadership role, politically, economically, or morally. We cannot afford to cross that tipping point.

Hillary Clinton, by comparison, wants to push a big solar energy build-out, support electric vehicles, cut carbon emissions, and ensure that policies like COP 21 and Obama’s Clean Power Plan are enacted and enhanced. Though some climate hawks might not be completely satisfied with Clinton’s record on climate change (we’re going to have to do quite a bit more than what Clinton is shooting for), the reality is that Clinton’s proposed climate policies are aimed at building on and improving Obama’s initial plans.

(Clinton plans to push renewable energy growth even faster than rates that would be achieved under Obama’s Clean Power plan. By contrast, Trump’s policies would severely reduce current initiatives, likely resulting in less than 10 percent of energy generation from clean sources by 2030. Image source: Hillary for America.)

Clinton’s overall push is for U.S. renewable energy leadership and climate action:

I won’t let anyone take us backward, deny our economy the benefits of harnessing an clean energy future, or force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change.

Hermione versus Voldemort on a Tilted Stage

It’s pretty obvious that the difference between Trump and Clinton on an issue that involves the safety and wellbeing of pretty much everyone living on Earth is stark, so much so that Joe Romm at Climate Progress has aptly characterized the debate as a contest between Hermione Granger and Voldemort.

But will the 80 million viewers of tonight’s debate actually get a chance to listen to the candidates’ stances and views on an issue that will impact them from now until the end of their natural lives? Will the debate moderator Lester Holt, a registered Republican, field questions on climate change? Or will a deafening dome of silence fall over the issue, as ice caps melt, seas rise, droughts expand, extreme weather events worsen, ocean health declines, and global temperature records continue to be shattered?

some of my comments on Abrupt Climate Change in video clip from @saraPjones c/o @BathSpaUni & @ahrcpress with cynical cameo from @MittRomney pic.twitter.com/yfCqPSBOCh

— Jason Box (@climate_ice) September 26, 2016

(Republican downplaying of climate change exposed by Jason Box in this poignant video. It’s stark, really, what we’re dealing with.)

Moreover, will Holt act as a moderator, or will he check out as Matt Lauer did during the dual ‘interviews’ of Clinton and Trump last month, essentially abandoning the field to Trump who is well-known for spewing out a barrage of false statements in an attempt to score points? To this point, Joe Romm notes:

…persuasive liars have an inherent advantage in any debate that is effectively unmoderated and unrefereed. This is true not merely in political debates but also in most other kinds of public debates.

Unfortunately, on the issue of fair Presidential debate representation for climate change, the record isn’t too great in 2016 so far. According to Media Matters, only 22 out of nearly 1,500 debate questions have covered climate change. As a result, a critical issue of public safety, national security, and, ultimately, survival, is not being presented to the American people. It’s a failure that generates a false impression that climate change isn’t a real problem — a lack of representation that, in the end, is both irresponsible and dangerous.

Links:

Yes, Donald Trump Did Call Climate Change a Hoax

Trump’s Plan to Drill, Baby, Drill

How Donald Trump Lost his Fight to Kill Wind Farms in Scotland

Hillary’s Plan for Half a Billion Solar Panels

COP 21

Obama’s Clean Power Plan

Hillary for America

Hermione vs Voldemort

‘Climate People’ to Debate Moderators: Survival Matters

Hat tip to Ailsa

Hat tip to DT Lange

140 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 26, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 2016 Election, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, Hillary, Human Hothouse, human warming, science, Trump, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 26, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/the-most-important-issue-facing-this-generation-is-climate-change-but-will-it-come-up-at-tonights-presidential-debate/

La Nina Fizzles, Pacific Hot Blob Returns, Record Global Heat Likely to Remain

A change of three degrees [Celsius] is an “extraordinary deviation — something you would expect to happen once in a millennium.” — Richard Dewey, www.SkepticalScience.com, on ocean warming in the northeastern Pacific

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Four degrees Celsius. That’s the current deviation from the 1981 to 2010 average for sea-surface temperatures over a broad region of the northeastern Pacific, a deviation you typically wouldn’t see once in a thousand years.

During 2013 to 2015 a similar warm-up over this same region of water occurred. Such extreme heat at the ocean surface generated mass loss of sea life. Numerous species from plankton to krill to copepods to starfish and many more on up the food chain were impacted. This great ocean warming also sparked losses of ocean oxygen off Oregon and Washington, pushing waters there into low-oxygen and anoxic states. These states, though they do not support advanced ocean life, tend to support anaerobic microbes that produce various toxins (including hydrogen sulfide gas). At the same time, atmospheric circulation was also impacted, resulting in unprecedented drought conditions for California as a ridiculously resilient ridge of high pressure settled in.

(Region of the northeastern Pacific about the size of the state of Washington shows ridiculously hot sea-surface temperatures in the range of 4 C above average. Such once-in-a-thousand-years ocean-surface heat has now occurred for three out of the past five years. As end 2016 nears, this unprecedented blob of hot ocean-surface waters appears to be returning. Image source: NOAA ESRL.)

Such a terrible blow to ocean health combined with ever-more-extreme atmospheric conditions are the very hallmarks of a heating climate. As a result, the events associated with the 2013-2015 hot blob will likely, in future years, be seen as one of the warning shots across North America’s bow — an indication that climate change-related impacts were about to seriously worsen.

Hot Blob Re-Forms as La Nina Splutters

Now, after a one-year hiatus, the hot blob is back and northeastern Pacific sea-surface temperatures are again on the rise. A previously-predicted La Nina is abruptly spluttering out, apparently crushed by a periodic warming of the northeastern Pacific called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). This natural variability-related feature is combining with climate change-induced ocean warming to again push ocean surface temperatures into unprecedented ranges.

(The northeastern Pacific hot blob is a climate change-related feature that contributes to record heat, drought and wildfire risk for California. Over the coming week, the re-formed hot blob appears ready to plunge the state into 90 to 1oo degree (F) conditions — which will intensify wildfire risk for the state. Image source: Pivotal Weather.)

With the PDO again firing up, the hot blob re-forming, and La Nina starting to splutter, we can expect global temperatures to remain closer to the record-hot levels achieved during 2015 and 2016. This is bad news in that 2017 through 2022 might see another record-hot year coordinate with El Nino, which would push even closer to 1.5 C and 2 C climate thresholds — a clear sign that the age of fossil fuel exploration and burning needs to end as swiftly as possible if livable climate conditions are to be maintained.

Nearer-term, if this heat in the northeastern Pacific remains in place, we can expect worsening hot and dry conditions for the U.S. west coast even as sea life in the affected region again falls under threat. With global temperatures now hitting a range of 1.2 C or more above 1880s averages, there is risk that this event could match or even exceed the related harmful impacts seen during the 2013 to 2015 timeframe.

(Unusual high-amplitude Jet Stream ridging over the U.S. west coast like that predicted for Sunday in the GFS model run is associated with both extreme sea-surface temperatures in the northeastern Pacific [the hot blob] and sea-ice loss in the Arctic, both caused by global warming due to fossil-fuel burning. Note the numerous additional powerful ridge and trough formations running downstream of this unusual Jet Stream feature. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Climate Change Links Again Non-reported by Media

Despite an obvious relationship between global warming and extreme regional heating events like the hot blob, some prominent media sources continue to link the formation of the hot blob to natural variability without mention of climate change. To do so fails to tell the whole story. Without that 1.2 C warming of the Earth since the 1880s due to our rampant burning of fossil fuels, we would not be seeing so much heat piling up in the northeastern Pacific. As such, the PDO has been put into a kind of climate change hyperdrive. And that’s what’s creating conditions under which these big, dangerous ocean hot blobs continue to grow.

Links:

Skeptical Science

Ridiculously Resilient Ridge

Hat tip to DT Lange

Hat tip to Greg

Hat tip to Colorado Bob

250 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 23, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged California drought, California Wildfires, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, hot blob, Hot Blob Returns, Human Hothouse, human warming, La Nina Splutters, RRR, science, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 23, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/la-nina-fizzles-pacific-hot-blob-returns-record-global-heat-likely-to-remain/

Giant Gravity Waves Smashed Key Atmospheric Clock During Winter of 2016 — Possible Climate Change Link

Two [climate change] effects [of Arctic warming] are identified … : 1) weakened zonal winds, and 2) increased [Rossby] wave amplitude. These effects are particularly evident in autumn and winter consistent with sea-ice loss… Slower progression of upper-level waves would cause associated weather patterns in mid-latitudes to be more persistent, which may lead to an increased probability of extreme weather events … — Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes, Dr. Jennifer Francis and Dr. Stephen Vavrus, Geophysical Research Letters (emphasis added)

The recent disruption in the quasi-biennial oscillation was not predicted, not even one month ahead. — Dr. Scott Osprey

This unexpected disruption to the climate system switches the cycling of the quasi-biennial oscillation forever. — Professor Adam Scaife

…scientists believe that the quasi-biennial oscillation could become more susceptible to similar disruptions as the climate warms. — Physics.org (emphasis added)

(During February of 2016, high-amplitude Jet Stream waves or gravity waves interfered with the upper-level Equatorial Winds. This disruption was so significant that it caused a seasonal upper-level wind pattern near the Equator to change direction, a shift that was unprecedented in modern observation. Note how the upper-level wind flow frequently intersects with and even appears to cross the Equator at some points. Image source: Earth Nullschool global 250 hPa capture for February 18, 2016.)

