"if
you’re one of those sensitive, perceptive souls who feels that the
weather events you’re seeing, the extreme swings from very hot to
somewhat cool temperatures, the extreme swings from drought to record
rainfall, and the extreme events now accelerating the melting of the
world’s ice and snow, are freakish, strange, and terrifyingly
abnormal, then you are absolutely correct. Don’t let anyone, be
they friends or family, or journalists in the media, tell you
otherwise. There is reason for your discomfort and there is very
serious cause for concern."
---Robertscribbler
Arctic
Heat Wave Sets off Hottest Ever Winter-Time Temperatures, Major Melt,
Disasters for Coastal and Interior Alaska
28
January, 2014
Major
melt in the midst of winter. Doesn’t sound quite right, does it? We
tend to think of winter as the time of freezing, as the time of ice
accumulation. Not the time of melt and thaw.
Now
try this — major melt in Alaska in the midst of winter. Average
temperatures 40 degrees hotter than normal in the midst of winter.
Rainfall over snow and ice causing avalanches, major road blockages
and ice dams to rivers in the midst of winter.
In
this instance we have been transported from the somewhat odd into a
reality that is completely outside of our previously ‘normal’
context. In this instance we are transported to a time that may well
seem like the beginning of the end of the age of ice on planet Earth.
And
yet this is exactly what is happening: one of the
coldest regions on the planet is experiencing melt and related record
heat in January.
For
the state of Alaska, the consequences are a strange and freakish
winter heat wave, one that features the extreme temperatures
mentioned above. For the city of Valdez, as we shall see below, the
situation is far more stark.
Hottest ever Winter-time Temperatures for Alaska
On
Sunday, a collapse event that flooded the Arctic with heat and ripped
the polar vortex in half began. A freakish high amplitude ridge in
the Jet Stream that had been pumping warmth over Alaska and into the
Arctic for ten months running strengthened. The result was that many
regions throughout the state experienced their hottest temperatures
ever recorded for that day, month, or season.
According
to reports from Weather
Underground, Homer Alaska, for example, experienced an all time
record high for the day of 55 degrees Fahrenheit, 4 degrees hotter
than the previous all-time high set just a few years earlier. And
Homer was just one of the many cities sitting in a broad region of
extraordinary, 40 degree hotter than normal temperatures. A region
extending from the interior to the southern and western coasts. Bolio
Lake Range, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks in central Alaska, saw
temperatures rocket to 60 degrees, just 2 degrees short of the
all-time record high for any part of the state during January (the
previous record high of 62 was set in Petersburg, nearly 700 miles to
the south and east).
Typically
colder high mountain regions also experienced record warmth for the
day. A zone 10,600 feet above Fairbanks hit 32 degrees Fahrenheit on
Sunday, the highest temperature ever measured for this region during
any winter-time period from November through February.
Even
before the most recent extreme Arctic temperature spike, January saw
numerous powerful heat influxes for Alaska with Nome, Denali Park,
Palmer, Homer, Alyseka, Seward, and Talkeetna each setting all-time
record high temperatures during the month.
These
records come on the back of a long period of rapidly increasing
Alaskan heat stretching all the way back to the 1970s. In many cases,
we are seeing all-time record highs broken with 5-10 year frequency.
In the most extreme cases, these records fall again after only
standing for 1-5 years.
Taken
in this context, what we are seeing is the freakish continuation of
an ongoing period of inexorable Arctic warming providing yet one more
major insult to the Alaskan climate during the winter of 2013-2014.
Rain
and Melt Sets off Major, Spring-like, Outflows From Streams and
Rivers
The
same anomalous Jet Stream pattern that has acted as a conveyer belt
continuously transporting heat into the high north over Alaska has
brought with it an almost endless series of rain events to coastal
Alaska. Storm after storm, fueled by heat and high rates of
evaporation over the northern Pacific, slammed into the Alaskan
coastline, disgorging record levels of precipitation.
