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 Warming Continues to Race Ahead Where It Matters Worst.

Where does global warming matter more than anywhere else?  It matters most where it's already worst - in the Arctic.

Many of you have endured another cold, snowy winter.  Out here we've had the opposite - warm and dry conditions.  Call it climate change and blame the warming Arctic.  Bad as the winter phenomenon has become, it's the summers that could be the real threat.

We know that the Arctic is heating faster than the planet as a whole. Consequently, there is more energy in the Arctic which can be transmitted to the atmosphere. Much of the excess heat is transferred to the atmosphere in the late fall or early winter. This extra energy is connected to what’s called Arctic geopotential height, which has increased during the same times of the year. As a consequence, the Jetstream might weaken in the cold seasons.

But what about summer? Have these changes been detected then too? Well just recently, a paper was published in that answered this question. The authors, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and from the University of Potsdam reported on three measures of atmospheric dynamics (1) zonal winds, (2) eddy kinetic energy, and (3) amplitude of the fast-moving Rossby waves. Rossby waves are very large waves in the upper atmospheric winds. They are important because of their large influence on weather.

The authors found that the summer zonal winds have weakened. The reason for the weakening is that since the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, the temperature difference between the Arctic and the lower latitudes is getting smaller. It is this temperature difference which maintains the wind speeds. The authors also found that eddy kinetic energy is decreasing.

So what does all this mean? Well two things. First, it means that there are either fewer or less intense summer storms or a combination of both. But secondly, it means that weather patterns can get “stuck”. Storms are excellent at breaking up persistent weather patterns, and bringing cool and moist air from ocean regions to land zones. With fewer storms, “warm weather conditions endure, resulting in buildup of heat and drought.”

The authors looked to the future to inquire about how things would continue to change. They find that continued global warming will increase the risk of heat waves. We all know that the warming temperature will make heat waves more likely. But added to this, “stickiness” of weather patterns will play a big role as well.

This "stickiness" causes weather systems to stall over one area for an extended time.  It can result in heat waves that scorch crops in the fields.  As we saw in Calgary, it can stall heavy rainstorms over a place for days, storms that before this Arctic warming would move steadily from west to east.  

There's no fix for this, no cure.  The Arctic is going to continue to warm.  That changes the surface - the tundra and permafrost, the sea ice and the Arctic Ocean waters.  The tundra thaws, dries out and - peat will be peat - catches fire releasing black soot into the air that winds up coating places like the Greenland ice shield.  As the tundra goes it exposes the permafrost beneath which also melts, releasing into the atmosphere the methane it's been securely holding for hundreds of thousands of years.  The warming has caused the loss of Arctic sea ice.  The winter sea ice cover is apparently heading for a record low this year. That sea ice has kept the Arctic cold by reflecting solar radiation back into space. Remove a patch of reflective sea ice and you expose a patch of heat absorbent water.

So, sure, you've had a helluva winter but up there they've had what is for them unusually warm conditions.  Who can forget a couple of years ago when Atlanta, Georgia was paralyzed for days by snow and ice in February while a village in Alaska basked in mid-60s temperatures?  Alaska, February, 60s.  That's not the way it's supposed to work but it does now.

Here's the kicker that no one wants to talk about.  What's in store for the Arctic over the balance of this century?  

US scientists say that by the end of this century temperatures in the Arctic may for part of each year reach 13°C above pre-industrial levels.

James Overland, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and colleagues, writing in the American Geophysical Union’s journal Earth’s Future, say average temperature projections show an Arctic-wide end of century increase of 13°C in the late autumn and 5°C in late spring for a business-as-usual emission scenario. 

From Russia to Europe to North America we're already getting whipsawed by the changes underway in the Arctic.  What we need to understand what we're getting now are the "early onset" impacts.  There are probably much bigger changes coming to us from the far north.