State of the Arctic – 11/9/09

The state of the Arctic ice in November 2009 is the worst of any November in recorded history.  Arctic areal sea ice extent didn’t break the 2007 record for the absolute minimum, but it has never been this low in November.  Further, the extent continues to be nowhere near the climatological average, just like it hasn’t been for most of this year.  As I’ve stated before, that’s indicative that a new phase of the Arctic has been reached.  For three years in a row, sea ice extent has bottomed out at well below two standard deviations from the average extent.  For three years in a row, all-time ice-extent lows have been reached at some point in the season.

Here is my State of the Arctic post for Sep and for Aug.  I didn’t post anything in late October because I had a feeling a record low extent would be set shortly, which it did.  The big change since my last post is the presence of weather conditions that have kept ice from refreezing at the rate it normally does this time of year. Two years ago, adverse weather conditions developed during the summer.  This year, they’re around in the fall.  The effect is the same: relatively little ice compared to climatological norms.  Here is a satellite representation of Arctic sea ice conditions from yesterday:

Compared to the minimum reached earlier this year, there has been a recovery in ice in the Canadian archipelago, along the northeast coast of Greenland and from the Arctic Sea toward Siberia.

For comparison purposes, here is the similar picture from August:

Here is the time series graph through yesterday:

Notice the rapid refreezing that occurred in 2007, but which didn’t happen so far this fall.  No, this fall, a high-pressure system sat over the Beaufort Sea, while unusually low pressure dominated the Barents Sea, according to the NSIDC.  This brought 6C (11F!) warmer than normal air temperatures up from Siberia, preventing robust ice growth in that area.

Sea ice extent averaged over October 2009 was 7.50 million sq. km., 1.79 million sq. km. below the 1979 to 2000 mean for October, and only 730,000 sq. km. above the record low for the month, which occurred in October 2007.  I expect the average extent for November to be very close to 2007’s, perhaps a little higher, perhaps a little lower, but in poor shape compared to climatological conditions.

The NSIDC released a report at the beginning of November with an additional time series representation of conditions. It shows the last two years’ worth of time series data, plus 2005’s time series, with +/- 2 standard deviations from the climatological average on the same graph:

This graph was made before 2009’s time series line crossed over 2007’s (as in the graph above), but the point remains: ice extent conditions in the Arctic have entered a new state, a state much lower than the 1979-2000 average.  The volume of ice has decreased year after year recently, leaving one- or two-year old ice the predominant type in the Arctic.  This ice is less capable of withstanding the warmer temperatures that October’s weather patterns produced.  New ice is less able to grow around the younger ice.  While refreezing will occur every winter, the times when ice does or does not refreeze is more dependent on favorable weather regimes.  Additionally, since the Arctic waters absorbed large amounts of solar radiation again this year, the water is warmer than it used to be this time of year.  It has to release a lot of heat to the atmosphere before freezing can occur.  Thus, the past few falls have seen ice growth in fits and starts, remaining well out of the 2 standard deviations of extent, which is becoming increasingly statistically significant.

The U.S. Senate is slowly drawing closer to considering climate and energy legislation.  The 2009 Copenhagen climate summit starts in less than a month.  So there are important policy decision points staring us in the face.  What will we do about them?  The Arctic has demonstrated quite clearly that it has shifted to a new state.  The consequences of a warming planet are showing up all over, in places and in ways that were unforeseen even a few years ago.  The rate of warming and of other climate change indicators are occurring much faster than recent predictions indicated, exposing our lack of understanding of the complex systems in play.  Do we really want to keep trying to kick the can down the road and letting some other group to deal with things?  Or do we recognize that it damage to ecosystems and societies is already occurring and now is the time to act to prevent catastrophic situations?

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Apophis & Antoher Successful Private Rocket Launch

Scientists have continued to refine the asteroid Apophis‘ future trajectory.  Their most recent calculations show a decreasing probability of a potential strike by Apophis on Earth in 2036.  Previous work had already discounted any strike in 2029.  The recent announcement holds some interesting language:

“Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million.”

So the probability decreased from 1-in-45,000 to 1-in-250,000.  Notice how much unlikelier the chance seems when the world million is used.

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Private entry into space comes closer to reality every day.  Progress is measured by relatively short-lived but attention-driven events like rocket launches.  A reusable private rocket test was successful last week.  Colorado had numerous connections to the launch, with launch services provided by UP Aerospace of Denver, CO and the program directed by Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Littleton, CO.

New Mexico is trying to secure its place in space history with the world’s first purpose-driven spaceport, currently under construction.  Lockheed Martin has already has three successful test launches from Spaceport America.  Hopefully there are many more to follow.