*****

I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again — loss of predictable seasons, or seasonality, due to human-forced climate change is very big deal. And regardless of how all the scientific details specifically pan out, there are now observed changes to Northern Hemisphere winter, possibly due to human-forced warming, that are apparently starting to undermine its traditional seasonal climate behaviors. As a result, weather patterns appear to be shifting toward greater extremes and lower levels of predictability.

QBO — One of Our Most Predictable Atmospheric Clocks…

For decades now, scientists have been observing a kind of atmospheric clock tick-tocking high above the Equator. Up in the stratosphere, 10 to 13 kilometers above the Earth, winds tend to flow either east to west or west to east. These air flows change direction about every 28 to 29 months. This feature, called the quasi-biennial oscillation or QBO, has never significantly varied. It has always flowed in one direction for a predictable period of time and then switched to flow in the other direction.

Winds flowing at this level of the atmosphere over the Equator have a far-reaching effect, particularly on the winter climate of northern Europe. There, westerly high-level Equatorial winds are known to bring warmer, wetter winters. Easterlies in the stratosphere over the Equator are known to bring cooler, drier winters. The key to remember is that the QBO has always been both amazingly predictable itself, and had equally predictable climate effects. As a result, meteorological observation of the QBO natural-variability pattern enabled forecasters to get an idea of what weather trend to expect for winter — not just during a single year, but also over a longer time horizon.

…and Climate Change May Now Be in the Process of Breaking It

What happens if the QBO becomes less predictable due to influences such as human-forced polar warming? What happens if the big meanders in the Jet Stream produced by this warming dig down all the way to the Equator during Northern Hemisphere winters and start to shove at the upper-level Equatorial wind field, causing the QBO to switch? If that happens, then a major aspect of Northern Hemisphere winter seasonal variability will have been fundamentally altered by climate change. Winter would become less like it is now and more like some strange, difficult-to-predict, climate-change-morphed hybrid of a thing.

Over the past decade, scientists like Dr. Jennifer Francis have observed strange changes to the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream. In winter, the North Pole has tended to exhibit extreme relative warming versus the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. This warming has created less difference in temperature from north to south during this season. As a result, it appears that the Jet Stream has slowed and is generating very large atmospheric waves, known as gravity waves or Rossby waves. At times, these waves have linked upper-level air flows between the Tropics and the North Pole.

(For years now, Dr. Jennifer Francis has warned that polar amplification could lead to some weird and extreme weather, especially during winter. However, no one initially predicted that the large Jet Stream waves apparently resulting from polar warming would completely disrupt the upper-level Equatorial winds as appears to have happened last February.)

Such strong polar warming during winter is called polar amplification, an effect produced by climate change. Polar amplification happens because greenhouse gasses resulting from fossil-fuel burning (like carbon dioxide and methane) preferentially trap heat during times of darkness. During December through March, large sections of the North Pole are blanketed in the dim of Polar Night. During this time the heat-trapping effects of these gasses really go to work. Additionally, heat from the ocean is transferred through the thinning veil of sea ice over the Arctic Ocean even as local carbon stores add to the overburden of the heat-trapping gasses already in place. The net effect is a much warmer-than-normal Arctic during winter. This warming appears to be doing a serious number on the Jet Stream and, apparently, even Equatorial atmospheric circulation.

Unprecedented QBO Switch in February 2016

During the most recent winter, scientists observed these high-amplitude Jet Stream waves reaching all the way into the Equatorial upper-level wind field with enough oomph to switch an east-west wind pattern to west-east. This switch was entirely unpredicted and unprecedented. No one expected it and it has never before been observed.

The weather pattern for a big swath of Europe was, as a result, flipped from the expected cool and dry to warm and wet. If you had told any atmospheric scientist that such a set of changes would happen, they might have categorically dismissed these claims. But now, some scientists are starting to look at the possibility that the recent QBO flip was due to a climate warming-related influence.

(Geographic pattern of surface warming as provided by the IPCC. Uneven relative warming of the surface of the Earth may result in some unexpected changes to larger atmospheric circulation patterns. Scientists now indicate that future flips in Equatorial wind patterns, like the big switch that occurred this past winter, may be driven by such atmospheric warming. Image source: IPCC.)

There is a possibility that the recent flip was related to large atmospheric waves which are potentially a result of polar amplification. These waves appear to have impacted the upper-level Equatorial winds, and so are not necessarily related to natural climate variability.

To initiate such a big atmospheric change requires a great deal of force. The equatorial wind field and atmospheric mass is generally the heaviest, is typically the region with the greatest atmospheric inertia. Having an outside influence, like polar warming and associated gravity waves, generating a flip in its flow is about the meteorological equivalent to rivers running up hill. Apparently, due to climate change, atmospheric ‘rivers’ in the Jet Stream may now be capable of doing just that, and that’s pretty disturbing.

Links/Statements/Hat tips:

Scientific hat tip to Dr. Jennifer Francis

Scientific hat tip to Dr. Scott Osprey

Scientific hat tip to Professor Adam Scaife

Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes

Unprecedented atmospheric behavior disrupts one of Earth’s most regular climate cycles

An unexpected disruption of the atmospheric quasi-biennial oscillation

Earth Nullschool

Note: Paul Beckwith again appears to be using this issue as a means self-promotion — bragging about ‘vindication’ and his video ‘that went viral.’ First, this issue is a matter of concern (not petty personal score-keeping). And it is probably one that remains uncertain given that the MET study is the first to touch on it in the peer reviewed science. So any definite claims at this point are both unwarranted and premature. Caution and humility should be the watch-words here. Not active grasping for credit or media attention. Further, I did not work with Paul Beckwith on his first ‘viral’ video — which was an independent response to my initial gravity waves article here. So responsible sources will not conflate my work with that of Paul’s even though he appears to agree with my (admittedly evolving) analysis in some (but not all) instances. For my part, this work is an attempt to open the issue. Not to close it or to support someone attempting to claim credit of first discovery.

Finally, I absolutely respect and admire the work and opinions of scientists like Gavin Schmidt, Stefan Rahmstorf, Jennifer Francis, the IPCC, the MET Office and others who have helped to build a powerful and compelling consensus on climate change as a critical issue for the 21st Century. Sometimes the process of threat identification will highlight instances that are outside of that consensus currently. And such identifications will, at times, result in strong reactions. I understand that this is part of the process and even if views differ, I will endeavor to read, and where I am able, incorporate them into my ongoing study here.

367 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 19, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged climate change, Dr. Jennifer Francis, global warming, Gravity Waves, Human Hothouse, human warming, Loss of Seasonality, natural variability, Predictable Weather Patterns Interrupted by Climate Change, QBO, Rossby waves, Seasonal Variability

Posted by robertscribbler on September 19, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/giant-gravity-waves-smashed-key-atmospheric-clock-during-winter-of-2016-possible-climate-change-link/

Approaching the First Climate Tipping Point — On Track to Hit 1.5 C Before 2035

July 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded. That record lasted for all of one month as global temperatures remained at record-high levels through August, resulting in a tie with July during a period when the Earth typically cools.

Given natural variability, we might expect August to remain hot if an El Nino were forming in the Pacific, but at that time, with a weak La Nina struggling to fire off, the exact opposite was the case. In other words, the El Nino/La Nina cycle, which typically helps to drive global warm and cool periods, was pointed in the direction of ‘cool’, but the world remained near record-hot levels.

(2016 Climate Year continues to redefine global temperature boundaries as August ties July for hottest month ever recorded. Image source: NASA GISS.)

So what the heck was going on?

Rising Greenhouse Gasses are Steadily Rearranging How the Earth Balances Heat

We can’t answer this question without looking at the amazing overburden of greenhouse gasses that are trapping an enormous amount of heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean. Due to decades of rampant fossil-fuel burning, 2016 will likely average around 404 parts per million CO2, which is the Earth’s primary heat-trapping gas that drives global climate. The last time levels of this gas were so high, more than 3 million years ago, the Earth was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius hotter than 1880s averages, seas were 25 to 75 feet higher, and the Earth was a remarkably different place.

CO2 isn’t the only gas adding heat-forcing to the Earth’s atmosphere. Human-emitted methane and other chemical compounds now add together with CO2 to produce a total CO2-equivalent forcing near 490 ppm. If this measure in any way remotely correlates to past climate forcings, then the Earth could well be on a path toward Middle Miocene climates that were around 4 C hotter than 1880s values.

Greenhouse Gas Accumulation Causes the Poles to Warm Faster than the Rest of the World

The way this extra heat — due to greenhouse gas forcing — emerges in the atmosphere is not even. In fact, science has long indicated that the poles warm faster than the rest of the world as the greenhouse gas overburden increases due to global burning of fossil fuels. Ever since the 1990s (and probably before), global climate models have shown that adding CO2 and other greenhouse gasses to the Earth’s climate system preferentially warms the far north and the far south.

This effect is due to the fact that greenhouse gasses more effectively trap and re-radiate the sun’s heat during periods of darkness. The long dark of polar night, lasting for the many months of polar winter, presents a period in which greenhouse gas warming has the opportunity to go into overdrive. In addition, oceans preferentially transfer heat toward the poles. Meanwhile, the melting of heat-reflecting ice coverage traps more heat in the local polar oceans (primarily in the Arctic) even as local carbon stores are increasingly vulnerable to release due to thaw. The result is that the polar regions of the world generate various amplifying feedbacks to the preferential heat forcing already in play. This can drive some big changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, which pull heat up from tropical regions and dump it over the frozen parts of our world.

