Tag Archives: arctic

Shrinkage: Arctic ponds are the new George Costanzas

by LillaBolton Posted on March 12, 2015

Shrinkage: Arctic ponds are the new George Costanzas

By on 12 Mar 2015commentsShare

It’s official: Climate change is making the world’s water its bitch. We’ve got droughts, floods, funky precipitation, melting glaciers — it’s H2O anarchy out there! And now, as if things weren’t bad enough, we’ve got shrinkage.

In a study published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, researchers from the University of Texas at El Paso report that Arctic ponds are becoming smaller and fewer, thanks, at least in part, to rising temperatures (unlike the more familiar form of shrinkage that results from decreasing temperatures).

The researchers focused specifically on the upper Barrow Peninsula in Alaska, where temperatures during the long winters average about 10 degrees Fahrenheit and during the short summers about 40 degrees F. Comparing old black-and-white aerial photos from the military to newer satellite images and photos taken from a kite-bound camera, they found that, between 1948 and 2013, the ponds in this region shrank about 30 percent in area and about 17 percent in number.

Arctic pond shrinkage between 1948 and 2010Christian Andresen / UTEP

During that same time period, the average summer temperature in the Barrow Peninsula increased by about 3.6 degrees F. That rise, according to the researchers, could be causing more evaporation from the ponds. It could also be causing more thawing of the frozen, nutrient-rich soil known as permafrost, which, in turn, would cause more plants to encroach on the newly warm and nutrient-rich waters.

“Before you know it, boom, the pond is gone,” the study’s lead author, Christian Andresen, said in a press release.

The images below show how plants took over a pond between 1976 and 2012.

A scientists sampling one of the Arctic ponds in 1976. Christian Andresen / UTEP

Christian Andresen at the same spot, now covered in plants, in 2012. Christian Andresen / UTEP

Andresen also pointed out that this shrinkage could cause problems in the long run:

The role of ponds in the Arctic is extremely important. History tells us that ponds tend to enlarge over hundreds of years and eventually become lakes; ponds shape much of this landscape in the long run, and with no ponds there will be no lakes for this region.

Fewer and smaller ponds could also have impacts on local wildlife and the rate of carbon exchange between the land and atmosphere, Andresen and his colleague say.

So there you have it. Shrinkage. I have to admit, I feel relieved. I was worried that this was going to be awkward, but now that it’s out there, I think we can all agree that it’s just part of life and move on. And of course, by move on, I mean wait anxiously for the next bit of frightening news about what climate change is doing to our planet.

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Ponds are disappearing in the Arctic

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Shrinkage: Arctic ponds are the new George Costanzas

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Underwater, melting glaciers are louder than a symphony of chainsaws

by FrancesLease Posted on March 7, 2015

Underwater, melting glaciers are louder than a symphony of chainsaws

By on 6 Mar 2015commentsShare

Think about the best rock concert you’ve ever been to. Pretty loud, right? Well, some parts of the ocean are that loud all the time but for a somewhat less rockin’ reason: bubbles.

That’s right. Bubbles from melting glacier ice are basically the Rolling Stones of the sea, according to a new study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. When snow condenses into glacier ice, it forms tiny, spherical air pockets. As the glacier ice then melts, those air pockets pinch off into bubbles, and that pinching off process is what’s causing all the racket. This study looked specifically at glaciers in fjords — long, thin inlets of the ocean surrounded by high cliffs — and found that the average noise there registered at a whopping 120 decibels (think chainsaws), and the frequency ranged between 1000 and 3000 hertz (think the top half of the piano register).

Erin Pettit, a geophysicist from the University of Alaska Fairbanks led the study. She and her colleagues used underwater microphones to capture the noises coming from a fjord called Icy Bay in Alaska and two others — one in Alaska and one in Antarctica. In an interview with the Associated Press, Pettit said she didn’t expect to find so much ambient noise coming from the ice:

“The glacier fjord sound on a typical day for Icy Bay, (Alaska) is louder than being in the water beneath a torrential downpour, which really surprised me.”

