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NASA GISS Shows March 2014 Was Third Hottest on Record as Arctic Heatwave Spurs Siberian Fire Season to Early Start
11
April, 2014
(NASA
GISS Global Land-Ocean Temperature Anomaly vs the, already hotter
than normal, 1951 to 1980 mean. Image source: NASA.)
According
to NASA’s Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, overall average
temperatures for the month of March, 2014 were .69 to .7 degrees
Celsius hotter than the 1951 to 1980 average. As a result, last month
was the third hottest March in the global record since 1880. 2002 was
ranked first hottest with 2010 as second hottest.
Nine
of the ten hottest Marches on record have occurred since 2001. Ten of
ten have occurred since 1998.
A
wide zone of extraordinary temperature anomalies ranged throughout
Siberia and the Arctic during the month with 4-8 C above average
readings stretching along an enormous swath from Germany in the west
to Yakutia in the east and from China in the south and on up to the
North Pole.
Summer-like
temperatures in Siberia
Large
warmer than normal air pulses progressed from China northward over
broad sections of Russia and Siberia throughout the month. These
pulses harmonized with persistent high amplitude Jet Stream ridges
over Eastern Europe to draw much warmer than average temperatures
northward.
By
early April, these conditions had translated into 70 degree
(Fahrenheit) values for some sections of Siberia, where the annual
fire season had an ominous, very early start for the Amur and the
Baikal — Russian regions that are typically still locked in ice
this time of year. Overall, by April 6, more than 2,000 hectacres of
fires had been reported by the, justifiably, very concerned Russian
officials.
(An
ominous and early start to fire season. Isolated Siberian wildfire
visible from Satellite in center of frame on April 4, 2014. Image
source: LANCE-MODIS.)
According
to reports from Think
Progress and The
Siberian Times the
heat coincided with extreme drought conditions:
“The forest fire situation is tense in Russia this year,” Russian Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi said at a conference chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “Due to a shortage of precipitation the forest fire season has begun almost one and a half months ahead of the norm.”
Temperatures
in the Baikal and Amur regions were particularly hot with measures in
late March and early April shattering previous temperature records by
2-9 degrees Celsius for the cities of Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo,
Barnaul and Gorno-Altaysk. Overall, this region of Russia has shown a
very rapid pace of temperature increase: about .4 C per decade, or
more than double the global average.
Polar
amplification in very high gear
NASA
zonal anomaly maps also continued to show evidence of an extreme
polar temperature amplification in the Northern Hemisphere. Such high
degrees of heat amplification at upper latitudes were a predicted
result of human greenhouse gas emissions. Yet one more climate
science prognostication that has borne out.
Links:
Hat
Tip to James Cole
World CO2 Averages Touch
402.2 PPM Daily Values in
Early April, 102 PPM Higher
Than at Any Time in Last
800,000 Years
11
April, 2014
There’s
a tale in the ice. A record of past atmospheres locked away as
snowfall trapped air bubbles and then compressed them into thin
layers age after age over tens of thousands of years. Over the last
few decades, scientists have been drilling holes in the great ice
packs of Greenland and Antarctica. Their quest? To unlock this tale
and reveal a direct record of global greenhouse gas levels through
the deep past.
What
their drilling uncovered was both quite informative and rather
chilling. First, it showed that, for more than 800,000 years, global
CO2 levels had been relatively stable in a range of 180 to 300 parts
per million. As the levels of heat trapping CO2 rose, temperatures
peaked during brief interglacials. And as levels fell, temperatures
plunged back into ice age conditions.
Global
temperature flux during these swings from ice age to interglacial
were just 4 degrees Celsius. A 100 ppm CO2 rise correlated roughly to
a 250 foot rise in sea level and much warmer average conditions
globally. A corresponding fall of about the same amount brought
temperatures back down and piled ice two miles high over today’s
temperate regions such as New York.
What
the ice cores also revealed was that human CO2 emissions had pushed
global levels of this potent greenhouse gas far out of any climate
reckoning comparable to the context of human beings, who have only
existed in current form for about 200,000 years.
In
fact, what scientists found was that atmospheric CO2 levels were
pushing more than 100 parts per million higher than at any time
during this vast epochal span:
(Antarctic
ice core CO2 record and comparable temperature swings. Note that the
difference between ice age and interglacial is about 8 C of local
temperature and about 100 ppm of CO2. It is worth considering that,
due to polar amplification, Antarctic temperature changes were about
double the global average. Current CO2 levels are more than 100 parts
per million higher than even the peak value over this 800,000 year
period. If an average peak interglacial CO2 average of 275 ppm is
considered, then current values are around 127 parts per million
higher. Image credit: Havard/Jeremy
Shakun.)
