#arctic warming

[madeleineengland]

#SiberiaIsBurning

4.5milions hectares of forests in Siberia were burned in 2019! It's an area bigger than the State of Belgium!

Siberia is burning!

The forests are burning, the animals are burning alive, entire villages have been wiped away by the flames in complete silence.

The Government is doing nothing, and no one is saying anything.

The interventions to stop the fires are deemed too costly, and no one is saying anything.

The amount of CO2 released by these fires which are involving mines too and thus releasing methane as well, is enough to poison air and water for everyone. The permafrost may melt, and release unkown viruses and make the mortality rate skyrocket. The Artic is melting faster because of the increase in temperature due to the smoke of the fires.

Spread the indignation for the silence that is enveloping this catastrophe!

We must be concerned! All of us.

This is very dangerous. This is global warming.

And it broke my heart by thinking at the poor animals burned alive. Thousands animals dead!

Share this information please, because many of our problems got silenced just because world doesn't care. Politicians don't care. But when all of our forests will die in a fire, we will be the next one to go. We and the animals.

Here a testimony by one of the volunteers in Siberia:

“A bear walked out of the burning forest: thin, part of its fur burned, exhausted.

He approached the men who were trying to put down the fire, not manacing at all, as if it was asking for help.

The bear drank the water and the biscuits (they only had that) that the men gave him, and then it walked away toward that part of the forest still not reached by the flames.

Many men started crying watching the bear walk away.

What may have happened to the other animals of the forest?”

This has been recounted by one of the volunteers in Siberia who have been trying for days to put down the fires that have already wiped away millions of hectares of forest, that I repeat it's an area equivalent to the Belgium.

How many puppies haven’t managed to escape? How much smog? How many will die because of this?

This is a catastrophe! The russian government finally started handling the fire after the info blasted everywhere. But it's not enough. The forest is still burning because the fire is too much big!

Please spread the hashtag in your networks #SiberiaIsBurning or #SiberiaIsOnFire

(Thanks to @sonoundiocreaturaottusa )

[claudioarango]

Calentamiento !!!

[sciencenewsforstudents]

A Siberian town hit 100 degrees, setting a new record for the Arctic Circle

Verkhoyansk’s high temperature, which has yet to be confirmed, follows a six-month period of record heat in the region.

The remote Siberian town of Verkhoyansk is known for its extreme cold: Winter temperatures often dip below –50° Celsius. But on June 20, temperatures in the town soared to a high of 38° C (100.4° Fahrenheit). If confirmed by the World Meteorological Association, that marks the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle.

Verkhoyansk has experienced extreme heat before: On July 25, 1988, the town hit a then-record of 37.3° C (99.1° F). The new high, which smashes that 32-year record, comes on the heels of a historically hot May around the globe, and especially in Siberia, which is in the grips of an ongoing heat wave.

Globally, May was 0.63 degrees C warmer than average May temperatures from 1981 to 2010, enough to set a new record, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. But in parts of Siberia, particularly in northwestern Siberia, May temperatures were as much as 10 degrees C higher than average. The anomaly was so marked that the region’s heat wave would represent a 1 in 100,000 year event — at least in a world without climate change, climate scientist Martin Stendel of the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen, tweeted on June 9. With climate change, however, such Arctic heat waves are expected to become more common, along with melting permafrost and increasing wildfires (SN: 8/2/19).

The new benchmark highlights how the Arctic region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. Average temperatures in Siberia from December to May were also the warmest on record going back to 1979, according to Copernicus. When combined with data from NASA going back to 1880, the researchers suggest, this six-month period is likely unprecedented within the last 140 years.

Wildfires (red dots) burned across Siberia on June 21, fueled by record-high temperatures in May and drying soils. Climate change–driven warming in the Arctic is not only melting permafrost but also leading to earlier growing seasons (SN: 1/3/20). Combined with extreme heat, these factors are expected to lead to more wildfires in the region. CREDIT: NASA WORLDVIEW, EARTH OBSERVING SYSTEM DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEM (EOSDIS)

[supercalvin]

Hello. I'm sorry for intruding. (I really love your work btw but this is not about it). Siberian forests are burning and the Russian government doesn't care one bit. I tried to get it viral but I don't have followers. Right now I'm asking for help. The tag is #savesiberianforest. Please.