After taking measurements in the field, the researchers conducted laboratory experiments to makes sense of their observations. Here’s a video of melting ice from those experiments:

The researchers point out that acoustic monitoring could be a way to remotely monitor glacier melt, now that they know what glacier melting sounds like. They also warn that as glacier ice retreats and fjords quiet down, local marine ecosystems could feel the ripple effects. Whales hunt by listening for their prey, so noisy glaciers might drive them to quieter waters. Seals, on the other hand, might like the noise because it hides them from the whales. Indeed, harbor seal populations have declined near retreating glaciers.

In other words, whales are basically the grumpy old codgers telling everyone to keep the music down, while harbor seals are the rowdy youths using the noise to confuse and evade their elders. Is it just me, or are these the makings of a great cartoon? Anyone have any good bubble-themed band names?

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Researchers: Bubbles popping from glacier ice make fjords the world’s noisiest natural ocean

, U.S. News and World Report.

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Underwater, melting glaciers are louder than a symphony of chainsaws

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Here’s What Will Happen If Antarctica Melts

by GeorgiaRocha Posted on March 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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When we talk about global warming at the poles, the Arctic tends to get more press than the Antarctic, because it’s happening faster there than anywhere else on Earth. But Antarctica is still a juggernaut. As ice sheets there collapse—a process some scientists now see as irreversible—global sea level could rise 10 feet. The complete meltdown could take hundreds of years, but if you live anywhere near the coast, it’s not hard to imagine why my colleague Chris Mooney called that discovery a “holy shit moment for global warming.”

Tonight, our friends at VICE will kick off their third season of documentaries on HBO, and they’re headed to Antarctica to get a close-up look at the potentially catastrophic changes underway there. We’ll also hear from Vice President Joe Biden, who says denying climate change is “like denying gravity.” Check out the trailer above; the show airs tonight at 11pm ET.

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Here’s What Will Happen If Antarctica Melts

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Watch the oceans acidify in real time

by MaricruBarker Posted on February 18, 2015

Watch the oceans acidify in real time

By on 18 Feb 2015commentsShare

We have a new way to measure ocean acidification … from space! Just as it did for the rotary phone and the which-way-is-my-weathervane-pointing meteorology, satellite technology will give a big boost to the tech available to monitor ocean chemistry, according to new research. Scientists previously relied on a patchy network of buoys, ships, and lab tests to monitor acidification. By combining satellite measurements of salinity and other ocean variables, scientists can now paint a near-instantaneous picture of the ocean’s acid baseline at any one time.

And, bonus points: It turns out that five years of disastrous ocean acidification is pretty mesmerizing:

Here’s more from Climate Central:

The new monitoring techniques can help monitor hot spots such as the Bay of Bengal, the Arctic Ocean, and the Caribbean, three places where ocean acidification could have major economic impacts but where little research has been done.

New monitoring efforts may come in particularly useful in the coming months, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there is a risk of major coral bleaching in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans through May, an event that may rival severe bleaching that occurred in 1998 and 2010. Some island nations in the tropical Pacific including Kiribati, Nauru and the Solomon Islands are already seeing ocean conditions that can cause bleaching.

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Ocean Acidification, Now Watchable in Real Time

, Climate Central.

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Watch the oceans acidify in real time

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Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time

by CalvinRemer Posted on February 18, 2015

Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time

By on 18 Feb 2015commentsShare

We have a new way to measure ocean acidification … from space! Just as it did for the rotary phone and the which-way-is-my-weathervane-pointing meteorology, satellite technology will give a big boost to the tech available to monitor ocean chemistry, according to new research. Scientists previously relied on a patchy network of buoys, ships, and lab tests to monitor acidification. By combining satellite measurements of salinity and other ocean variables, scientists can now paint a near-instantaneous picture of the ocean’s acid baseline at any one time.

And, bonus points: It turns out that five years of changing ocean chemistry is pretty mesmerizing:

Here’s more from Climate Central:

The new monitoring techniques can help monitor hot spots such as the Bay of Bengal, the Arctic Ocean, and the Caribbean, three places where ocean acidification could have major economic impacts but where little research has been done.