Ridiculous Antarctic Warmth during Southern Hemisphere Winter

Coming back to El Nino and La Nina, it goes to reason that if the poles warm enough relative to the rest of the climate system, then such a global warming-related polar warm-up might eventually start to warp natural variability to the point that peak warming periods push a bit beyond the typical cycling.

(Polar amplification hit high gear during August as Southern Hemisphere winter saw extreme Antarctic warming. Image source: NASA GISS.)

This appears to have been the case during August 2016. As the Equator cooled, Antarctica warmed to a rather extreme degree. Though most of the globe saw above-average temperatures, the highest extreme anomalies were centered over Antarctica. There, the entire region above 75° South Latitude experienced temperatures greater than 3 C above average and a large region saw temperatures striking between 4 to 5.9 C above average for the entire month.

This heat came on the back of numerous high amplitude Jet Stream waves that delivered heat to the polar region during the Southern Hemisphere winter month of August. These waves, which have become a signature feature of Northern Hemisphere winter during recent years, bear with them the trappings of equator-to-pole energy transfer, a new climate effect playing havoc with traditional seasonal variability and possibly messing with some of the most well-established seasonal climate markers (such as the equatorially emerging quasi-biennial oscillation).

(No latitudinal zones saw below-average temperatures in August of 2016, another rather disturbing feature of this record-hot month. Image source: NASA GISS.)

As the South Pole saw repeated warm-air deliveries from the tropics, the Equatorial Pacific experienced only moderate negative departures below normal, a sign that the emerging La Nina was starting to splutter.

Overall, no latitudinal zone experienced below-average temperatures — another odd marker as the Southern Ocean (which pulls in an enormous amount of the Earth’s rising heat) tends to show below-normal departures in the region of 50° to 60° South Latitude.

We Appear to be on Track to Hit Above 1.5 C Within 15-25 Years

In total, global temperatures, according to NASA, hit 1.2 C above 1880s averages in the NASA measure (or about 0.98 C above NASA’s 20th-century baseline average). As a result, the first nine months of the December-to-November climate year are now averaging around 1.28 C above 1880s levels. And since the last three months of the year are unlikely to average below 1.05 C above 1880s, it appears that a 1.2 C departure or higher is now a lock for 2016.

With so much polar heat in place (this time shifting to the Arctic during September), it appears at least somewhat likely that the final three months for this climate year will tend to average closer to 1.05 to 1.20 C above 1880s averages. Consecutive months in this range or higher would push end-2016 values closer to 1.21 to 1.24 C above 1880s values. Notably, this is a range about 0.4 C higher than 1998 average temperatures. A similar period of warming occurring over the next 18 years would result in a year in which global temperatures exceeded 1.6 C above 1880s levels before 2035.

With global civilization continuing to burn massive volumes of fossil fuels and spewing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere at a record rate, and with global temperatures so high, we are nearing a time when the first major climate threshold of 1.5 C (dangerous warming) is likely to be breached. Under current rates of fossil-fuel burning, this crossing will likely occur within the next 15 to 25 years. We know this because the Earth is now experiencing a rapid warming (0.15 to 0.2 C per decade), the likes of which has never been seen in human reckoning, and may have never been seen at all during any time of its deep past. It really all is, quite frankly, terrifying.

Links:

NASA GISS

NOAA El Nino

August Ties With July as Hottest Month on Record

An Unexpected Disruption of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation

Pliocene Climate

Miocene Climate

Gigantic Gravity Waves to Mix Summer With Winter?

Scientific hat tip to Gavin Schmidt

288 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 16, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 1.2 C Above 1880s, 2016 El Nino, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, Gravity Waves, Human Hothouse, human warming, On Track to Hit 1.5 C Before 2035, polar amplification, Record Hot August, science, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 16, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/approaching-the-first-climate-tipping-point-on-track-to-hit-1-5-c-before-2035/

Coming Big Arctic Ocean Warm-Up May Extend Sea Ice Melt Season

It’s September in the Arctic, a time of year when temperatures should be cooling off. But with sea ice at second-lowest levels on record in most monitors and the globe experiencing an unprecedented hot year, it appears that the next week may see the Arctic Ocean reverse its typical seasonal cooling trend and significantly warm up over the coming five to six days.

(GFS model runs show a significant warming is in store for the Arctic Ocean over the coming week — and that’s bad news for sea ice running at second-lowest levels on record in the current daily measures and lowest levels on record for the first eight months of the year so far. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

GFS model runs show a strong pulse of warm air will rise up over the Atlantic Ocean and Barents Sea in the next 72 hours. This warm air then will ride in over the Greenland Sea and invade the Arctic Ocean north of Svalbard. Local temperatures over water are expected to be between 4 and 8 degrees Celsius above average over a broad region of the Arctic. Meanwhile, general departures for the entire region above 66° North Latitude are expected to hit around 2 to 2.5 C above average.

Temperatures for most of the Arctic basin in ice-covered areas are expected to again push to -2 C to +2 C. Generally, air temperatures below -2 C are needed to prevent melt, but in warm water and rough ocean conditions, which have tended to dominate the Arctic recently, air temperatures probably need to average around -4 to -6 C over most of the Arctic to fully halt melt.

Threats to Ice Coming From All Directions

During summer and early fall, the Arctic Ocean tends to help to moderate temperatures over the region, so these are very high predicted temperature departures for this time of year. Such high temperatures are likely due to the effect of added heat bleeding off recently ice-free waters. While sea-ice area and extent measures are in the range of second-lowest on record, there is some indication that sea-ice concentration in the Arctic may be at or near record-low levels.

(AMSR2 animation constructed by Neven shows vigorous ice export and melt through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This is a heavy blow to the thin veil of multi-year sea ice remaining in the Arctic. Animation by Neven at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum. Images by Universität Bremen.)

The ice, generally, is extraordinarily weak, thin and dispersed. Large gaps run across an arc covering the Atlantic and Siberian side of the polar zone. In addition, large cracks are appearing in the very thin and unstable multi-year ice north of Greenland (below) as sea-ice export now threatens melt in the Beaufort Sea, Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Nares Strait, the Fram Strait, and on into the northern edge of the Barents Sea.

Risks Rise for a Long Melt Season

Recent animations by Neven over at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum (above) show particularly strong export and melt in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago — which is a pretty unprecedented melt feature. What this means is that the ice is basically being hit from all sides and that the factors necessary to melt ice are compounding.

(Large section of multi-year ice breaking up north of Greenland on September 9, 2016. In recent years, less and less ice has survived summer melt to make it to the following winter. Ice with an age of more than five years has grown quite scant in the Arctic. The ice shown breaking up in the above image is part of the last bastion of old, thick ice in the Arctic. When that’s gone, the Arctic Ocean will only be a seasonally frozen sea, a possibility that may occur as soon as 2017 to 2025 and will probably occur before 2035. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

If the big warm-up does occur as predicted this week, there is risk that ice losses will extend through to September 15 and possibly beyond. These melt rates should not be particularly severe, given the time of year, but it is possible that 50,000 to 300,000 square kilometers or more will go. This would be enough to solidify 2016 as the second-lowest year on record for extent and area at the end of melt season. It would also help to fill the big gap between 2007 and 2012 — solidifying already significant decadal melt trends.

Overall, this is a pretty weird forecast, but set in the backdrop of a year that’s on track to be about 1.2 C above 1880s averages — the hottest year on record by far — the possibility of a late-season Arctic warm-up and a late end to a near record melt season is an entirely valid one.

Links:

Hat tip to Greg

Hat tip to DT Lange

447 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 9, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged arctic sea ice, arctic sea ice melt, Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season, Arctic Warm Up, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, Hothouse, Human Hothouse, Late End to Melt Season, record melt, science, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 9, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/coming-big-arctic-ocean-warm-up-may-extend-sea-ice-melt-season/

New Report: ‘Blowtorch’-Like Ocean Warming Advances Killer Seas, Shifts El Nino, Heats Hydrates

Tampering can be dangerous. Nature can be vengeful. We should have a great deal of respect for the planet on which we live. — Carl-Gustaf Rossby

But as the [IUCN] study points out, 90% of the extra heat that our greenhouse gases trap is actually absorbed by the oceans. That means that the upper few meters of the sea have been steadily warming more than a tenth of a degree celsius per decade, a figure that’s accelerating. When you think of the volume of water that represents, and then try to imagine the energy necessary to raise its temperature, you get an idea of the blowtorch that our civilization has become. — Bill McKibben

The scale of ocean warming is truly staggering with the numbers so large that it is difficult for most people to comprehend. — from the IUCN report Explaining Ocean Warming: Causes, scale, effects and consequences

*****

If there’s one simple fact about past Earth climates that should keep you awake at night, it’s this — warming the world ocean eventually produces a killing mechanism that is unrivaled by any other in Earth’s deep past. Great asteroids, gamma-ray bursters, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanism — none of these can rival the vast damage to life on planet Earth that is resulting from ocean warming.

As a study of the sciences, this assertion would be merely an academic one if the human race weren’t now involved in a great injection of an unprecedented volume of greenhouse gasses into the Earth’s airs. As a critical new ocean report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) points out, these gasses are trapping an extraordinary amount of heat at the top of the world’s atmosphere. In turn, the atmosphere is transferring the lion’s share of this heat — more than 90 percent — into the waters of our world.

