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What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

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121–130 of 257 posts

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#122
post #40

The heat spikes in the Arctic now so early on in the year and the jet stream which previously brought cold towards the Arctic now shifts the cold down in cold spikes and record cold fronts to north east and Europe. It seems we will no longer have an Arctic soon and the jet stream will be permanently shifted due to anthropogenic climate change. We had record heat in Southern California in early February and around the…

Where did the jet stream previously get the cold to bring to the Arctic?

There is no sun light for months in Arctic winter. Usually jet streams/polar vortex keep the cold air within the high latitudes. Due to Climate Change or more specific Arctic Amplification the pressure gradient from the Equator to the North Pole flattens and tends to fail to contain the cold air which in turn can 'escape' to lower latitudes in exchange for warmer air moving into the Arctic. The whole northern hemisphere trends towards a less structured more chaotic circulation regime.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#123

I often see people talk about potential positive feedback loops involved in climate change, but rarely are potential damping mechanisms mentioned. So let's talk about them. I'll share one. Methane consuming bacteria discovered under the West Antarctic ice shelf: https://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=242668 "The scientists say that if their analysis is correct, it could mean that a large reservoir of methane thou…

Another dampening mechanism. It turns out burning all that fossel fuel dims the sky. So while we made it hotter , we also have been cooling. Which means when we get off fossil fuels, the earth will warm faster and all that built up CO2 will reach it's full warming potential.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#124
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like this fern fixed it last time? So no worries then. Might take a while... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

Not that there are no worries, but the worst case scenarios being put forward are almost certainly not accurate. In fact it has been acknowledged that the worst case models submitted to the Paris Climate Accord talks were misleading in their assumptions.

Anyone have a citation or rebuttal for this?

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#125
post #53

So it's going to get warmer, sea levels will rise. coastlines will move inland as sea levels rise. Typically colder areas will become more tropical. Other than displacing a large number of people who live on coastlines, what's the big deal? Insult me for my niavety if it makes you feel better, but I honestly don't know the answer.

Is the problem really not knowing? Because even you don’t know, is it not enough that virtually all credible scientists are warning us of the very bad things we are at risk of? I know you are not debating the issue, but to me one of the most interesting questions is why do people deny this even when they have no vested interest? One obvious answer is that it’s become a party platform issue and those that do have an i…

is it not enough that virtually all credible scientists are warning us of the very bad things we are at risk of?

The public perception is that science keeps warning of imminent disasters that keep not happening. Climate profiteers like Al Gore have totally undermined the credibility of science.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#126
post #115
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would melting sea ice lead to a rise in sea level? The ice is floating, so it's displacing the approximately same mass of water as it contains. If it melts the overall water level shouldn't change.

1. Thermal expansion. It's a tiny effect, you won't see it in a glass of water in science class but when you've got oceans a few kilometers deep and humans living a few meters above them it can have an impact. 2. It's a feedback effect. Less ice means less light reflected means more energy in our oceans/atmosphere. In turn this creates more ice loss that won't be sea ice.

Water expands as it freezes. That’s why pipes burst in winter.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#127
post #21

Updated data on the second chart for 2018: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php Such an outlier is not completely unprecedented it looks like from his chart, but only if it immediately and rapidly corrects downwards in the coming days...

Please don't just downplay such an event if you don't know anything about it. This temperature measurement may not be completely unprecedented, but as DMI write about it:

Plus degrees are unusual DMI has measurements from Kap Morris Jesup back to 1980, and reveals that in February, above zero degrees are definitely not usual at the world's northernmost land-based measurement station. In fact, DMI has only twice previously measured similar high temperatures. The first time was in 2011. Second time last year; ie in 2017. Both times, "føhn"-winds may have contributed to the high temperatures. (https://www.dmi.dk/nyheder/arkiv/nyheder-2018/februar/plusgr...)

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as sea-level rises are concerned, the Arctic sea ice will probably be a net sea-level fall, except around the Equator. If all of the Greenland glaciers were to disappear, well then, we would see a sea-level rise, globally. But it would be distributed unevenly across the world. The higher levels would again be around the Equator with decreasing levels the further north or south of the Equator you go. But to get…

Your reasoning omits that there is also a large amount of energy stored im the oceans. The greenlandic glaciers have already sped up and are calving into the oceans where there is plenty of energy to melt them.

Of course they don't need to actually melt to affect sea rises, they just have to fall into the ocean.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#129
post #126
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Thermal expansion. It's a tiny effect, you won't see it in a glass of water in science class but when you've got oceans a few kilometers deep and humans living a few meters above them it can have an impact. 2. It's a feedback effect. Less ice means less light reflected means more energy in our oceans/atmosphere. In turn this creates more ice loss that won't be sea ice.

Water expands as it freezes. That’s why pipes burst in winter.

Water crystallization is a different effect and not relevant here. It has the same mass so it doesn't effect sea levels when it's frozen and it's not a linear effect, it won't continue to shrink as it warms.

But like everything else (to various extents) it will expand when it's warmer.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning omits that there is also a large amount of energy stored im the oceans. The greenlandic glaciers have already sped up and are calving into the oceans where there is plenty of energy to melt them.

That's the whole point of the study of energy storage over fifty years. The interesting point is that the amount of ice calving off from the Greenland glaciers is minute compared to the amount of ice on Greenland. It doesn't matter how spectacular these calves are and they are spectacular and from our point of view they are huge, you can think of them as flaking skin off an elephant. The problem I see here is that th…

Once they fall into the sea the displacement occurs. It doesn't matter after that how long they take to melt, all that matters is that they fall off land and into the ocean.

So melting is an issue only for ice that melts on land and then flows into the oceans because that represents new water volume.

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