New monitoring efforts may come in particularly useful in the coming months, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there is a risk of major coral bleaching in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans through May, an event that may rival severe bleaching that occurred in 1998 and 2010. Some island nations in the tropical Pacific including Kiribati, Nauru and the Solomon Islands are already seeing ocean conditions that can cause bleaching.

Source:
Ocean Acidification, Now Watchable in Real Time

, Climate Central.

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Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time

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Watch out, Arctic: Shell is coming for you again

by NestorBaile Posted on February 13, 2015

Watch out, Arctic: Shell is coming for you again

By on 13 Feb 2015 11:33 amcommentsShare

Even as Shell is talking a good talk about climate change, it is pushing ahead with plans to drill in the Alaskan Arctic as early as this summer. The company suspended operations there in 2012 after a series of minor disasters. Its contractor was hit with eight felony counts and fined $12 million late last year.

But now Shell is moving forward again, with what looks like a newly reaffirmed go-ahead from the Department of the Interior (DOI). One clear sign of its intent: The company has leased a port on the Seattle waterfront where it can base its Arctic operations.

On Thursday, the DOI released a revised environmental impact statement for drilling in the Chukchi Sea — which Shell won the rights to do in 2008. The report found that there’s a 75 percent likelihood that the operations will result in one or more large spills — that means more than 1,000 barrels — during the 77-year lease. The report also forecast 260 smaller spills.

This revised DOI report follows a court ruling that found that, back in 2008, the department lowballed the amount of oil Shell would be able to extract from the lease. Lowballing the amount of oil that could come out of the ground also meant lowballing the amount of damage the efforts to extract it could cause.

But despite the new environmental impact statement, and the strong likelihood of a spill, the department will likely allow drilling operations to move forward following a public comment period. The environmental groups that brought the suit don’t see this as a victory.

“There is no such thing as safe or responsible drilling in the Arctic Ocean,” said Marissa Knodel, a climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth. “Shell’s record of recklessness and the federal government’s own environmental analysis show that approval of Lease Sale 193 would be unsafe, dangerous and irresponsible.”

Greenpeace’s John Deans said the decision “will drastically undermine [Obama’s] recent proposals to protect parts of the Arctic, including the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, from oil drilling.”

Shell’s plans come, ironically, as the company is saying it will now engage seriously on climate, and is pushing other oil companies to do the same. Its recent decision to work with activist shareholders who are demanding that climate change factor into management decisions appears to be a first step in that direction.

“I’m well aware that the industry’s credibility is an issue,” said Shell CEO Ben van Beurden in a speech on Thursday. “Stereotypes that fail to see the benefits our industry brings to the world are short-sighted. But we must also take a critical look at ourselves.”

At the moment, however, it doesn’t look like the company’s plans to salvage its climate-related “credibility” extend to cancelling its designs on the Chukchi Sea — one of its more dangerous operations, and one that inspires quite a bit of ire in its critics.

Besides the danger that drilling poses to Arctic environments, there’s the contribution it would make to climate change. A recent study found that if the world hopes to avoid 2 degrees Celsius or more of global warming, 80 percent of the world’s untouched fossil fuel reserves would have to stay in the ground — including all of the oil left in the thawing Arctic.

But people who believe that will happen, van Beurden says, aren’t clued in to reality. “For a sustainable energy future, we need a more balanced debate,” he said. “‘Fossil fuels out, renewables in’ — too often, that’s what it boils down to. Yet in my view, that’s simply naive.”

If policymakers agree with that line of thinking, we’ll be in for some catastrophic warming.

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Watch out, Arctic: Shell is coming for you again

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Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

by ElmerGrasser Posted on February 4, 2015

Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

By on 4 Feb 2015commentsShare

Here’s a thing you may not have considered before: Climate change could make fish more mobile, upwardly and otherwise. Most marine species in the North Atlantic and North Pacific have been traversing the same ocean highways and byways for a while now (ahem, 2.6 million years), largely because the northern passage between the two is just too darn cold. But according to a study published Jan. 26 in Nature Climate Change, by the end of this century some fish in these formerly frigid climes may be able to swim in the Arctic, and beyond. Which can only mean one thing: Global fish mixer!

