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Bob Bingham Blog page.

A series of opinion pieces on, mostly climate change and related subjects to do with New Zealand.

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Arctic ice breakup

26/4/2014

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People in the northern hemisphere are becoming aware that the loss of Arctic sea ice has a profound effect on the jet stream which leads to a disruption of the regular weather patterns. In essence the weather system gets stuck so that a rain storm becomes a week long biblical flood or a sunny week becomes a Saharan drought.  The extreme weather in the UK and North East USA led to the media coining the words ‘Polar vortex’ to describe this.


This winter’s maximum extent of the sea ice was one of the lowest but of course it’s the loss of ice in the summer and the open ocean absorbing the suns heat that affects the weather.


Graph from http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Watching this is a slow business as there is only a serious melt for about three months of the year. At the moment we are only just past the winter maximum extent of Arctic sea ice and so there is only speculative forecasting for this summer’s melt.


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Observation and research is improving with the use satellites and there are reports of a massive Arctic cyclone which started in warm water off the coast of Norway and has travelled into the Arctic Circle churning up the ice and breaking the ice flows.


Illustration from http://greatwhitecon.info/2014/04/new-arctic-sea-ice-resources/
The implication is that with the ice broken into very small particles the ice will melt more quickly when the Sun gets higher. The ice will not have its ability to reflect heat and instead the blue sea will absorb the heat into the ocean and this warmth increases the likelihood of a polar vortex and serious disruption to the weather pattern.

As the Sun ascends in the North and the ice starts its summer melt there will be a lot of people watching the progress as it is the most visible and volatile indicator of our warming world and climate change.



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Pine Island Glacier news.

26/4/2014

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For those interested in sea level rise the recent release of a 660 square km  (255 square miles) iceberg from the Pine Island ice shelf is an interesting development. Although a great deal of ice has melted world wide, much of it is already in the sea and has not contributed to sea level rise. However, when the floating ice breaks up, the glacier it was buttressing  starts to slip more quickly towards the sea, where it will melt faster. The  Pine Island glacier has already nearly doubled its speed towards the sea and the ice shelf is melting from underneath very quickly. The glacier is already a major contributor to the 200 mm sea level rise that we have had so far, half of which has been from thermal expansion.

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Pine Island and its adjoining Thwaits glacier together are the largest ice drainage basins in the world, and combined could contribute one or two meters of sea level rise.  Not that it will melt suddenly or on its own but it is a big indicator of what is happening all round Antarctica. 


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El Nino verses Jet stream

5/4/2014

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The probability of an El Nino event in late northern summer has recently increased substantially and although this can bring drought to many critical regions it could deliver rain to California and break their drought. This poses and interesting question, California has had a persistent ridge of high pressure sitting over the Pacific, just off the coast, which has diverted rain clouds north to Alaska and high pressure systems are notoriously difficult to shift. This high pressure ridge, the cause of the drought, could be linked to the jet stream changes brought about by the diminishing Arctic sea ice.

If the El Nino develops it would normally send rain bearing low pressure systems to California which would be very welcome even if it also delivers a few floods.

Which one is going to win? Will the ridge of high pressure persist and divert the rain bearing systems north or will these systems overwhelm the high pressure and break the drought?

 Like most climate events it takes time for it to happen but the next year should be quite interesting.


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    Bob Bingham 

    Occasional blog posts on topical news items concerning the climate.  Please click the RSS feed to receive updates.

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