Our Miner's Canary - the Arctic

Do you remember how balmy temperatures were in the high Arctic last winter? No? Well it's a safe bet that most have probably forgotten all about it. That too is our new normal.

Conditions got so warm that a northern cyclone was spawned last December, thinning the sea ice by 4 inches.  Since the sea ice has been thinning for years in the now warmer Arctic that meant an earlier ice melt this summer, even warmer water temperatures and, now, a longer delay in winter ice reforming.

Residents of the Alaskan city of Barrow (due to change its name to Utqiaġvik on 1 December) would normally be looking out across a frozen harbour by now, but this year the sea is reluctant to freeze.

Barrow’s average temperature for October 2016 was a balmy -1C, significantly warmer than the long-term average of around -8C. And over the North Pole the air has been a full 10C warmer than average of late.

Much of the reason for these warm temperatures and the sluggish rate of sea-ice formation is the exceptional summer sea-ice melt that occurred this year. By 10 September the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that Arctic sea-ice had shrunk to an area of just 4.14m square kilometres – tying with 2007 for second lowest sea-ice extent on record, and some 740,000 square kilometres short of the record set in 2012.

The rapid melting of this ice earlier in the season gave plenty of time for the surface waters of the Beaufort, Chuckchi, Barents and Kara Seas to warm up, and it is these warm waters, combined with persistently warm dry weather blowing up from the south, that have boosted air temperatures and slowed the progress of fresh sea-ice formation.

It's complicated but the growing loss of Arctic sea ice and the warming of the Arctic Ocean and land mass are said to be causing the Polar Vortex that's been hitting eastern North America and parts of Europe.

And now a few words from Katharine Hayhoe, Canadian born, evangelical Christian, climate scientist living in Texas.

The Worst Case Scenario

FIFTY? Fifty self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms are now active? University of Arizona professor emeritus, natural resources, ecology and evolutionary biology, Guy McPherson no longer pursues pure science, environmental research. He can't. He's too busy digesting the mountains of research pouring in from other scientists and connecting the dots.

There's really no nice way to put this.  McPherson has now logged 50 self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms underway.  That's another way of saying "runaway global warming."  At the time of the interview below, back in March, he'd only identified 39.  Apparently eleven more have turned up since then.

In Dr. McPherson's assessment, we're screwed, it's done, over.  He believes it will claim the lives of most of us alive today.  Here it is, the Worst Case Scenario:



For several years I've been following the major feedback mechanisms at work today - the melting seabed methane clathrates, the tundra fires, the thawing permafrost, the vanishing Arctic sea ice, the retreat of glaciers and the astonishingly rapid acceleration in the melting of the Greenland ice cap.

We may have flipped the switch on these feedback loops but they're progressing on their own now and we have no idea how to make them stop much less turn the clock back.  If the YouTube video wasn't convincing, you might read this July 7th article from Esquire.

Ah, forget all that 'doom and gloom'  Look on the bright side.  Aussie PM Tony Abbott is doubling down on his country's coal exports.  Tony knows it's "the very foundation of prosperity."  So there, Cobber, turn that frown upside down.

Where Did All the Sea Ice Go?

America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency has released a quick video showing what happened to the "old" Arctic ice (the most important stuff) from 1987 until 2013.   The video covers that 27-year span in just 60 seconds. The old ice is shown in white.  Behold.

The White House Ponders an Ice-Free Arctic Ocean

The domestic and international security implications of an ice free Arctic ocean will be briefed at the White House this week.

The meeting is bringing together Nasa's acting chief scientist, Gale Allen, the director of the US National Science Foundation, Cora Marett, as well as representatives from the US Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.  

Senior scientists advising the US government at the meeting include 10 Arctic specialists, including marine scientist Prof Carlos Duarte, director of the Oceans Institute at the University of Western Australia.

In early April, Duarte warned that the Arctic summer sea ice was melting at a rate faster than predicted by conventional climate models, and could be ice free as early as 2015 - rather than toward the end of the century, as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected in 2007. He said:

"The Arctic situation is snowballing: dangerous changes in the Arctic derived from accumulated anthropogenic green house gases lead to more activities conducive to further greenhouse gas emissions. This situation has the momentum of a runaway train."

It is finally sinking in that the warming Arctic is creating a new atmospheric reality for the northern hemisphere.   The polar jet stream now loops far to the south in slow moving Rossby waves that can bring sustained weather extremes - floods and droughts - to North America, Asia and Europe with crippling impacts on global food production.

US national security officials have taken an increasing interest in the destabilising impact of climate change. In February this year, the US Department of Defense (DoD) released its new Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, which noted that global warming will have:

"... significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to greater competition for more limited and critical life-sustaining resources like food and water."

And all Alberta and Ottawa can think about is how to move millions of barrels of dilbit a day to Asian markets, no matter the perils to B.C. and the environmental havoc of burning high-carbon fossil fuels.   They can't bother with the Arctic.   That would only contradict their energy superpowerdom narrative.