The Extreme Amount of Heat Energy Piling up in Our Warming Ocean

As a result, the surface of the world ocean is warming by 0.1 degree Celsius per decade. That may not sound like much, but it takes about four times the amount of energy to warm one gram of water by 0.1 C as it does one gram of air. This property, called specific heat, is a defining aspect of water. Water has the highest specific heat of any common substance.

(Since the 1970s, about 300 zettajoules’ (ZJ) worth of heat energy has accumulated in the Earth System due to fossil-fuel burning and related greenhouse gas emissions. That’s about 5 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat accumulating every second. Most of that energy has gone into the world’s oceans. So much heat is bound to have consequences, and these impacts are starting to show up in the form of declining ocean health, melting sea ice and glaciers, shifting climate zones and weather patterns, worsening droughts and storms, and threats of Earth System carbon feedbacks. Image source: Explaining Ocean Warming.)

Liquid water is also far denser than air. And this density generates an even higher impact heat energy transfer multiplier. So not only does it take four times more energy to warm a similar weight of water vs air, once warmed, that water contains that higher level of specific heat energy in a much more tightly concentrated package. And when that high heat concentration liquid water comes into contact with other substances — like ice in the form of ocean contact, or air in the form of evaporation, or frozen hydrates on the sea bed — it can pack a serious heat punch.

The vast volume of water in our oceans, therefore, serves as a kind of heat and energy regulator. It takes a lot of energy to warm it up, but once it does, serious environmental changes start to happen as a result. In other words, the temperature of the global ocean could be viewed as the point on which the whole of the Earth climate system pivots. Once the oceans are set in thermal motion, serious changes to the rest of the world are going to take place. To get an idea how much energy the oceans now contain, of how much potential they now have to dramatically alter our world, consider that if these vast waters were not present, the atmosphere now would have already warmed by 36 degrees C due to the heat-trapping effect of greenhouse gasses already in our atmosphere.

Fossil-fuel blowtorch indeed.

Heating Seas Ultimately Become Killer Seas

There’s a starker message to convey here, one that focuses on this simple yet dire question — how do warming oceans kill? In basic terms, they become toxic and anoxic. Warming oceans melt ocean-contacting glaciers. The glacial melt forces seas to rise and forms a freshwater lid on the global ocean, breaking down ocean conveyor belts and preventing mixing. This freshwater lid also deflects heat toward the ocean bottom. This process in turn helps to thaw methane hydrates. Warm waters that don’t mix and that are filled with bubbling hydrates become very oxygen-poor.

(Massive algae bloom covers tens of thousands of square miles of open water in the Barents Sea during August of 2016. As glaciers melt, oceans stratify and warm; as water oxygen levels drop, and as hydrates vent due to warming, such blooms result in significant reductions to ocean health and a related global mass-extinction threat. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

As the land glaciers bleed out into the oceans, the stratified, oxygen-deprived waters become less and less able to support advanced life. The kinds of life warm, oxygen-deprived waters do support are poison-producing microbes. These microbes thrive in the warm, oxygen-poor waters. If ocean heating continues to progress, the warming seas will eventually fill up with their deadly byproducts. Among the most nasty of these is hydrogen sulfide. If enough of it is produced, it will spill out from the ocean into the nearby air, resulting in land animal mortality as well.

In microcosm, we saw a mild taste of some of these effects this past year in Florida as toxic algae blooms filled the warming state’s waterways and coastlines, even forcing some riverside marinas to close due to toxic gasses wafting up from the purple-green, oxygen-starved waters. These effects are a snapshot of a possible future for Earth’s oceans if we don’t get our act together yesterday.

El Niño Shifted, Ocean Hydrates Threatened

As alluded to earlier in this post, a new report, Explaining Ocean Warming, provides some pretty hard evidence that the oceans are on the move toward a much more harmful global climate state. The study, which has rightly received a great deal of media attention, issues a ‘shot across the bow’ warning to pretty much everyone living today. And it finds serious impacts to the ocean and linked climate systems due to a very rapid human-forced global warming.

These hard findings are worth reading directly:

Sea-surface temperature, ocean heat content, sea-level rise, melting of glaciers and ice sheets, CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations are increasing at an accelerating rate with significant consequences for humanity and the marine species and ecosystems of the ocean.

There is likely to be an increase in mean global ocean temperature of 1-4 degrees C by 2100. The greatest ocean warming overall is occurring in the Southern Hemisphere and is contributing to the subsurface melting of Antarctic ice shelves. Since the 1990s the atmosphere in the polar regions has been warming at about twice the average rate of global warming.

There is likely to be Arctic warming and ice loss, and possibly the essential removal, in some years, of the summer Arctic sea ice within the next few decades.

Over the last 20 years there has been an intensification and distinct change in the El Niño events, with a shift of the mean location of sea-surface temperature anomalies towards the central Pacific.

Currently 2.5 Gt of frozen methane hydrate are stored in the sea floor at water depths of 200 to 2000 m. Increasing water temperature could release this source of carbon into the ocean and ultimately into the atmosphere.

These are all Earth-shattering scientific statements. For those who frequent this blog, points 1 through 3 are probably pretty familiar. The last two, however, require more in-depth explanation.

(Some scientific studies have pointed out that warming the world ocean will result in a shift of El Niño toward the central Pacific. A new ocean report finds that it’s already happening. Image source: Global Warming May Dent El Niño’s Protective Hurricane Shield, Increase Droughts.)

For a long time now, scientists have believed that El Niño wouldn’t be affected by climate change until the end of this century. But as with sea ice, it appears that such impacts may well be advancing faster than expected. As we’ve alluded to here, there’s been an apparent shift in El Niño toward the central Pacific over recent decades. This may well be a climate change-related shift. The fact that the IUCN report highlights this change is a sign that the broader sciences are starting to tackle the notion of early alterations to El Niño due to climate change as well.

However, the most ominous language here centers around methane hydrate. For years, there’s been adamant push-back against potential risks to hydrates coming from well-respected sections of the climate sciences. Nonetheless, those downplaying the threat of warming to hydrates have yet to produce any conclusive proof as to why warming the ocean bottom and applying heat to hydrates won’t result in at least some feedback from these carbon stores (especially under the higher-range warming scenarios). The IUCN report reiterates this risk by identifying 2.5 billion tons of frozen seabed methane at shallow and mid-ocean depths that will ultimately be exposed to warming — risking both an ocean and an atmospheric release.

These last points serve to underline some pretty basic facts, the chief of which is that pushing Nature, and heating up her life-blood world ocean waters, is a very, very dangerous game. And if this poignant new report sends any message at all it could simply boil down to this — turn back before it’s too late.

Links:

IUCN Report: Explaining Ocean Warming

Specific Heat

Ocean Warming

Awakening the Horrors of the Ancient Hothouse

LANCE MODIS

Slimy Green Algae Invades Florida

The oceans are heating up. That’s a big problem on a blue planet.

Global Warming May Dent El Niño’s Protective Hurricane Shield, Increase Droughts

Hat tip to Cate

Hat tip to George Hayduke

112 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 8, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged Canfield Ocean, Carbon Feedbacks, climate change, El Nino Shift, environment, extreme weather, Fossil Fuel Burning, global warming, Human Hothouse, human warming, Killer Seas, methane, methane hydrates, science, Stratified Ocean, the fresh water wedge, warming oceans, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 8, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/08/new-study-blow-torch-like-ocean-warming-advances-killer-seas-shifts-el-nino-heats-hydrates/

It’s Looking Like We’ll Never See Another Month Below 400 ppm CO2 Again

The truth is, when I was born, atmospheric CO2 levels were around 300 ppm. Today — maybe even this week — will be the last time anyone alive experiences a level below 400 ppm, and no one born in the coming century or even longer will ever see less than 400 ppm again. That is a deep, deep observation, with ramifications for our children and for every future generation. — Peter Gleick during November of 2015

*****

(NASA model visualization of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Image source: NASA.)

I just want to take a moment to tell you something that’s pretty important. You are now an alien. You’ve been made an alien by fossil fuel burning. And you’re now living in, breathing, a heat-trapping atmosphere that’s entirely alien to your species. Sometimes races of creatures suffering such habitat changes are capable of surviving the environmental shifts that inevitably occur as a result. Sometimes they are not. But you’ve been placed in this situation now and it’s getting steadily worse.

Big August CO2 Jump Locking 400 ppm In

The August preliminary data are in. And it’s pretty grim. For with a big year-on-year CO2 jump in August, it looks like September of 2016 will be unable to achieve monthly CO2 averages below 400 parts per million. What that means is that the last month below the 400 level was probably October of 2015. So, for almost a year now, we’ve been living in the climate age of 400+, likely never to return to monthly atmospheric CO2 levels in the 300s again during the lifetimes of any of us humans now inhabiting this Earth.

According to NOAA, August CO2 measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory averaged 402.25 parts per million, which is a big 3.32 parts per million jump over 2015 August readings. Adding this number to previous months, we find that 2016, so far, has seen an average rate of rise of 3.495 parts per million during its first 8 months — significantly ahead of previous annual record rates of rise during 2015 and 1998 (3.05 and 2.93 ppm respectively).

(Two year Keeling Curve trend seems to indicate that it’s unlikely monthly values will fall below 400 parts per million during 2016 and, for all practical purposes, ever again unless some kind of unprecedented change is made to global carbon emissions policies. Image source: The Keeling Curve.)

