Tag Archives: global warming

Arctic heating races ahead of worst case estimates

Svalbard, in whose waters temperatures have risen at 1.5°C every decade for the last 40 years. — Photo by Jess McMahon on Unsplash

LONDON, 2 September, 2020 – An international team of scientists brings bad news about Arctic heating: the polar ocean is warming not only faster than anybody predicted, it is getting hotter at a rate faster than even the worst case climate scenario predictions have so far foreseen.

Such dramatic rises in Arctic temperatures have been recorded before, but only during the last Ice Age. Evidence from the Greenland ice cores suggests that temperatures rose by 10°C or even 12°C, over a period of between 40 years and a century, between 120,000 years and 11,000 years ago.

“We have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice to disappear faster than we had anticipated,” said Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, a physicist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, one of 16 scientists who report in the journal Nature Climate Change on a new analysis of 40 years of data from the Arctic region.

Source: Arctic heating races ahead of worst case estimates | Climate News Network

This entry was posted in General and tagged canada, Climate Change, environment, global warming on September 3, 2020 by Steve.

The Disaffected Lib: Tick-Tock. One Million Tonnes – Per Minute

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Ice Fjord Greenland Sermilik Iceberg Arctic Sea. Photo by www.maxpixel.net

There are roughly 525,600 minutes in a year. There are just over 2,200 pounds in a metric tonne.

The most recent survey shows that the Greenland ice sheet has been shedding one tonne of ice – every minute. 525,000 metric tonnes every year. That’s a massive amount of fresh water that pours into the salt water, the seas around Greenland.

Sea level rise is a real menace. Greenland is one source, a major to be sure, but there are many others. This is a real worry in some places, including any place that has a sea coast. You know where they don’t much care about sea level rise? Alberta is one. No skin off their backsides. Sea level rise only brings “tidewater” that much closer to Athabasca. Hey, what’s not to like?

Source: The Disaffected Lib: Tick-Tock. One Million Tonnes – Per Minute

This entry was posted in General and tagged global warming, Greenland, heatwave, ice loss on August 21, 2020 by Steve.

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‘Our Final Warning’ Offers a Preview of Hothouse Earth | The Tyee

One degree

This is where we are now, one degree above the pre-industrial average global temperature of roughly 1850 to 1900. Greenland’s ice sheet is turning blue with meltwater lakes and streams. Half the Arctic sea ice is gone. Antarctica’s glaciers are sliding faster into the sea, and mountain glaciers everywhere are shrinking.

Extreme rainfall and flooding are becoming routine. So are heatwaves and wildfires like those currently afflicting California. Meanwhile, “ocean heatwaves” create dead zones because warm water holds too little oxygen for sea life.

Canada, like other signatories to the Paris Agreement, is committed to limit warming to 1.5 C — in effect, accepting all this as the new status quo. But as Lynas observes, no one is slowing emissions in the slightest. The Keeling curve, which measures atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, shows CO2 is now at 412.88 parts per million, and rising. So the global temperature must eventually rise to:

Two degrees….

August 21, 2020

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Highest-ever temperature recorded in Norwegian Arctic archipelago

OSLO, NORWAY – Norway’s Arctic archipelago Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest-ever temperature, the country’s meteorological institute reported.

According to scientific study, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as for the rest of the planet.

For the second day in a row, the archipelago registered 21.2 degrees Celsius in the afternoon, just under the 21.3 degrees recorded in 1979, meteorologist Kristen Gislefoss told AFP.

Later in the afternoon however, at around 6 p.m. local time, it recorded 21.7 degrees, setting a new all-time record.

July 27, 2020

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UN forecasts even warmer temperatures over next 5 years

The last five-year period has been the warmest five years on record, said the Geneva-based United Nations agency, which counts 193 member states.

Temperatures over the next five years, 2020 to 2024, are very likely to be within the range of 0.91 C to 1.59 C above pre-industrial levels.

Almost all regions, except parts of the southern oceans, are likely to be warmer than the recent past, which is defined as 1981 to 2010.

“This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – the enormous challenge ahead in meeting the Paris Agreement on Climate Change target of keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 C,” said WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas.

July 9, 2020

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Steve MacLellan

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Tag Archives: global warming

Arctic heating races ahead of worst case estimates

The Disaffected Lib: Tick-Tock. One Million Tonnes – Per Minute