Here’s some info!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49125391

[rjzimmerman]

Greenland’s Snow and Ice started melting in early April this year, weeks earlier than normal. Unprecedented early surface melting is well underway on the southeastern coastline now. Greenland’s ice cap, which hangs above the northern hemisphere...

Excerpt from this Daily Kos story:

Greenland’s ice cap, which hangs above the northern hemisphere like Damocles’ sword, started melting early this April, weeks earlier than the previous record date, and now another even stronger melt event is underway. Storms in the middle north Atlantic have driven up heat domes over Scandinavia and Greenland by winds that pull heat out of the warm ocean, warming the air above it.

The previous extreme years for Greenland melting, 2010 and 2012 began early and were associated with similar domes of warm air that extended from the surface to tens of thousands of feet (greater than 5000 meters) above Greenland. It’s a weather feature called blocking and Greenland is one of the places in the world where blocking can be persistent. There’s a strong chance that this spring’s April blocking and warmth will continue through the summer months.

The melting of Greenland’s many glaciers threaten to inundate global coastlines in coming decades, but the U.S. east coast is already vulnerable to the immediate impacts of intense melt seasons because fresh water decreases the overturning of warm salty Atlantic ocean water in the subpolar seas. Recent research has confirmed that the Gulf Stream slowed down following the intense Greenland melt seasons of 2010 and 2012. That slow down caused sea level to jump up along the east coast from Florida to Cape Cod because a weaker gulf stream allows the high sea surface heights on the seaward side of the Gulf Stream to push ashore. Flooding of the U.S. Navy’s largest facility, Naval station Norfolk is particularly concerning.

[science-criticaltheory]

One of America's 2 Icebreakers Is Falling Apart - Trump's Wall Could Block Funding for a New One by Nicholas Kusnetz

As Congress put off funding for new icebreakers, Russia built a fleet of more than 40. Now the Polar Star is one of only two U.S. military icebreakers in operation. Credit: Petty Officer 2nd Class Grant DeVuyst/U.S. Coast Guard

As climate change begins to open new areas to shipping, the need for new icebreakers has grown. But funding could get pushed back again.

The U.S. military's only heavy icebreaker suffered more equipment breakdowns during its mission to Antarctica this season, adding urgency to the calls for Congress to approve long-delayed funding to replace the aging polar fleet.

As the icebreaker Polar Star led a supply mission to a research station in early January, its crew faced power outages that forced it to shut down the ship's power plant and reboot the electrical system. Leaks forced the Coast Guard to send divers into the icy water to repair the seal around the propeller shaft. And one of two systems that provide drinking water for the crew also failed, the Coast Guard said.

In its previous trip to Antarctica, the crew scrambled to patch a leak in the engine room that at one point was pouring 20 gallons a minute into the compartment.

"If a catastrophic event, such as getting stuck in the ice, were to happen to the Healy in the Arctic or to the Polar Star near Antarctica, the U.S. Coast Guard is left without a self-rescue capability," the Coast Guard said. 

Those are the military's only icebreakers, and the Polar Star is 12 years past its life expectancy.

InsideClimate News reported late last year on the decades-long effort to build new icebreakers as a warming Arctic increases ship traffic and access to natural resources. Even as the ice melts, unpredictable floes can still trap ships. The opening of the Arctic has also emerged as a national security priority for the Navy. While Congress put off funding for new icebreakers year and after year, Russia built out a fleet of more than 40.

The future of the Coast Guard's icebreaker program may now depend on President Donald Trump's demand for funding for a border wall and how Congress responds.

'We Will Not Have the Funding'

Democrats released a budget negotiating document Wednesday warning that the icebreaker program is among a list of top priorities "which we will not have the funding to address if the President insists we set aside $5.7 billion for border barriers." The Coast Guard's most recent review determined that it needs six new icebreakers. And $750 million had been requested toward the construction of one new ship.