Such a big August jump makes it highly unlikely that September will average below 400 parts per million due to the fact that monthly drops leading into September typically average around 1.8 ppm CO2. If this trend holds true for 2016, then September will average around 400.5 ppm CO2. And since September typically sees the lowest atmospheric CO2 levels during any given year, the current month is basically the world’s last chance to see a 30 day period that averages below 400 ppm.

Conditions Not Seen in Millions of Years

Atmospheric CO2 levels are now so high that you have to go back about 3 million years into the Pliocene to find similar ranges. During that time, the world was between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius warmer than 1880s temperatures. Oceans were 25 to 75 feet higher and the world was a dramatically different place.

(The age of 400 parts per million CO2 is here. It’s something not seen in about 3 million years. In other words, you’re breathing air right now composed of properties that no homo sapiens sapiens has ever breathed before. Image source: Climate Central.)

But adding in all greenhouse gasses like Nitrogen compounds and Methane resulting from fossil fuel burning (and other human activities) and you end up with a CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere close to 490 parts per million. Such a level of forcing correlates more closely to an even more ancient climate period called the Middle Miocene of about 15 million years ago when global temperatures were between 3 and 4 C warmer than they are today.

As such, crossing the 400 ppm CO2 threshold is not merely symbolic. It is a sign of the increasing likelihood of climate harms to come. And it appears now that we crossed that pass back during October of 2015 — unaware that we’d already entered a tough new climate age.

Links:

What Passing Key CO2 Mark Means to Climate Scientists

A Year in the Life of CO2

127 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 7, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 400 ppm CO2, 490 ppm CO2e, Beyond 400, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, science, The Keeling Curve, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 7, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/07/its-looking-like-well-never-see-another-month-below-400-ppm-co2-again/

Possible Record Methane Spike at Barrow, Alaska — What Does it Mean?

There’s no avoiding it — climate change is a controversial subject; a threat that should unify us all that, due to reticence, denial, fear, and a basic lack of understanding, is instead often quite divisive. But among the subjects that stand out as real fodder for acidic controversy, the issue of methane feedbacks from the global climate system — the oceans, thawing permafrost, and especially the Arctic — is one of the worst. There’s a noted tendency to either downplay or overplay risks. Though this polarization is likely fed by the general mysteriousness and complexity of the subject, its potential existential nature also feeds into the heat that methane feedback-related discussions tend to draw.

It all makes one hope for improved discussion on the subject. Given the fact that catastrophic methane feedback appears unlikely (but would have a high overall impact if it did emerge), it’s probable that the subject will continue to generate a difficult conversation for as long as human-forced warming is an issue, and so long as the science continues to remain uncertain.

(The Copernicus Observatory shows surface methane hot spots in China, Africa, South America, the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia and the Arctic. Note that generally high concentrations still tend to center over the Arctic. Meanwhile, the various hot spots seem to indicate major sources like fossil-fuel industry wildfires, wetlands, droughts, the Arctic Ocean and glacial and permafrost thaw. Also note that current readings indicate a serious rise in global methane concentrations, but not a spike that significantly exceeds peak 20th-century additions. It’s worth considering that, during recent years, expanded natural gas exploration and extraction through fracking has likely contributed a substantial new human methane source addition to the global atmosphere. Meanwhile, there is some concern that the Earth System may be starting to mildly feed back by bleeding additional carbon from warming lands, forests, oceans and permafrost.)

It’s not really a question of whether or not some scientists are concerned or if there is a risk, however ill-defined. Dr. James Hansen has often indicated that a strong methane feedback from the Arctic or world ocean system would be a climate nightmare that could well eliminate the time window to respond to prevent catastrophic warming. Methane and other carbon feedbacks are prime suspects for past hothouse event triggers — potentially playing a role in setting off events like the Permian-Triassic Extinction and/or greatly contributing to the loss of ocean health that was a key feature of these extinction events. Neil deGrasse Tyson alluded to this risk in his 2014 rerendering of the science series Cosmos.

Polar researchers, including those at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), often point to varying risks and potentials for methane feedback from numerous sources such as permafrost thaw. Others fear releases coming from seabed stores — claims that often meet stiff resistance from more established areas of the science. But given how close we are to locking in 2-degree-Celsius or greater amounts of warming this century, it doesn’t take a lot of carbon feedback, methane or otherwise, from the Earth System to generate a problem. Even a moderate feedback would cut the time necessary for carbon emissions draw-downs. It is for this reason that monitoring of the methane, and overall carbon feedback, situation is a necessary part of developing a comprehensive climate change situational awareness (which I have worked hard to develop here at this blog). Which is why, today, we are going to talk a little bit about a big methane spike appearing in the hourly readings near Barrow, Alaska.

Apparent Record Methane Spike in the Hourly Readings at Barrow

Yesterday, climatologist Brian Brettschneider, whose Twitter feed provides a good stream of informed climate change-related updates, posted a truncated version of this NOAA ESRL graph:

The graph tracks hourly methane readings at the data collection location for Barrow, Alaska. As shown, the recent (and unconfirmed) data set shows what appears to be a record methane spike for that location. Also note that big spikes appear in the hourly data at certain points many times since 2000, as is typical during this time of year. Most notably, a similar very large spike occurred in 2004, one that the recent 2016 spike just edges out.

Looking at the graph, there’s a lot that it doesn’t tell us. Firstly, what is the source of this methane spike? If the spike was an outlier with no periodicity it might indicate the potential for some kind of anomaly or human source. However, since seasonal spikes seem to show up in this graph, this hints that the current spike is environmental. In addition, since Alaska as a whole and Barrow in particular both recently experienced some of their warmest weather on record, there’s some reason to suspect that this added heat played a part in the 2016 spike. And, 2004 also saw a period of then-record warmth during summer in Alaska. So Alaska warming is in line as a suspect cause for the 2016 methane spike.

As anomalous spikes go, this one is pretty big — it apparently set a new hourly record methane reading around 2370 parts per billion for the recording station. But since this Barrow spike isn’t visibly part of some big regional methane plume and since the global monitors aren’t recording a big methane jump as well, we can be pretty certain that this particular spike, if confirmed, is a local and probable short-term issue, and not a sudden, huge methane release issue of global importance. However, it does represent another point in a context that seems to include some big local methane sources popping up in the Arctic environment and possibly indicating a larger, if comparatively moderate, regional feedback taking place in response to the warming and thawing ongoing there. (No consensus scientific study has yet fully confirmed such a preliminary observation, which is a threat analysis-based potential identification on my part.)

So, overall, something to add to the big pot of bubbling concerns — but nothing to light your hair on fire over yet.

Conditions in Context

During the 20th century, large-scale industrialization linked to fossil-fuel burning and extraction helped to drive rapid rates of atmospheric methane increase. These rates peaked during the late 1980s and early 1990s when global policy measures helped curtail methane leakage from fossil fuel infrastructure. According to NOAA, annual rates of global atmospheric methane increase peaked in 1991 at a 14.32 ppb yearly jump.

(Global methane is again hitting a rapid rate of rise. Though the Earth System appears to be providing some ominous rumblings that feedbacks may be on the way, the present spike is likely primarily due to increased fossil-fuel extraction activity, particularly due to fracking. Image source: NOAA.)

Such curtailments helped to produce a mid-1990s to mid-2000s plateau in the rate of atmospheric methane accumulation. Now, with the advent of fracking and with global warming appearing to generate a number of possible new methane sources (or amplify traditional sources) from the Earth System, rates of annual methane increase are again on the rise. In 2014 and 2015, annual increases hit 12.53 ppb (the third highest annual rate of increase in the NOAA record) and 10.07 ppb respectively (tenth highest). Preliminary reports show that 2016 appears to be on track to hit near 10 ppb worth of atmospheric increase.

As a result, it appears that fracking, primarily, and warming-related feedback (possibly secondarily) are contributing to annual rates of atmospheric methane increase that are comparable to peak periods of increase during the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, these rates of increase, though significantly adding a heat forcing that about equals one quarter to one third of the annual CO2 addition, show no current indication of a catastrophic rate of methane increase that would point toward the major environmental releases some have feared. As such, the greatest part of our ability to currently prevent further rising rates of atmospheric methane comes in the form of rapidly reducing all fossil fuel use and particularly to contain and reduce coal mining and oil and natural gas fracking. And if we do that, there will be less heat stress on the environmental methane stores and less overall long-term pressure for the kinds of feedbacks some of us have come to fear.

Links:

NOAA ESRL

All About Frozen Ground

The Arctic Turns Ugly

Hydrate Catastrophe Unlikely

The Copernicus Observatory

Brian Brettschneider

Toward Improved Discussions: Methane

An Update on Fracking Emissions

Cosmos

Hat tip to Griffin

17 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 7, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged amplifying feedbacks, climate change, Earth System Feedbacks, environment, extreme weather, fossil fuel emissions, fracking, global warming, Human Hothouse, human warming, methane, methane feedback, Record Barrow Methane Spike, science, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 7, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/07/possible-record-methane-spike-at-barrow-alaska-what-does-it-mean/

What’s Swimming in the Open Water Near the North Pole These Days?

Globally, it’s been a record-hot year. But nowhere has seen so much anomalous warmth during 2016 as the Arctic. As melt season draws to a close, some dramatic effects are now becoming visible in the NASA satellite shots. Large regions near the North Pole are losing their white covering of sea ice and showing the telltale blue-black of open water:

(Large areas of open water are visible near the North Pole in this LANCE MODIS satellite shot.)