Led by Loïc Pellissier of the University of Fribourg, the team of Swiss scientists looked at how 515 fish species in the northern oceans were likely to react to climate change over the next hundred years. They found up to 41 species likely to move into the Pacific, and 44 into the Atlantic, by 2100.

For coastal-dwelling humans, this could mean an expanded menu at the crab shack, since ten of the species predicted to take advantage of the move also happen to be fish-and-chip favorites, according to Science News:

They include Atlantic cod, American plaice (a type of flounder) and yellowfin sole. Fishing opportunities have already opened up off of Greenland because of climate change, and more could develop as the Arctic region warms.

While an abundance of tasty new species opens up the danger of exploitation and overfishing, the bigger dark side of this delicious twist is the disaster it could spell for ecosystems. Species migrations can sometimes create major shifts in ecosystems:

… The arrival of apex predator species, such as Atlantic cod and lingcod, could have particularly large effects, as their meal choices ripple through the food web. The researchers say that predicting those effects is “the next modeling challenge,” but there may be effects similar to what’s been seen when invasive species enter ecosystems. Invaders often upend food webs, causing some species to decline and even become extinct.

But, y’know, if you’re a fish, warmer temperatures could mean greener pastures, bigger adventures, and new exotic friends! Just, other than the whole “getting snarfed by giant apex predators” thing — you’re gonna have to learn some stream-smarts if you want to make it the other side of the ocean tracks, little fishes.

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Warming Arctic will let Atlantic and Pacific fish mix

, Science News.

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Was 2014 Really the Warmest Year? Here’s Why It Doesn’t Matter.

by NorrisReichert Posted on February 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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According to NASA, all of the following statements are true:

2014 was the warmest year on record, dating all the way back to 1880.
2014 is far more likely than any other year since 1880 to have been the warmest.
There’s a 62 percent chance that 2014 was NOT actually the warmest year since 1880.

Wait. What??

OK, let’s rewind a bit. It’s a scientific fact that humans are warming the planet by releasing greenhouse gases. This has already resulted in “considerable costs,” explains Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research—ice is melting, sea levels are rising, and heat waves and fires are getting worse. Global warming is a very clear trend stretching back a century, and temperatures in any given year aren’t really that important.

Still, it was big news last month when NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration jointly announced that, in separate analyses, they had both concluded that 2014 was the warmest year on record. “When averaged over the globe, 2014 was the warmest year on record,” explained NASA earth sciences director Michael Freilich during a January 16 conference call announcing the new findings. As you can see in the chart below, both agencies calculated that 2014 was just slightly warmer than other extremely hot years—specifically, 2010 and 2005.

NOAA/NASA

Of course, calculating the warmth of the entire Earth over a full year is difficult. To do this, climate scientists analyze air and water temperature data collected from thousands of weather stations, buoys, and ships around the world. As explained in this helpful Wired article, this involves complex algorithms that correct for various inconsistencies and potential sources of error.

By far the most important source of uncertainty—at least when trying to calculate the warmest year—is the uneven distribution of temperature measurements around the world. According to NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt, the agency has adequate temperature data for roughly 88 percent of the planet’s surface. The biggest gaps are in the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica, as well as in parts of Africa and the Arctic. (NASA uses a different methodology that includes data covering a greater portion of the globe.)

In other words, the figures reported by NASA and NOAA represent their best estimates of what the temperature readings they do have mean for the Earth’s climate as a whole. When it comes to detecting the broader warming trend, those estimates are extremely reliable. But ranking individual years is more complicated. “According to our tools, 2014 had the warmest temperature…that’s indisputable,” explains Arndt. The uncertainty, he says, comes from assessing how well those tools measure what’s actually happening, as well as from “what may have happened in the areas we didn’t measure.”