"Getting new icebreakers is absolutely imperative," Coast Guard spokesman Nyx Cangemi said, noting that it will take at least five years to complete a new icebreaker once funding is approved.

"The U.S. just simply is woefully behind in terms of our planning and our vision for what is now a new ocean opening, a fourth coast," said Michael Sfraga, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, a research group in Washington, D.C.

Sfraga said that protecting commerce and national security interests in the Arctic is emerging as a critical issue in coming decades, and that Congress should spend the money for a new icebreaker no matter what happens in the negotiations over a border wall. "From the perspective of our nation's defense," he said, "that's not a lot of money."

'Uber for Icebreakers'?

In December, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) proposed legislation that could provide some additional ship support in the Arctic. The bill aims to bolster the nation's presence in the Arctic Ocean with what she characterized as "Uber for icebreakers." It would create a development corporation that, among other things, would set up a system for contracting with private icebreakers and working with foreign governments to use their ships.

Sfraga said the system is a good idea whether or not the Coast Guard gets new icebreakers. He said nations have to work together to ensure the Arctic is safe for commerce when and if shipping companies decide to begin operating there regularly.

"We should probably scope that out now," he said, "versus being reactive in a couple of decades."

[rjzimmerman]

Summer weather is getting 'stuck' due to Arctic warming

Rising arctic temperatures mean we face a future of ‘extreme extremes’ where sunny days become heatwaves and rain becomes floods, study says

Excerpt:

Summer weather patterns are increasingly likely to stall in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, according to a new climate study that explains why Arctic warming is making heatwaves elsewhere more persistent and dangerous.

Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, says the paper, which means high and low pressure fronts are getting stuck and weather is less able to moderate itself.

The authors of the research, published in Nature Communications on Monday, warn this could lead to “very extreme extremes”, which occur when abnormally high temperatures linger for an unusually prolonged period, turning sunny days into heat waves, tinder-dry conditions into wildfires, and rains into floods.

Circulation stalling has long been a concern of climate scientists, though most previous studies have looked at winter patterns. The new paper reviews research on summer trends, where it says there is mounting evidence of planetary wind systems – both low-level storm tracks and higher waves in the troposphere – losing their ability to shift the weather.

One cause is a weakening of the temperature gradient between the Arctic and Equator as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The far north of the Earth is warming two to four times faster than the global average, says the paper, which means there is a declining temperature gap with the central belt of the planet. As this ramp flattens, winds struggle to build up sufficient energy and speed to push around pressure systems in the area between them.

As a result, there is less relief in the form of mild and wet air from the sea when temperatures accumulate on land, and less relief from the land when storms build up in the ocean.

[rjzimmerman]

The Melting Arctic Is a Real-Time Horror Story — Why Doesn’t Anyone Care?

This summer’s epic wildfires and other extreme weather events have a root cause

Excerpt:

The thawing of the Arctic is one of the biggest stories of our time, even if it is playing out at a pace and in a way that virtually guarantees most people will pay little or no attention to it. What’s going on is not a future concern, or simply a tragedy for polar bears; the warming Arctic is already having a tremendous impact on our world and may help explain much of the extreme weather this summer, especially in the U.S. and in western Europe. To oversimplify this only slightly, you could argue that this summer’s historic wildfires in California were predicted by heat in the Arctic.

In recent years, the Arctic has been heating up faster than any other place on the planet. (Last winter, temperatures in the Arctic were 45 degrees Fahrenheit above normal). Last week, German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf wrote an excellent piece in Politico explaining why the warming Arctic is not only causing ice to melt, but changing the weather dynamics for the entire planet. “That global warming leads to more heat extremes is not rocket science and has been confirmed by global data analysis,” Rahmstorf wrote. He pointed out that we are seeing five times more monthly heat records — such as “hottest July on record in California” — than we would in a stable climate. More heat means drier soils, causing more drought and wildfires. It also means more extreme rain, given that a warmer atmosphere can suck up and then release more moisture (a global increase in rainfall records is well-documented in weather station data).

But then Rahmstorf made a crucial point: “It’s not just that the weather is doing what it always does, except at a higher temperature level. Rather, there is growing evidence that the dynamics of weather itself are changing.”