[Vision2020] Aug./Sept. 2012: Arctic "Polar Amplification" Warmth Continues: Arctic Sea Ice Extent Shatters 2007 Record Low

[Joe Campbell]

Heard a report on this yesterday on NPR. Very scary. Joe

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
> A stunning decline in the Arctic sea ice extent for summer 2012 resulted in
> a shattering of the previous record low from 2007 by 18 percent lower.  From
> the National Snow Ice Data Center:  http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
>
> "This year’s minimum is 18% below 2007 and 49% below the 1979 to 2000
> average."
> ---------------------------------
>
> We continue to rapidly approach one of the critical anthropogenic climate
> change tipping points, Arctic summer ice free, as referenced in the
> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper at the bottom of this
> post.
> ---------------------------------
> Despite the year to year variability in local and global temperatures,
> which can in the short term due to natural climate factors (solar,
> volcanoes, ENSO, et. al.) somewhat displace the long term warming signal
> from
> anthropogenic climate change (List of scientific studies of climate
> sensitivity starting in 1896:
> http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html ), the Arctic
> continued in Aug. 2012 with anomalous widespread warmth, as is obvious
> from the color coded global temperature map for Aug.. 2012, offered by
> NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies GISTEMP at the following website:
>
> http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=8&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=08&year1=2012&year2=2012&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
>
> GISTEMP reveals Aug. 2012 to be tied with 2007 and 2009 for the sixth
> warmest Aug. month for global average surface temperatures, land and ocean
> combined, since 1880:
>
> http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
> -------------------------------------
> It's very important to consider that even with "global dimming" from
> human sourced atmospheric aerosols. i. e. particulates, importantly
> sulfates from
> coal fired plants (China!), that reflect solar energy and cool
> climate, thus to some extent masking global warming, as quantified in
> the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
> from July 2011(
> "Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature
> 1998–2008"
> http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/27/1102467108 ),
> the Arctic continues a long term warming trend, with ominous
> implications for global climate.
>
> It is ironic that though in the long term coal fired plants have the
> potential to contribute the most to anthropogenic global warming
> (Keystone XL: Game over? "...coal is still the 800-gigatonne gorilla
> at the carbon party."
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/11/keystone-xl-game-over/
> ), if we globally shut down all coal fired plants, the global
> dimming impact would dissipate, while the CO2 atmospheric impacts from
> coal burning etc. would remain, causing global warming to accelerate
> for a period of time.
>
> The continuing warm Arctic anomaly is sometimes referenced as "polar
> amplification" from the radiative forcing of increasing atmospheric
> CO2 levels from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, that was
> predicted by climate scientists at least as early as 1980: Manabe,
> Syukuro, and Ronald J
> Stouffer, 1980: Sensitivity of a global climate model to an increase
> of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Journal of
> Geophysical Research, 85(C10), 5529-5554:
> http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/results.php?author=1070
> http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/sm8001.pdf?PHPSESSID=141ca3d145efd058508e335b76a564ee
>
> Some researchers indicate Nobel Laureate Arrhenius, who some consider the
> father of modern climate science, predicted polar amplification over a
> century ago.  Climate science researcher Barton Paul Levenson lists the
> climate model verifications of anthropogenic climate warming at this
> website, among them "polar amplification" with a reference to "Arrhenius
> 1896": "Are the Models Untestable?"
> http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html
>
> Arrhenius's 1896 paper on climate sensitivity, the change in global average
> surface temperature from a doubling of atmospheric CO2, is here:  "On the
> Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground:"
> http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf
> --------------------------
> The continued anomalous warmth in the Arctic indicates we continue to
> approach one of the critical climate change tipping
> points, "Arctic summer ice free," mentioned in the
> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ("Reducing abrupt
> climate change risk using the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
> actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions"
> http://www.pnas.org/content/106/49/20616.full ) from August 2009
>
> The tipping points mentioned are Amazon die-off, ENSO intensification,
> Arctic summer ice free, Greenland destabilization, Himalayan-Tibetan
> glacier destabilisation, thermohaline ocean current disruption, West
> Antarctica destabilization.
>
> >From  the abstract:
>
> "Current emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) have
> already committed the planet to an increase in average surface
> temperature by the end of the century that may be above the critical
> threshold for tipping elements of the climate system into abrupt
> change with potentially irreversible and unmanageable consequences.
> This would mean that the climate system is close to entering if not
> already within the zone of “dangerous anthropogenic interference”
> (DAI). Scientific and policy literature refers to the need for
> “early,” “urgent,” “rapid,” and “fast-action” mitigation to help avoid
> DAI and abrupt climate changes."
>
> The climate change tipping points mentioned in this paper are
> presented in the following graph:
> http://www.pnas.org/content/106/49/20616/F1.large.jpg
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
>
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