The above image, provided by NASA, shows the Northern Hemisphere polar region on September 5, 2016. To get some sense of the size of this region of low-concentration sea ice, the bottom edge of this capture represents approximately 300 miles. For a point of reference, the North Pole can be seen where the lines of the satellite image frames converge in the lower left-hand side of the capture.

All throughout this satellite shot, we see large expanses of open water. The smaller openings are five to ten miles wide, with very large openings ranging as much as 50 miles long appearing as well. Cloud cover is present throughout the image and blocks some visibility to open regions on the Siberian side of the Pole (upper section of the image) and over the Pole itself (lower left).

(Arctic sea ice area coming uncomfortably close to 2012 record lows in this NORSEX SSM model summary.)

Loss of ice in this region of the central Arctic is similar to and perhaps more extensive than that seen during 2010 and 2013. In 2013, strong storms combined with weakened ice states resulting in severe melt near the North Pole, with ice becoming more dispersed throughout the Arctic. This year, both storms and heat have hit the ice hard. Now, ice edge extent is far lower than in 2013 even as low-concentration ice floes and open water are visible near the Pole. As such, the overall health of sea ice is dramatically worse during 2016.

Unfortunately, sea ice buoy observations near the North Pole have seen cuts to research funding and no camera buoys are operating near the Pole. Otherwise, we’d probably be treated to images like this:

(North Pole Camera 2 goes for a swim during the summer of 2013 as a period of extensive near-polar melt set in. Most indicators show that ice conditions at the North Pole this summer were as bad or worse. Image source: North Pole Environmental Observatory.)

The large, open sections of water near the Pole appeared as sea-ice extent and area in many measures fell to second lowest on record for this time of year. Some measures (shown in the middle image above) have come uncomfortably close to the 2012 record low line.

Overall, 2016 is a very bad year for sea ice. And the weird prospect of polar bears (or anything else) being forced to swim at the North Pole is not at all something to brighten one’s day.

Links:

NASA GISS

LANCE MODIS

NORSEX SSM

North Pole Environmental Observatory

61 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 6, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 2016 Melt, climate change, global warming, Human Hothouse, human warming, record melt, sea ice, sea ice melt, Second Lowest On Record, Swimming at the North Pole

Posted by robertscribbler on September 6, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/whats-swimming-in-the-open-water-near-the-north-pole-these-days/

New Study: Climate Change Has Doubled the Number of Category 4 and 5 Storms Striking East and Southeast Asia

The atmospheric-ocean heat engine. It’s a pretty simple mechanism for pumping up the power of storms. But as simple as it is, the results can be devastating when this engine gets revved up by human-forced climate change, according to a new study released Monday in Nature Geoscience.

The Heat Engine in Action

As the ocean surface warms, it heats the local atmosphere. This generates an updraft that pushes higher and higher into the air above. Heat also causes water at the ocean surface to evaporate. This evaporated water is borne up on the winds and air currents rising above the heating water. A low-pressure system forms and the water vapor condenses into clouds which ultimately become thunderstorms. The Coriolis effect gives it all a nudge and the storms and clouds start to spin…

(Pacific Ocean typhoon paths from 1980 through 2005. A new study shows that the destructive power of landfalling typhoons in East and Southeast Asia has increased by nearly 50 percent since 1977. Meanwhile, the number of category 4 and 5 storms striking land has doubled. All impacts due to ocean-surface warming related to human-caused climate change. Image source: Commons.)

The process described above happens every day at the ocean surface. Sometimes these storms form into the powerful cyclones we call hurricanes and typhoons. Under normal global temperature conditions, the kinds and intensities of these storms are what we have generally come to expect. But if you add heat to the Earth System, as we do when we burn fossil fuels and dump carbon into the atmosphere, the whole storm formation process gets amped up — and produces the powerful outlier storms that have become more common over recent years.

Add Human-Forced Warming and End up With More Powerful Storms

The fact that such added heat tends to generate more powerful storms has been a generally accepted part of our understanding of climate science for some time now. However, it was not until recently that this signal of rising storm intensity became visible in the science. Now, a new study published today in Nature Geoscience indicates that’s exactly what’s happening in parts of the Western Pacific.

It’s a pretty earth-shattering revelation with multiple climate change-related findings which are worth reading about in full here. These findings boil down to the following:

The number of category 4 and 5 storms striking southeast Asia has doubled since 1977.
The overall destructive power of storms striking this region has increased by nearly 50 percent over the same period.
This increase in powerful storms has been caused by ocean warming related to climate change.

Standing alone, any one of these findings would be significant. Taken together, they paint a picture of significantly rising risk of storm damage and related loss of life due to climate change in one of the world’s most highly populated regions. In other words, the storms firing and running in to land in this region are not the same as they once were. They have been dramatically altered by the massive volume of greenhouse gasses hitting the world’s atmosphere due to fossil-fuel burning, accumulating over the decades.

The study notes that:

Here, we apply analysis to corrected data and show that, over the past 37 years, typhoons that strike East and Southeast Asia have intensified by 12 to 15 percent… a nearly 50 percent increase in instantaneous destructiveness… with the proportion of category 4 and 5 storms doubling or even tripling… We find that increasing intensity of landfalling typhoons is due to strengthened intensification rates which are, in turn, tied to locally enhanced surface warming on the rim of East and Southeast Asia.

Ramping Storm Intensity

This scientific study helps validate and clarify what many weather and climate observers have already noted during recent years. The destructiveness of storms striking land in East and Southeast Asia is not normal. And, land-falling category 4 and 5 storms are occurring with greater frequency over broader regions.

(Four Pacific typhoons take aim on Southeast Asia during July of 2015. A new study finds that the landfall intensity of storms like these is increasing due to human-caused climate change. Image source: NOAA.)

The Western Pacific basin is now capable of producing storms like Haiyan, whose destructive intensity at landfall was mostly theoretical decades before. This increase in intensity has been observed during a period of rapid Earth warming. And with more warming in store, the storms are likely to grow even more intense. From the Nature Geoscience study:

The projected ocean surface warming pattern under increased greenhouse gas forcing suggests that typhoons striking eastern mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan will intensify further. Given disproportionate damages by intense typhoons, this represents a heightened threat to people and properties in the region.

Links:

Intensification of landfalling typhoons over the northwest Pacific since the late 1970s, Wei, M. and Xie, S.

NOAA

Asian typhoons becoming more intense, study finds

Commons

The Coriolis effect

24 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 6, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, Heat Engine, Human Hothouse, human warming, Increasing Hurricane Intensity, increasing storm intensity, Increasing Typhoon Intensity, Intensification of Landfalling Typhoons, nature, Ocean warming, science, Southeast Asia Typhoons, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 6, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/new-study-climate-change-has-doubled-the-number-of-category-4-and-5-storms-striking-east-and-southeast-asia/

More Fuels from Hell or the Renewable Grid? Stark Energy Choices for the Next Decade

Continuing to burn and extract fossil fuels comes at a terrible and rising risk for pretty much everyone. Thankfully, the capacity to reduce our dependence on these fuels from hell and transition to far less environmentally harmful energy sources is available like never before. But whether or not we make that choice as a society will depend on the actions of both political and economic leaders as well as individuals in the U.S. and around the world.

Biggest Oklahoma Earthquake Ever Seen and Fossil-Fueled Storms

In Oklahoma, the filling of fracking wastewater injection wells is applying a huge stress to the bedrock. There, the new presence of billions of tons of water is changing the way the land bears weight even as it lubricates existing fault lines. This change, in turn, is setting off earthquakes of never-before-seen intensity, not only in Oklahoma, but in many places across the central U.S.

$usgs-map-fracking-earthquake$

(USGS map of a fracking-related earthquake that struck Oklahoma City on Friday. Continuing to frack in the central U.S. will likely produce increased risk for such quakes even as it provides greater access to climate change-worsening fossil fuels. Image source: USGS and Arstechnica.)

On Saturday, one of these quakes reached a 5.6 magnitude near Oklahoma City, injuring one person, damaging a number of buildings in the historic section of town, and causing stock losses at local grocery stores. As earthquakes go, this was a moderate-intensity event, but it was the largest such event that Oklahoma City had ever seen. There is a reasonable and growing concern that the fossil-fuel extraction activity that is fracking could produce far worse — especially if sections of the New Madrid Fault Line to the east in Missouri become stressed.

Farther south, concerned residents in Louisiana, after suffering a 500-year rainfall event linked to climate change that dumped 6.9 trillion gallons of water over the state in just a few days, are attempting to block oil exploration leases in the Gulf of Mexico. This heavy weather is being born in a world in which increasing rates of evaporation are intensifying droughts in some regions and sparking powerful rainfall events in others. This type of extreme weather will continue to worsen so long as we keep burning fossil fuels.

(A 500-year rainfall event that dumped 6.9 trillion gallons of water over Louisiana in August — one of numerous climate change-related 500-year flood events hitting the U.S. in 2016 — helped to raise concerns and spark protests over the opening of new drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico. Image source: Weather Matrix/Jesse Ferrell.)

Louisiana residents are starting to get worried, and with good reason. Now, hundreds of Louisiana protesters are valiantly attempting to prevent the opening of new fossil fuel leases that could free up another 30 billion tons of carbon-based fuels for burning. If such oil was discovered and brought to market, it would effectively add three more years to the lifespan of global fossil-fuel burning at a time when a rapid cessation of such burning is necessary to preserve anything remotely resembling a livable climate. Similar protests along the East Coast spurred the Obama Administration’s choice to close oil exploration leases in the Atlantic for at least the next five years. Sadly, thus far, no such positive outcome has occurred for the Gulf. After the recent exploration rights auctions, the production of these harmful fuels is one step closer to market.

