For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Warm water appearing in Kongsfjorden
On the way to and from Greenland, the West-Spitsbergen current was measured twice, at 80° and 79° N. This current consists of warm (+2 - 4 C°) Atlantic water and is an extension of the Gulf Stream system. Usually the West-Spitsbergen current disappears down to a 100 m below the surface before it reaches 79° N.
However, this year the current was active all the way to the sea surface, an observation never made before. The satellite images showed that Kongsfjorden is ice-free, so “Lance” set course towards Ny-Alesund so we could find the reason for an open fjord. Usually there is sea ice in Kongsfjorden at this time of year, at least from the Kongsvegen glacier front and out to Ny-Alesund. The Kongsfjorden experiences ocean swells from the northwest, which breaks up the ice; and strong winds from southeast that brings the broken ice out of the fjord. However, this year we found that the entire Kongsfjorden was filled with warm Atlantic water, so the ice had melted completely.
In the Arctic the Atlantic Ocean water appear at 100 m depth or more, and is thus isolated from the sea ice. If the Atlantic Ocean water now is starting to rise up towards the surface, the future of the spreading of sea ice is indeed in peril!
_________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
I stuck this in another thread, but it is probably more interesting here. After hitting the highest N. Hemisphere snowcover in 40 years, it is now back to below normal. One thing that I've read is that there is no trend in winter snowcover, but there is a trend in snowcover melting earlier. This year would seem to be an exaggerated version of that.
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
wxman wrote:
I stuck this in another thread, but it is probably more interesting here. After hitting the highest N. Hemisphere snowcover in 40 years, it is now back to below normal. One thing that I've read is that there is no trend in winter snowcover, but there is a trend in snowcover melting earlier. This year would seem to be an exaggerated version of that.
I recall higher precipitation was predicted with GW/CC. If it's cold enough it will fall as snow. That said, last time I looked I don't remember there being a clear trend in precipitation.
Hamburg, Germany - Marine scientists in Germany have issued an alarming warning about the radically alteration of the circulation of water in the Arctic Ocean. The findings by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM- GEOMAR) in Kiel, Germany, have dire implications for climate change in the Northern Hemisphere.
Hitherto, the circulation of the Arctic Ocean was driven by the formation of sea ice rather than the inflow of North Atlantic deep water.
Recently, however, the shrinkage of sea ice due to global warming has resulted in the startling reversal, according to the study by the German scientists which is published in the new journal Nature Geoscience.
The latest findings are based on geo-chemical analyses of sediment cores taken from the depths of the Arctic Ocean as part of the EU- funded ECORD (European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling) project.
The Arctic Ocean only has a limited exchange with the global ocean, whereby the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard is the only deep water connection to the Atlantic Ocean. It is this connection that supplies oxygen to the deep Arctic Ocean.
Today a pronounced and stable freshwater layer at the surface originating from inputs of the large Russian rivers almost completely prevents any significant deep water formation in the Arctic Ocean itself.
But the findings by Brian Haley and colleagues from the IFM-GEOMAR now show that this was an exception rather than the rule for most of the past 15 million years.
The Kiel team made their discovery when they carried out geo- chemical analyses on sediments of the Arctic Coring Expedition and of an expedition by the German seagoing research vessel, the Polarstern. The sediment cores had been taken from the seabed near the North Pole on the Lomonosov Ridge between 1,000 und 1,200 metres water depth.
The scientists were particularly interested in changes in the isotope ratio of the element neodymium. Neodymium has different isotope ratios depending on the age and type of rock.
When rocks are weathered, the element is washed into the sea, where it provides information on the sources of the water in the ocean. The cores enabled the researchers to study changes in the sources of water in the Arctic Ocean going back 15 million years.
The scientists were surprised to find that the isotope signature for much of the history of the ocean is very different from the signature found today.
The isotope ratios in much of the core correspond to basalt rocks such as those found in the Kara Sea area. This suggests that for most of the last 15 million years, the seawater above the sediments came from within the Arctic Ocean itself.
In contrast, today much of the deep water in the Arctic Ocean flows in through the Fram Strait from the Atlantic.
_________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:57 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Ah another denialist ploy: the IPCC predicted an evaporation trend but none has been observed. Of course the IPCC never made any such claim and it is the denialist loons who are busy trying to act like scientists (without any qualifications whatsoever) and infer that SST trends should lead to comparable evaporation trends. No you dimwits, SSTs increase CAPE which determines the thermal energy of the surface air parcels. The SSTs can increase tropospheric temperatures without requiring massive amounts of evaporation. Evaporation is determined by changes in the surface radiative fluxes, which are small.
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:22 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
dissident wrote:
Ah another denialist ploy: the IPCC predicted an evaporation trend but none has been observed. Of course the IPCC never made any such claim and it is the denialist loons who are busy trying to act like scientists (without any qualifications whatsoever) and infer that SST trends should lead to comparable evaporation trends. No you dimwits, SSTs increase CAPE which determines the thermal energy of the surface air parcels. The SSTs can increase tropospheric temperatures without requiring massive amounts of evaporation. Evaporation is determined by changes in the surface radiative fluxes, which are small.
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:46 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Thanks for the articles, Tanada and dissident. And dissident, for the sake of some of us (lazy) non-specialists, could you spell out the acronyms, SST and CAPE. Thanks.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3431 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:09 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
dohboi wrote:
Thanks for the articles, Tanada and dissident. And dissident, for the sake of some of us (lazy) non-specialists, could you spell out the acronyms, SST and CAPE. Thanks.
From context I am assuming he means SST, Sea Surface Temperature and CAPE, Convective Available Potential Energy. The first is how warm the surface waters are and the second is how well the water exchanges heat both internally and with the atmosphere above the surface. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Once again, I'm eternally grateful.
Is anyone speculating about how all of this new turbulence in Arctic waters and the intrusion of the Gulf Stream so far north might affect our old friends, the clathrates?
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:53 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
sjn,
Sorry, I should have used different wording and did not mean it as an attack on you. But the "lack" of evaporation trend has now replaced the "lack" of any SST trend as the new wail of the denialists. More grasping at straws by ideologues who cannot escape the tiny box enclosing their minds. Really, even rudimentary computer AI can think more flexibly.
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:19 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Back to the current sea ice conditions, Cryosphere Today actually shows sea ice continuing to increase into March. Obvious question is this due to muti-year ice being flushed out or to the somewhat colder NH conditions this winter (or both). How rapidly melting occurs will be very telling.
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:37 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
dissident wrote:
sjn,
Sorry, I should have used different wording and did not mean it as an attack on you. But the "lack" of evaporation trend has now replaced the "lack" of any SST trend as the new wail of the denialists. More grasping at straws by ideologues who cannot escape the tiny box enclosing their minds. Really, even rudimentary computer AI can think more flexibly.
No problem. What gets me about denialists is their willingness to embrace the Global Cooling meme. If they are skeptics, as they claim, shouldn't they be a little more circumspect? It seems they will run with anything that re-enforces their belief that humans can't have a large scale impact on the environment!
Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday.
Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006, the U.N. agency said.
UNEP warned that further ice loss could have dramatic consequences particularly in India, whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers.
The west coast of North America, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected, it said.
"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine," UNEP's executive director Achim Steiner said in a statement. "The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice."
_________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3431 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:32 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Looks like we are topping out under 14 Mkm^2, well below the long term average. The next couple of weeks is when it normally starts dropping so we will see pretty soon what the top for 2008 officially was. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
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