When they released their findings, NASA and NOAA attempted to quantify this uncertainty. As NOAA scientist Tom Karl explained to reporters at the time, this table (PDF) shows the probability that 2014 (as opposed to other extremely warm years like 2010 and 2005) was really the warmest year:

NOAA/NASA

So both agencies found that 2014 was far more likely than any other year to be the warmest. NOAA put the probability at 48 percent—that’s more than two-and-a-half times higher than the next likeliest year. NASA put the probability that 2014 was the warmest year at 38 percent—lower than NOAA but still much higher than any other year.

Unsurprisingly, critics pounced on the 38 percent figure. “NASA climate scientists: We said 2014 was the warmest year on record…but we’re only 38% sure we were right,” blared London’s Mail on Sunday, a frequent source of climate change skepticism. The Mail story blasted NASA for having issued a press release that didn’t include the uncertainty.

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Was 2014 Really the Warmest Year? Here’s Why It Doesn’t Matter.

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5 Charts That Explain 2014′s Record-Smashing Heat

by Myrna Posted on January 16, 2015

The Earth keeps getting warmer, and we’re to blame. 2014 was the hottest year since record-keeping began way back in the nineteenth century, according to reports released Friday by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. According to NASA, the Earth has now warmed roughly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, and most of that increase is the result of greenhouse gases released by humans. Nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. NASA and NOAA both conducted their own, independent analyses of the data. But as you can see in the chart below, their results were nearly identical (all images below are from NASA and NOAA’s joint presentation): NASA/NOAA The record warmth wasn’t spread evenly across the globe. Europe, parts of Asia, Alaska, and the Arctic were extremely warm. At the same time, the US Midwest and East Coast were unusually cold, according to NASA’s analysis: NASA/NOAA Here’s another version of that map, from the NOAA analysis. This one shows that vast swaths of the oceans experienced record warm temperatures in 2014. Land temperatures in 2014 were actually the fourth warmest on record. But the oceans were so warm that the Earth as a whole was the hottest it has ever been since we started measuring: NASA/NOAA All that warmth has led to a significant loss of sea ice in the Arctic. In 2014, Arctic sea ice reached its sixth lowest extent on record. It was a different story at the South Pole, however. Antarctica saw its highest extent of sea ice on record. According to NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, the factors affecting sea ice in Antarctica—changes in wind patterns, for example—seem to be “more complicated” than in the Arctic, where temperatures and ice extent correlate strongly: NASA/NOAA So what’s causing this dramatic warming trend? In short, we are. Check out these charts, which show that if we weren’t pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the planet would actually be cooling right now: NASA/NOAA See original article here –  5 Charts That Explain 2014′s Record-Smashing Heat ; ; ;

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5 Charts That Explain 2014′s Record-Smashing Heat

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This Is Why You’re So Damn Cold Right Now

by BradlyRizzo Posted on January 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in CityLab and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

To get an idea why wind chills will plummet to 45 degrees below zero in the US this week, look no farther than this unreal image of a colossal polar system cutting through the country like the icy scythe of a rancorous Norse god.

A NOAA satellite caught the coast-to-coast eyeball-freezer on Tuesday as it was revving up for an icy romp across America. Writes the agency:

The weather pattern over the next few days will feature a massive surface high settling southward from Canada to the Great Plains on Wednesday, following by another large surface high by the end of the week. Both of these features are of Arctic origin, and will bring bitterly cold weather from the western High Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast US In addition to the frigid temperatures, the cold air advection over the Great Lakes along with upper-level shortwave energy moving over the region is expected to produce significant lake effect snow downwind from the Great Lakes through midweek.

Areas east of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are predicted to get the worst of the accumulations, which must be a comfort to Buffalo residents who are probably almost finished digging out from the last winter storm. NOAA says these regions will be served with snowfalls that “will easily exceed one foot.”

As for the other weather misery afflicting the nation, take a peek at these expected wind chills. It’s not a great time to be outside in the northern states, where the government is advising travelers to pack winter-survival kits.

NOAA

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This Is Why You’re So Damn Cold Right Now

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