This
record was a key contribution to climate science. One, it revealed
how past CO2 levels compared to past temperatures. And since the data
was directly derived from air bubbles trapped beneath hundreds of
feet of ice, it also provided us with an exact measure for past
atmospheres.
Secondly,
and perhaps much more ominously, it showed us how very far beyond any
climate comparable to that great span of time we’d already come.
102
ppm higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years
Humans
have now pushed the CO2 boundary 102 parts per million higher than
the context provided by the last 800,000 years. It’s kind of a big
deal when you consider that a mere fluctuation of about 100 parts per
million CO2 was enough, when combined with changes in orbital
forcing, to set off feedbacks resulting in a 4 C temperature change
globally (8 C change for the Antarctic environment) as ice age
proceeded to interglacial and back.
Current
human forcings through CO2 and other emissions have now entirely
over-ridden the natural cycle, eliminating the possibility for future
ice ages and putting us on a trajectory for catastrophe. With annual
global carbon emissions now exceeding 12 gigatons, not only have we
forced ourselves well outside of any past bounds to which we can
easily relate, we have also generated an unprecedented velocity of
change. For the current human carbon emission now exceeds, by at
least six times, the most rapid past level of natural carbon
emission.
No
vast flood basalt could ever rival the volume and pace at which
humans currently emit greenhouse gasses.
This
enormous emission continues to have severe effect through an
ever-higher ratcheting of global CO2 levels.
As
of the past week, global daily CO2 values had rocketed to 402.2 parts
per million, well outside anything seen in the ice core record:
(Mauna
Loa Observatory CO2 measure for the last six months. Note that daily
and weekly values have been mostly above 400 ppm since early March.
Image source: The
Keeling Curve.)
This
an extraordinary measure. One that has no context in direct records
such as those available to us through ice core data. But paleoclimate
proxy data does provide some corollary. According to isotopic carbon
measures found through seabed samples, we can determine that the last
time CO2 levels were above 400 parts per million was during the
mid-Plieocene between 3 and 3.3 million years ago.
And
during that time global average temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees
Celsius warmer than they are today (with Antarctic values at least
twice that). Both Greenland and West Antarctica were mostly ice free
and sea levels were between 15-75 feet higher. These are, likely, the
potential low end of the changes we’ve locked in due to human
global greenhouse gas forcing long term, even if, somehow, global CO2
levels are brought to a plateau.
(An
graphic extrapolation of Antarctica’s ice cover and elevation based
on paleoclimate data. Note that the Antarctic ice sheet is greatly
diminished at a time when CO2 values remained constant around 400
ppm. Image source: Commons.)
480
CO2e…
Unfortunately,
the global CO2 measure doesn’t tell quite the entire story. For
atmospheric levels of gasses like methane, nitrous oxide, and a host
of less common industrial chemicals have also all been on the rise in
Earth’s atmosphere due to human emissions. As a result, according
to research by the Advanced
Global Atmospheric Gasses Center at MIT,
total heat forcing equal to CO2 when all the other gasses were added
in was about 478 ppm CO2e during the spring of 2013. Adding in the
high-velocity human greenhouse gas contributions since that time gets
us to around 480 ppm CO2e value. In the context of past climates and
of near and long term climate changes due to human interference, 480
ppm CO2e is nothing short of fearsome.
The
last time the world saw such a measure of comparable atmospheric
greenhouse gas heat forcing was during the Miocene around 15-20
million years ago. At that time, global temperatures were 3-4 C
warmer, the Antarctic ice sheet was even further diminished, and sea
levels were 80-120 higher than today.
This
combined forcing is enough to result in a state of current climate
emergency. In just a few years, according
to the recent work of climate scientist Michael Mann,
we will likely lock in a 2 C short term warming this century and a
probable 4 C warming long-term. If the current, high-velocity pace of
emission continues, we will likely hit 2 C warming by 2036, setting
off extraordinary and severe global changes over a very short period.
These
are very dangerous and, likely, catastrophic levels. In such a
context, the inexorably rising rate of atmospheric CO2 and other
greenhouse gas forcings simply adds further insult to a very high
risk situation.
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