A Huge Opportunity For the Alternatives

Fracking-related earthquakes in Oklahoma City and oil-lease protests as an upshot of climate concerns by citizens are just two events in a larger tapestry of conflict over the use of dangerous and volatile fossil fuels. As this conflict rages across the globe, new energy sources are starting to make inroads. In particular, wind and solar power during recent years have gone mainstream as electrical power generation sources. In the U.S. so far during 2016, more than 90 percent of new installed electricity generation capacity has come from wind and solar combined. On the current path, these two energy sources will account for ten percent of total U.S. electricity production by 2021, a more than five-fold increase in ten years.

Moreover, a recent report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) finds that it is technically possible for the largest grid in the world (occupying the eastern U.S.) to receive fully 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2026. These potentials do not include recent and projected advances in battery storage technologies, which provide an opportunity to further expand wind and solar generation by helping to make these clean energy sources less variable.

(The National Renewable Energy Lab recently reported that the eastern U.S. could get 30 percent or more of its grid electrical power from wind and solar by 2026. Image source: NREL and Vox.)

Improvements in renewable energy cost and continuing technological advances have helped to drive this expanded access. In almost all major markets, wind and solar are competitive with fossil fuels on price. Utility renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) now range as low as 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour while homeowners who install solar are often able to save money and recoup investment costs in as little as five years. In addition, the fact that wind and solar does not result in damage to water supplies, rising earthquake risks, various fossil-fuel related health hazards (related to air and water contamination), or the greenhouse gasses that have so wrecked our climate, adds another huge cost benefit to civilization at large — a strong justification for the continued subsidization of these fuel sources (as well as the obvious justification that fossil-fuel subsidies should be cut).

In the end, the action by political parties, economic leaders, voters, and individuals will determine which path we take over the next ten years. If solar and wind energy are suppressed by fossil-fuel interests strong-arming local and state governments (as they were in Nevada), if Republican climate change deniers continue to be elected to Congress or capture the Presidency, if economic leaders around the world continue to support government subsidies for fossil fuels, if capitalists continue to use financial market levers to suppress renewable energy industries, and if individuals do not take the increasingly available opportunities to reduce their fossil-fuel energy consumption and make the energy switch, then fossil-fuel burning will continue to increase over the next ten years and related harms will continue to ramp up.

However, if everyone makes the choice to start doing something about these rising problems now, then we have an opportunity to make a big leap forward, to make our civilization more resilient to climate change, to reduce climate harms, and to rapidly set out on a path toward a much-needed energy transition. Ultimately the choice of seeming ease in continuing to use fossil fuels is really one of seriously increasing pain. We need to make the other choice. And we all need to start doing it now.

Links:

Fuels from Hell

USGS

Biggest Oklahoma Earthquake Ever Seen

New Madrid Fault Line

Gulf Coast Residents Crash Oil Lease Auction

Facebook Weather Matrix

U.S. Solar Market Insights

Eastern U.S. 30 Percent Renewables by 2026

NREL

G20 Baulks at Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Hat tip to June

Hat tip to Colorado Bob

Hat tip to DT Lange

23 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 6, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 500 year floods, climate change, environment, extreme weather, Fracking Earthquakes, Fuels From Hell, global warming, human warming, Louisiana Floods, Oil Leasing Protests, Renewable Grid, renewables, science, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 6, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/more-fuels-from-hell-or-the-renewable-grid-stark-energy-choices-for-the-next-decade/

Warm, Storm-Force Winds Blowing From the Equator Flip West Antarctic Winter to Summer

In a record-hot world, there’s a lot of lower-latitude heat just waiting for a weakness in the increasingly feeble Jet Stream to make a big poleward rush. Such was the case today as an intense wave of warmth exploded up from the Equatorial region and began to spread summertime temperatures over sections of West Antarctica — technically still in the grips of the Southern Hemisphere’s winter season.

(A surge of heat breaks over West Antarctica on September 2nd, 2016, pushing air temperatures over vulnerable coastal glaciers and ice shelves near or above the melting point [0 degrees Celsius]. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

The warm winds began their southward turn about a thousand miles west of coastal South American and along the 20 degrees south latitude line. Tapping hot, tropical air, the winds then ran over hundreds of miles of open ocean — following the arch of a bulging ridge in the Jet Stream. These winds then gathered, howling through the Southern Ocean with storm force gusts of 50 to 65 mph before delivering their payload of abnormal warmth to West Antarctica.

Larsen C Ice Shelf Experiencing Above-Freezing Temperatures in Winter

Along the coast of Ellsworth Land, temperatures have risen to near the thawing point (0 degrees C), in winter, in a region that typically sees -2 to -3 C readings during summer. Temperatures that are 15 to 23 C above average (27 to 40 F) now range all over the Antarctic Peninsula and nearby areas of West Antarctica. Perhaps most dramatic are the 1.5 C readings coming from sections of the C region of the Larsen Ice Shelf bordering the Weddell Sea. There, downslope hurricane-force winds howling over the shelf are helping to spike local temperatures even as sea ice in the Weddell is splintered and shoved away from the Larsen C edge.

(A wave of 20+ C [36+ F] above-average temperatures blankets the vulnerable glaciers of West Antarctica on Friday, September 2nd. This pulse of tropical warmth is enough to drive readings over Antarctica to summertime or warmer ranges during winter, with some regions that typically experience below-freezing temperatures year-round nearing or exceeding the thawing point. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

Larsen C is of particular interest due to a large crack spreading through its main body, threatening to break off a Connecticut-sized chunk of ice and disrupt the stability of the larger ice shelf. The most northerly of the remaining large Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves, this towering mass of frozen water serves to buttress a number of large Antarctic glaciers. Its loss or destabilization would allow these glaciers to increase their speed of ocean discharge and in turn, speed the rate of global sea-level rise. Needless to say, this combination of above-freezing temperatures during winter and hurricane-force winds won’t help to stabilize this now more than 120-kilometer long and hundreds-of-feet-deep crack.

(Differences between average summer and winter temperatures over Antarctica. For sections of West Antarctica near the Antarctic Peninsula, Friday through Sunday will see temperatures more typical to Antarctic summer — during late winter. Image source: European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.)

A Winter of West Antarctic Heat — Larger South Pole Warm-up on the Way?

More broadly, warming this region to above freezing for extended periods is a concern among glaciologists. In the past (during the Pliocene and Miocene), when atmospheric CO2 levels have hit a range of 390-405 parts per million or above, West Antarctica (and ultimately East Antarctica) experienced warmth which resulted in seas that were many feet and meters higher than today. With atmospheric CO2 readings likely to average near 405 ppm during 2016 (or total greenhouse gas levels in the range of 490 ppm CO2e), it appears that frequent periods of summer-like temperatures and related increasing melt pressure are now possible during polar winter.

Over recent months, this section of Antarctica has been clobbered repeatedly by such spates of above-normal temperatures. Back in June, an odd Jet Stream excursion (gravity wave) pulled a big pulse of Equatorial heat over West Antarctica. Today’s event is just one of a number of recent big warm air invasions into this highly vulnerable zone.

(More severe melt stress for Antarctic glaciers? NOAA’s CFSv2 model shows a ridiculously hot South Pole summer may be on the way. Side note — over the past year or so this forecast model has run somewhat cooler than actual temperatures for the Arctic region. Image source: NOAA.)

Taking this most recent warming event into context and looking forward into late 2016 and early 2017, at least one global forecast model is predicting a period of severe Antarctic warming during this time. NOAA’s CFSv2 model, for example, finds a very extreme Antarctic temperature spike emerging over pretty much all of Antarctica during the late Southern Hemisphere summer and early fall months of 2017.

Links:

Earth Nullschool

Climate Reanalyzer

European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

Another Blow to Glacial Stability

NOAA

Weather data provided by the Global Forecast System Model

232 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 2, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged Antarctic Heat, Antarctic Peninsula, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, Human Hothouse, human warming, Larsen C Ice Shelf, mangled jet stream, science, Summer temperatures in Winter, weather, West Antarctic Melt

Posted by robertscribbler on September 2, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/warm-storm-force-winds-blowing-up-from-the-equator-change-west-antarctic-winter-to-summer/

Endless Hot Summer of 2016 — Heavy Arctic Sea Ice Losses, Record Temps for Alaska and Hermine’s Rains Barreling In

From the Arctic leveling yet another challenge to all-time record lows for sea ice, to a ridiculously long spate of hotter-than-normal temperatures for Alaska, to Hermine — which appears to be readying to drop 20 inches of rain over parts of the Southeast — there’s a ton of concerning climate news today. Let’s get to it.

Storms, Mega-Dipoles, and Shattered Sea Ice

A few weeks ago, big storms of near-record intensity started ripping through the Arctic. These storms saw numerous pressure dips into the 960-millibar range. These severe systems raked the ice with gale-force winds, heavy seas, and rainfall. A vulnerable ‘arm’ of ice extending out from the central Arctic toward Wrangel Island began to disintegrate under these multiple insults.

(The two frames above provide a good visual of the most vulnerable Arctic Ocean melt regions for early to mid-September. These primarily compose the Siberian side of the Arctic and run on toward the Pole. A mostly detached and storm-battered region of sea ice north of Wrangel Island [left frame] is likely to see continued losses through mid-September. At the same time, another vulnerable lobe of ice extending from the Pole to the Laptev Sea [right frame] is seeing substantial thinning. As southerly winds pick up later this week over the Barents and Greenland Seas, the Atlantic side of the Arctic [lower right portion of right-hand image] may also take a final blow or two before refreeze starts to kick in. Images provided by: LANCE-MODIS. Date for images: September 1, 2016.)