Monitoring Ice and Water Over Antarctica

NASA began flights on Oct. 15th that will monitor Antarctic ice over the next 6 years.  Aircraft will be mounted with instruments that will be able to penetrate the ice, something satellite-based sensors have a very hard time doing.  What’s the big variable they’re trying to monitor?  The amount of water under the ice.  Water between the ice and the bedrock allows the ice sheet and glaciers to slide along horizontally toward the ocean faster than if there were no water.  Melt at the surface of ice sheets makes its way down through the sheet, just like every stream and river on land.

The flights are a sort-of temporary, albeit inadequate, replacement for NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite, known as ICESat.  The current ICESat has been in orbit since 2003 and is nearing the end of its lifetime. The next satellite, ICESat-II, is scheduled to launch in 2014 at the earliest.

These kinds of platforms need funding, of course, which the Cons despise.  It’s not a giveaway to a war contractor, so why bother giving NASA money to monitor climate change, which they are trying to exacerbate?  Places like Antarctica need constant monitoring with the most advanced technologies available.  Processes and feedbacks that climate models currently don’t have or have only poor representations of need to be researched and implemented.

Beyond 4 Degrees – Catastrophic Double-Digit Temperature Increases by Mid-Century?

The UK Met Office hosted a conference in last month (Sep 2009) titled, “4 Degrees and Beyond” at Oxford University.  The bottom-line message is confirmation of what many climate activists have been saying for years: there is a much higher potential for much more warming than commonly thought.  The numbers are staggering in their implications, as I’ll detail below.

First, what did these climatologists do?  They ran the IPCC  high emissions scenario (i.e. business as usual (BAU)) in one of the few global climate models capable of analyzing strong carbon cycle feedbacks, a necessary test to truly reveal details of what our current emissions path could bring to the planet.  The reason this test is necessary was apparent in the results: the same warming that resulted from a BAU scenario without the feedbacks by 2099 occurred instead around 2060 in the BAU scenario with the feedbacks.  What implications does that level of warming by 2060 have for the globe by 2099?  Substantially higher temperatures, especially for some regions:

• The Arctic could warm by up to  27.4°F [15.2 °C] for a high-emissions scenario, enhanced by melting of snow and ice causing more of the Sun’s radiation to be absorbed.
• For Africa, the western and southern regions are expected to experience both large warming (up to 18 °F [10 °C]) and drying.
• Some land areas could warm by 12 degrees [7C] or more.
• Rainfall could decrease by 20% or more in some areas, although there is a spread in the magnitude of drying. All computer models indicate reductions in rainfall over western and southern Africa, Central America, the Mediterranean and parts of coastal Australia.
• In other areas, such as India, rainfall could increase by 20% or more. Higher rainfall increases the risk of river flooding.

Climate Bill Action In The Senate – 9/30/09

The Senate version of the 2009 energy and climate bill, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, has made some small progress this week.  The draft version of their version of the legislation, largely constructed thanks to Sen. Boxer and Sen. Kerry, is reported to include a 20% reduction of 2005 GHG emissions by 2020, which is slightly better than the 17% goal in the House ACES bill.  This version should have been released after a 11:30A EDT press event in D.C. today.  Like the House bill, a cap-and-trade system is established.  Also, pollution allowances will be generated, but no distribution plan has been laid out yet.

It is well worth noting that GHG emissions are estimated to have been reduced by 6% below 2005 levels thanks to the Republican’s Great Recession.  So the 20% reduction is really an additional 14% reduction, according to the Senate version, and an additional 11% reduction according to the House version.  Which means it is very, very doable.  Energy efficiency measures alone would likely help us achieve those reductions in time for the 2020 goal.  Between now and then, as climate change effects continue to take hold, and political willpower to do something about climate change hopefully grows, technologies will be developed and marketed and it will become normal to reduce our greenhouse forcing.

Why Climate Action Is Lacking

From Paul Krugman’s Sunday op-ed [emphasis mine]:

But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t.

Indeed.  The G20 summit meeting that just ended failed to come up with any kind of viable plan or steps toward establishing a plan wherein developed nations would pay for the low-carbon development and emissions reductions their actions necessitate.  The result is the continuation of an immoral failure of the U.S. and other nations.  We are not the greatest nations on Earth.  We are countries of unsustainable resource consumers hell-bent on leaving future generations a severely depleted planet.

Study: $1240 TRILLION In Costs Due To Climate Change With No Adaptation

Many scientists and activists have stated, with good reason, that the 2007 IPCC 4th Assessment Report (4AR) didn’t look deeply enough into the potential costs of doing nothing to change the globe’s GHG emissions.  The good news is that in addition to developing a more robust research methodology to dig into the unknowns of the science surrounding climate change, work has also taken place to assign realistic figures of the costs of adapting to climate change.  The figures available for the past few years were viewed as having major shortcomings: unrealistic assumptions, not accounting for enough of the effects (which have interdependencies and feedbacks of their own), etc.

