A new study shows that the excess heat developed in newly ice free zones is being transported beneath the central ice. This heat is sequestered in a layer beneath the surface. But it contains enough energy to keep large regions of the Beaufort Sea ice free during most months if mixed, according to the new research.
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Robert in New Orleans
/ August 30, 2018Looks like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude is trouble. 😉
Welcome Back
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Joy Hughes
/ August 30, 2018What happened? Stopped scribbling? I’m not much of a video watcher…
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kassy
/ August 30, 2018The Blog and the YouTube are 2 different channels with different audiences.
For the blog i would go with “most important article of the week”. Something which is hugely debated and needs nuance, important new science that needs to be discussed, Tesla/Clean energy general update at least once a quarter etc and then write the usual article for those.
Then you can post most important v-blog for the day after in the comment section.
(It’s a much neater cycle then the YT comment sections multiplying by v-blogs 😉 ).
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Exposing the Big Game
/ August 30, 2018Reblogged this on The Extinction Chronicles.
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Anne
/ August 30, 2018Agree with Kassi and look forward to when your word recognition program is up and running so we (old school types) can read or even skim quickly. Not always time or means to watch YouTube and I’m not really temperamentally suited but it’s great that you are using that platform with a much wider reach. This stuff is really urgent.
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wili
/ August 30, 2018an interesting and scary article.
This part, though, I found a bit…confusing:
“Arctic winds are driving the warmer water north, but below the surface waters.”
I understand that warm water evaporates more, so becomes saltier and heavier and so sinks. But I’m unclear on how wind could drive an underwater current. Is it just pulled along with the wind-driven water above it or something?
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wili
/ August 30, 2018In any case, the conclusion of the article is stunning indeed: “should it be mixed up to the surface, there is enough heat to entirely melt the sea-ice pack that covers this region for most of the year”
There has been much disagreement about how soon there could be a year-long (or nearly year long) ice free (or nearly ice free) Arctic Ocean, with most well-informed people seeming to say that such a continuous “Blue Ocean Event” would be decades to centuries away, if it ever happens at all.
This is saying that it could basically happen any time , if the conditions are right. Presumably those conditions would look something like the Great Arctic Cyclone (GAC) of 2012, or perhaps something even stronger, that would both break up the weak and thin ice and also create waves big enough to stir up this deeper, hotter (and saltier) water.
Wow!
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kassy
/ August 31, 2018It will be interesting to see if this years melt patterns repeat.
These are mostly open Siberian side with the ice hanging on on the Canadian side. If you look at temperature maps Siberia looks very warm compared to Canada and the water there has been absorbing heat for a while.
So i would expect the weaker ice there and stronger ice on the other side where it protects the warm water in the deep for a while.
If we get the same distribution of ice cover with more heat delivered into the artic which is a given (for example the next great El Nino spike, and possibly a series of warmer temperatures over the next years) this would allow more opening and warming and storminess on the Siberian front. We might also see a repeat of the ice breaking away from the north of Greenland which meant that the remainig ice is basically adrift.
All the Arctic seas have warmer saltier water below but for the run up to a BOE event i expect mixing/storms to manifest on the Siberian side. If winds then move the remaining drift central arctic ice into that region that would take a chunk of that ice.
I think only after that the warm deep water in the article will come in to play but this is just my guess on how the events in the planetary cooler up top will play out.
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kassy
/ August 31, 2018Pests to eat more crops in warmer world
Insects will be at the heart of worldwide crop losses as the climate warms up, predicts a US study.
Scientists estimate the pests will be eating 10-25% more wheat, rice and maize across the globe for each one degree rise in climate temperature.
Warming drives insect energy use and prompts them to eat more. Their populations can also increase.
This is bound to put pressure on the world’s leading cereal crops, says study co-author Curtis Deutsch.
“Insect pests currently consume the equivalent of one out of every 12 loaves of bread (before they ever get made). By the end of this century, if climate change continues unabated, insects will be eating more than two loaves of every 12 that could have been made,” the University of Washington, US, researcher told BBC News.
and more on:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45358643
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kassy
/ August 31, 2018Most land-based ecosystems worldwide risk ‘major transformation’ due to climate change
The researchers used fossil records of global vegetation change that occurred during a period of post-glacial warming to project the magnitude of ecosystem transformations likely in the future under various greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.
They found that under a “business as usual” emissions scenario, in which little is done to rein in heat-trapping greenhouse-gas emissions, vegetation changes across the planet’s wild landscapes will likely be more far-reaching and disruptive than earlier studies suggested.
The changes would threaten global biodiversity and derail vital services that nature provides to humanity, such as water security, carbon storage and recreation, according to study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.
“If we allow climate change to go unchecked, the vegetation of this planet is going to look completely different than it does today, and that means a huge risk to the diversity of the planet,” said Overpeck, who conceived the idea for the study with corresponding author Stephen T. Jackson of the U.S. Geological Survey.
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Overpeck stressed that the team’s results are not merely hypothetical. Some of the expected vegetational changes are already underway in places like the American West and Southwest, where forest dieback and massive wildfires are transforming landscapes.
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the new study, which took five years to complete, is the first to use paleoecological data — the records of past vegetation change present in ancient pollen grains and plant fossils from hundreds of sites worldwide — to project the magnitude of future ecosystem changes on a global scale.
The team focused on vegetation changes that occurred during Earth’s last deglaciation, a period of warming that began 21,000 years ago and that was roughly comparable in magnitude (4 to 7 degrees Celsius, or 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit) to the warming expected in the next 100 to 150 years if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced significantly.
Because the amount of warming in the two periods is similar, a post-glacial to modern comparison provides “a conservative estimate of the extent of ecological transformation to which the planet will be committed under future climate scenarios,” the authors wrote.
The estimate is considered conservative in part because the rate of projected future global warming is at least an order of magnitude greater than that of the last deglaciation and is therefore potentially far more disruptive.
…
for the details see:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180830143207.htm
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Playamart - Zeebra Designs
/ September 4, 2018I’ve spent almost 20 years without heating, cooling, television, etc while living closely to the earth, (and thriving there) – yet every three of four years I negate a lot of that by flying back to the USA to see loved ones. And now in transit with three days in the republic of Panama, I’ll be New Orleans bound on Wednesday night/Sept 5… and dear Gordon seems to be clearing a lovely path as a welcome-back greeting!
The television options offer little – it seems that public scandals take priority over Tropical Storm updates. Online options aren’t that great; your posts (and Wunderground/Tropical were always my favorites – consider me spoiled!
I appreciate your videos when I am in a spot with Wifi, though it is usually a public spot – alas, and the videos ‘drop’ if I leave them on the screen to watch when back home. I miss your posts/updates w/the queue of feedback, as they are the best way to catch up ‘pronto’ when back online.
And now in PTY, I’m finding that even Wunderground Cat 6 hasn’t updated since yesterday.
Not whining, but wanted to say that your posts are greatly missed!
Lisa
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