Meanwhile, another melting wedge running out from the Pole toward the Laptev Sea was increasingly wracked, showing severe losses along the ice edge even as large openings expanded, stretching in toward the Pole. As a result, major late-season drops in Arctic sea ice area and extent measures began to show. Unfortunately, the damage had only just begun.

Last week, this stormy pattern saw the added wrinkle of a strong high-pressure system in the range of 1040 mb intensity forming over the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. This new system created an extreme pressure gradient between itself and the storms raging near the Pole and on the Atlantic side. Expert Arctic sea ice observer Neven aptly coined this condition the 2016 Mega-Dipole.

(Neven’s Mega-Dipole featured a burly high-pressure system over the Pacific side of the Arctic as strong storms continued to rage across the Atlantic side on August 29th. The combined force of these systems helped further damage the already weakened sea ice as warm winds blowing between them pulled heat up from Siberia, generating a late-season temperature spike over the Arctic Ocean. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Strong winds blew between the juxtaposed low- and high-pressure systems. This convergence sucked an intense pulse of warm air up from the south, not only providing a severe blow to the ice from gales and waves, but also injecting a surge of late-season heat into the High Arctic. In addition to the damage being done to the two melt arms, the whole of the remaining contiguous ice was driven in one big push toward the Canadian Arctic Archipelago — a shove that has now likely resulted in the complete separation of the thinned near-Wrangel ice from the pack even as large polynya (or holes) opened up within 10 kilometers of the Pole.

(A late-season temperature spike in the region above 80° North Latitude is helping to generate a surge in ice losses during early September. Image source: DMI.)

All this pushing and shoving and storming and low and high pressuring in the context of never-before-seen Arctic warmth has brought most of the major measures within range of beating out 2007 as second-lowest extent on record by mid-September. Meanwhile, a few of the measures are now making serious challenges to the 2012 record-low marks.

Over the coming days, the various high-pressure systems are predicted to shift more toward the Siberian side of the Arctic. Meanwhile, storms are expected to gather around Greenland, with some hitting the 970 to 980 mb range as they circulate up from the North Atlantic. Warm air is expected to funnel in from the Barents and Greenland Seas even as the region north of Greenland starts a cooling trend.

(Japan’s JAXA monitor shows [top left] sea ice extent beating out 2007 in the daily extent measure. Meanwhile, DMI’s EUMETSAT-based monitor shows [top right] extent falling to near the 2012 line. Sea ice area in NERSC’s SSMI monitor [bottom] over recent days comes uncomfortably close to the 2012 line.)

This hot-cold juxtaposition combined with ongoing pressure from storms, winds, and waves should continue to damage and expel the most vulnerable sections of ice in the near-Pole region and on toward the Laptev as well as the detached ice floes near Wrangel Island. Additional losses in the range of 150,000 to 300,000 square kilometers or more over the coming seven days are entirely possible. If this happens, it would be a rather severe rate of loss for early September all on top of a year that, on average so far, has seen lowest-recorded sea ice extents for the January-to-August timeframe and remains on track to hold that low mark through year-end.

An Amazingly Hot Year for Alaska

We should be very clear that despite all the storms and other weather drama going on over the Arctic Ocean, the primary cause for severe sea-ice losses is a record-hot world in which a lion’s share of the temperature rise is occurring over the far northern latitudes. And not too far from the melting Arctic sea ice, another Arctic region is also getting a big dose of this record heat.

This year, Alaska appears set to exceed all previous marks for warmest temperatures ever recorded during an annual period for the state:

Alaska with more days in the above normal tercile in 2016 that either 2014 or 2015 – the 2 warmest years on record. pic.twitter.com/teBcXIuyuU

— Brian Brettschneider (@Climatologist49) August 31, 2016

(Through August 27, Alaska had experienced zero cooler-than-typical days, 22 days of relatively normal temperatures, and 218 days in which temperatures were in the top third of all daily averages. It’s a record that makes previous all-time hot years 2014 and 2015 look somewhat cool by comparison. Image source: Climatologist Brian Brettschneider.)

As climatologist Brian Brettschneider recently found, above, the number of days featuring temperatures in the top third of measurements included nearly nine out of ten of all days so far during 2016 and through August 27th. This extreme Alaskan heat has already exceeded the number of warmer-than-normal days during record-hot years 2014 and 2015. With four months in 2016 still remaining, and with the Arctic Ocean opening up to its north, it appears that Alaska is about to blow these previous record years out of the water.

(Sea-surface temperatures surrounding Alaska are between 3 and 5 degrees Celsius above average. Such extreme ocean heat should help keep temperatures abnormally warm over the state for at least the next couple of months and continue to add to a period of record heat during 2016. Note that the graphic above shows temperature departures from normal ranges, not absolute temperature values. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

La Niña is settling in, though. This would normally provide some hope that temperatures in Alaska might start to fall off a bit, but right now, the local ocean waters surrounding Alaska are extraordinarily warm. It’s as if the Pacific ‘hot blob’ that plagued the U.S. west coast in 2014 and 2015 has shifted north toward Alaska in 2016. This climate change-related warm-water feature is likely to continue to create a warm surface temperature bias for the state over the next couple of months.

20 Inches of Rain Possible for Parts of the Southeast

Moving south and away from the various heating and melting in the Arctic, we find yet another big rainstorm brewing in the moisture-stacked atmosphere of the Gulf of Mexico. In this case, unlike the big deluge that roared through Louisiana during early August, this collection of towering thunderheads has a name — Hermine.

(Hermine, which may produce severe flooding over the U.S. southeast in the coming days, barrels toward Florida in this National Hurricane Center satellite animation.)

Punching up to minimal hurricane status early in the afternoon (EST) on Thursday, Hermine is predicted to make landfall along the big bend of Florida (pushing in 3-8 foot storm surges), track north into Georgia and then run up along coastal South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Along this path, 4-10 inches of rainfall are expected with local amounts hitting as high as 20 inches.

To this point, The National Hurricane Center notes:

Hermine is expected to produce storm total rainfall accumulations of 5 to 10 inches over portions of northwest Florida and southern Georgia through Friday, with possible isolated maximum amounts of 20 inches. On Friday and Saturday, Hermine is expected to produce totals of 4 to 8 inches with isolated maximum amounts of 10 inches possible across portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina, and eastern North Carolina through Saturday. These rains may cause life-threatening flash flooding.

As with past rain-bomb events this year, Hermine is churning through a record-hot atmosphere and feeding on overall record-high moisture levels. Sea-surface temperatures over the Gulf of Mexico and particularly over the Gulf Stream region of the Atlantic near the eastern seaboard are extraordinarily hot. Ocean surfaces off coastal Virginia, for example, now rival those along the eastern Gulf at near 30 degrees Celsius (86 F). The result is that a ton of storm energy in the form of heat and moisture is blanketing a big swath from Florida to the U.S. northeast. In this heat- and moisture-rich environment, even the high forecast rainfall amounts have a potential to be exceeded.

(Ocean temperature and currents map for 8/30/16. Water temperatures in the Gulf Stream off the U.S. east coast are near 30 C [86 F] or about 4 C hotter than normal. This means there’s almost as much potential storm fuel for a hurricane off the eastern seaboard as there is in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico — fuel that can both provide energy for extreme rainfall events related to Hermine and for a possible rapid reintensification. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Moreover, Hermine is predicted retain a degree of strength over land due to this fuel even as it is expected re-emerge over water along the North Carolina sounds and then track toward the hot Gulf Stream. Along this track, the storm is expected to restrengthen and lash coastal North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey before it skirts Long Island and Massachusetts. Given the hot ocean waters, some models even show Hermine bombing into a significant storm with ECMWF model runs earlier today highlighting a potential for a 969 mb storm center off Delaware on late Saturday.

Fortunately, the storm center is currently predicted to remain offshore after re-emerging over open waters on Saturday. However, the large circulation of the system means that any reintensification will likely see some of the storm’s related rain bands swirling out over the mid-Atlantic and northeast coasts.

******

So from big sea ice losses to record heat in Alaska, to what’s shaping up to be another extreme rain event for the U.S. southeast, the climate hits just keep on coming. It’s all a part of the context of climate change that’s been steadily settling in over the past few decades, which paints a rather obvious picture of ongoing climate shifts and alterations to expected weather patterns — to include the loss of sea ice, the intensity of heat over Alaska and the severity of rains falling out during storms like Hermine.

Links:

Warm Arctic Storm Tears Sea Ice to Shreds

The National Hurricane Center

Dan Leonard

Hat tip to Colorado Bob

Hat tip to DT Lange

Hat tip to DavidlWindt

Hat tip to Jay M

Hat tip to the Arctic Sea Ice Forum

Hat tip to Greg

105 Comments

by robertscribbler on September 1, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged arctic melt, arctic sea ice, Arctic Sea Ice Losses, climate change, climate disruption, environment, extreme weather, Hermine, Hot Summer 2016, Hurricane, Rain Bomb, Record Hot Alaska, science, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on September 1, 2016

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/endless-hot-summer-of-2016-heavy-arctic-sea-ice-losses-record-temps-for-alaska-and-hermines-rains-barreling-in/

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