A new study was issued earlier this month by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) that worked to address some of those concerns.  For reference, I’m going to discuss the Section 8 material.  It is not without its own set of caveats and disadvantages: it looks at the IPCC A2 scenario, for instance, even though our actual emissions have already outpaced this mid-range emissions scenario.  There’s another equally out-dated caveat that I’ll talk about more below.  So, take the results with a grain of salt – realize that these costs continue to be an underestimate of what we’re likely to face!

With that in mind, what are some of the results of this study?  Without adaptation, the mean net present value of climate change impacts under the A2 scenario is $1240 Trillion.

State of the Arctic 9/18/09

This post comes about a week earlier than my end-of-the-month version because it looks like the minimum areal extent of arctic sea ice has likely been reached for 2009.  Allowing for the possibility for the final, official number to come out later this year, the minimum extent should come in near 5.10 million sq. km. (1.97 million sq.mi.).  This places 2009’s extent as the third-lowest on record, behind the record low extent in 2007 and last year’s 2nd place finish.  The difference between 2008 and 2009 is about 580,000 sq. km. (220,000 sq. mi.) and this year’s minimum is 970,000 sq. km. (370,000 sq. mi.) above the record low set in 2007.

In contrast to longer-term conditions, the 2009 minimum is 1.61 million sq. km. (620,000 sq. mi.) below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum and 1.28 million sq. km. (490,000 sq. mi.) below the thirty-year 1979 to 2008 average minimum.  Another way of describing this year’s minimum is it also fell well below the 2nd standard deviation below the median, just as it did in 2007 and 2008.  Does this mean the danger to the arctic ice sheet is over?  After all, 2007 saw the minimum and the extent has only increased since then.  The answer is no.  As I wrote in my last two monthly posts, the low extent this year instead indicates that a new range of conditions appear to be “normal” for the Arctic.  The areal extent that was observed in the 20th century is less and less likely to be observed in the 21st century.

Keep in mind that these areal minimums (3 of them in a row) have occurred when solar input has been at an abnormally long minimum and during a moderate-strength La Nina event.  Those La Nina conditions have since changed to El Nino conditions, which continue to strengthen this fall.  After the maximum intensity, expected sometime this winter, 2010 is pretty likely to see record high global average temperatures.  We already know that the Arctic has seen the fastest rise in temperatures than anywhere else on the globe so far – how will even more warming on top of the human warming affect the ice and ocean next year?  Does anyone seriously think conditions will significantly improve?  How about when the sun’s activity increases?  Things might oscillate around and one year or another might exhibit slightly different characteristics, but things have fundamentally changed.  Unless and until we get our GHG emissions under serious control, the Arctic will be a very different place in the 21st century than it was in the 20th.

An extensive report on the State of the Climate for 2008 by the American Meteorological Society has been issued.  I’ve found a number of interesting items I want to write about already with more to discover, I’m sure.  Look for upcoming posts about the 2008 data and tie-ins to even more recent results like this one.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

AMS’ State of the Climate in 2008

I got my AMS State of the Climate in 2008.  I’m browsing through it now.  I’ve come across a number of interesting results – mostly about the wide-ranging impacts the moderate La Nina had on the planet’s weather patterns and observations last year.  With the La Nina over and a new El Nino continuing to intensify, 2009 and 2010 will hold interesting phenomena as well.

I plan on posting some tidbits about 2008 results and put them in context with how things have developed so far this year.  Between sorting through the big report, work and a modeling class, I might not post as often or as much as I’d like.  We’ll see what happens.

How Climate Change is Affecting Arctic Ecology

A study examining how climate change is affecting arctic ecological dynamics was published in last Friday’s edition of the journal Science.  When scientists and activists state that the Arctic has warmed significantly beyond what the rest of the planet has yet experienced, thanks to human-forced climate change, climate change denyers and action delayers often respond with the unintelligent, “So what?”.  Well, this study is one of the first to address the “so what” in a really systematic, meaningful way.  Empirical data is being sought and reported on.  And the prognosis isn’t good.

From the study’s abstract [emphasis mine]:

Despite the buffering effect of landscape heterogeneity, Arctic ecosystems and the trophic relationships that structure them have been severely perturbed. These rapid changes may be a bellwether of changes to come at lower latitudes and have the potential to affect ecosystem services related to natural resources, food production, climate regulation, and cultural integrity.