With
temperatures freakishly high, mirroring conditions typically present
during late spring or early summer, much of this precipitation fell
in the form of rain. Valdez, Alaska, for example, has likely
experienced its wettest January ever with rainfall measures just 1.35
inches short of the record on Sunday and a series of strong storms
rushing into the city on Monday and Tuesday. Given the nearly endless
train of storms lining up to sweep over Valdez, it is possible that
its previous record of 15.18 inches for January could easily be
surpassed by an inch or two at month-end.
The
storms and cloudiness make it difficult to peer down and get a good
view of what all this heat and rainfall is doing to the Alaskan snow
and ice pack. But, for brief respite, on January 25th, just ahead of
the most recent influx of rain and warmth, the clouds cleared,
revealing the land and sea surface. And what we witness is
extraordinary:
The entire southern coast of Alaska from Prince William Sound to Cook Inlet are visibly experiencing major snow and ice melt along with flooded streams and rivers flushing out a massive volume of sediment into the Gulf Alaska. Clearly visible in the satellite shot, the sediment now streaming into the ocean is more reminiscent of a major late spring flood event than anything that should be ongoing for Alaska in the midst of winter.
Yet
here we are. A situation of continuous, never-before seen heat for
Alaska during winter time bringing on a flooding thaw that is far,
far too early.
Rainfall
over Glaciers, Snow Pack Triggers Massive Avalanche that Cuts off
Valdez
The
constant assault of heat and record temperatures combined with an
almost endless flow of moisture riding up from the Gulf of Alaska set
off a devastating and freakish event near Valdez on Saturday. Severe
and record rainfall over the mountain regions have continuously
softened glacial ice and snow packs above this major Alaskan city. On
Monday, the continuous insults of heat and water passed a critical
threshold.
As
the warm water filtered down through the colder snow and ice, the
anchoring base was lubricated even as the capping snow grew heavily
burdened with water. Eventually, the insults of heat and rainfall
became too great and a major snow and ice slope system above the main
road linking Valdez to mainland Alaska collapsed. The immense volume
of snow and ice unleashed, spilling down to fill the base of Keystone
Canyon, blocking both the Lowe River and the Richardson Highway
running through it.
This
snow and ice dam rose as high as 100 feet above the Canyon floor,
causing the Lowe River to rapidly flood, inundating the already
snow-and ice buried road under an expanding pool 20 to 25 feet deep
and filled with ice-choked water.
You
can see the massive avalanche-created ice dam and related road
inundation in the video provided by akiwiguy below:
(video
source: akiwiguy)
Warming-related
rainfall events of the kind that has now cut Valdez off from the
mainland are just one of the extraordinarily dangerous consequences
of human-caused climate change. They are a phenomena linked to the
massive glacial outburst flood that killed thousands in India this
year together with other dangerous snow and ice melt events. Should
such major heating and rainfall events impact Greenland and West
Antarctica, the consequences could be even more extreme than what we
are currently witnessing in Alaska.
Conditions
in Context
In
the context of our present extreme Jet Stream pattern that is setting
off warmest-ever conditions for Alaska during January together with
dangerous melt-outburst related events while at the same time
periodically flushing Arctic air and extreme winter weather south
into the United States, it is important to remember a few things. The
first is that the Arctic is now experiencing never-before observed
warmth with stunning frequency. Scientific
papers now show that the Arctic is hotter than it has been for at
least 44,000 years and possibly 120,00 years.
By
comparison, the cold snaps, that could very well be seen as the death
gasps of the Arctic we know, impacting the eastern US are relatively
minor when put into this larger, more ominous context. Similar cold
events were last seen about 20 years ago in the US. And so there is
simply no comparison that can generate a rational equivalency between
the, hottest in an age, Arctic temperatures and the, coldest in a few
handfuls of years, temperatures in the Eastern US.
And
if you’re one of those sensitive, perceptive souls who feels that
the weather events you’re seeing, the extreme swings from very hot
to somewhat cool temperatures, the extreme swings from drought to
record rainfall, and the extreme events now accelerating the melting
of the world’s ice and snow, are freakish, strange, and
terrifyingly abnormal, then you are absolutely correct. Don’t let
anyone, be they friends or family, or journalists in the media, tell
you otherwise. There is reason for your discomfort and there is very
serious cause for concern.
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