Russia hints plans to quit Kyoto Protocol October 18, 2012 Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev Enlarge Russia on Thursday hinted that it may refuse to sign up to a new round of targeted carbon cuts that could see the Kyoto environmental protection treaty extended beyond its end of 2012 expiry date. “One has to admit that we never got any real commercial gain from the Kyoto Protocol,” news agencies quoted Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, pictured on October 12, as telling a government meeting. Russia on Thursday hinted that it may refuse to sign up to a new round of targeted carbon cuts that could see the Kyoto environmental protection treaty extended beyond its end of 2012 expiry date.
“One has to admit that we never got any real commercial gain from the Kyoto Protocol,” news agencies quoted Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as telling a government meeting. “That does not mean that we have to try and drag it (the treaty) out any further,” Medvedev added. European diplomats at the May G8 summit in France said that Russia along with Japan and Canada had confirmed plans not to join the second round of carbon cuts. Russia ratified the treaty in 2004. It has since argued that its terms harm developing nations. Medvedev noted that he had said on repeated occasions in the past that “if the world community fails to agree on Kyoto, we would wave it goodbye.” He said he was thinking of extending the treaty’s terms with EU nations alone. “But considering our uneasy relations with the European Union, I am not sure how likely this scenario will be,” he said. A range of EU nations are probing Russian energy natural gas giant Gazprom for price-fixing and other unfair practices under its new Energy Charter Treaty. Medvedev did not explain his reasoning beyond the mention of Russia’s failure to tap into the profits it could have earned had it sold other nations unused carbon emission credits from its domestic producers. (c) 2012 AFP
Extraordinary melting of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has shattered the all-time low sea ice extent record set in September 2007, and sea ice continues to decline far below what has ever been observed. The new sea ice record was set on August 26, a full three weeks before the usual end of the melting season, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Every major scientific institution that tracks Arctic sea ice agrees that new records for low ice area, extent, and volume have been set. These organizations include the University of Washington Polar Science Center (a new record for low ice volume), the Nansen Environmental & Remote Sensing Center in Norway, and the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. A comprehensive collection of sea ice graphs shows the full story. Satellite records of sea ice extent date back to 1979, though a 2011 study by Kinnard et al. shows that the Arctic hasn’t seen a melt like this for at least 1,450 years (see a more detailed article on this over at skepticalscience.com.) The latest September 5, 2012 extent of 3.5 million square kilometers is approximately a 50% reduction in the area of Arctic covered by sea ice, compared to the average from 1979 – 2000. The ice continues to melt, and has not reached the low for this year yet.
Figure 2. Sea ice extent on September 5, 2012, showed that half of the polar ice cap was missing, compared to the average from 1979 – 2000. Image credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Why the Arctic sea ice is important
Arctic sea ice is an important component of the global climate system. The polar ice caps help to regulate global temperature by reflecting sunlight back into space. White snow and ice at the poles reflects sunlight, but dark ocean absorbs it. Replacing bright sea ice with dark ocean is a recipe for more and faster global warming. The Autumn air temperature over the Arctic has increased by 4 – 6°F in the past decade, and we could already be seeing the impacts of this warming in the mid-latitudes, by an increase in extreme weather events. Another non-trivial impact of the absence of sea ice is increased melting in Greenland. We already saw an unprecedented melting event in Greenland this year, and as warming continues, the likelihood of these events increase.
Huge storm pummels Alaska
A massive low pressure system with a central pressure of 970 mb swept through Alaska on Tuesday, generating hurricane-force wind gusts near Anchorage, Alaska that knocked out power to 55,000 homes. Mighty Alaskan storms like this are common in winter, but rare in summer and early fall. The National Weather Service in Anchorage said in their Wednesday forecast discussion that the forecast wind speeds from this storm were incredibly strong for this time of year–four to six standard anomalies above normal. A four-standard anomaly event occurs once every 43 years, and a five-standard anomaly event is a 1-in-4800 year event. However, a meteorologist I heard from who lives in the Anchorage area characterized the wind damage that actually occurred as a 1-in-10 year event. A few maximum wind gusts recorded on Tuesday during the storm:
The storm has weakened to a central pressure of 988 mb today, and is located just north of Alaska. The storm is predicted to bring strong winds of 25 – 35 mph and large waves to the edge of the record-thin and record-small Arctic ice cap, and may add to the unprecedented decline in Arctic sea ice being observed this summer.
Figure 5. An unusually strong storm formed off the coast of Alaska on August 5 and tracked into the center of the Arctic Ocean, where it slowly dissipated over the next several days. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color mosaic image on Aug. 6, 2012. The center of the storm at that date was located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Image credit: NASA.
Arctic storms may be increasing due to climate change
This week’s Alaskan storm is the second unusually strong low pressure system to affect the Arctic in the past month. On August 4 – 8, a mighty storm with a central pressure of 963 mb raged through the Arctic, bringing strong winds that helped scatter and break up Arctic sea ice. According to a detailed post at NASA Earth Observatory, that storm was in the top 3 percent for strongest storms ever recorded north of 70 degrees latitude. A study of long-term Arctic cyclone trends authored by a team led by John Walsh and Xiangdong Zhang of the University of Alaska Fairbanks found that number and intensity of Arctic cyclones has increased during the second half of the twentieth century, particularly during the summer. Dr. Zhang explained that climate change has caused sea ice to retreat markedly in recent decades and has also warmed Arctic Ocean temperatures. Such changes may be providing more energy and moisture to support cyclone development and persistence. The strong storms of this week and a month ago would have had far less impact on the ice just a decade ago, when the sea ice was much thicker and more extensive.
A sea ice decline double-whammy
The monster Arctic storms like we’ve seen this year have sped up the rate of sea ice loss, but increased water temperatures and air temperatures due to human-caused global warming are the dominant reasons for the record melting of the Arctic sea ice. A July 2012 study by Day et al. found that the most influential of the possible natural influences on sea ice loss was the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). The AMO has two phases, negative (cold) and positive (warm), which impact Arctic sea ice. The negative phase tends to create sea surface temperatures in the far north Atlantic that are colder than average. In this study, the AMO only accounted for 5% – 31% of the observed September sea ice decline since 1979. The scientists concluded that given the lack of evidence that natural forces were controlling sea ice fluctuations, the majority of sea ice decline we’ve seen during the 1953 – 2010 period was due to human causes.
Last month, the global average temperature climbed to the second highest for May on record since 1880, according to U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) records.
Much of the world, including nearly all of Europe, Asia, northern Africa, most of North America and southern Greenland experienced above average May temperatures. In fact, last month wrapped up the warmest spring on record for the continental U.S., NOAA records show.
The global May record included the combined global land and ocean average surface temperatures for the month, which 1.19 degrees Fahrenheit (0.66 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average of 58.5 F (14.8 C). This record was beat only in 2010, when the global average was 1.24 F (0.69 C) above the 20th-century average.
The Northern Hemisphere saw its warmest May on record — 1.53 F, or 0.85 C above average — while the Southern Hemisphere’s May ranked ninth warmest among all Mays on record, at 0.85 F (0.47 C) above average.
Of course, it wasn’t unusually warm everywhere. Australia, Alaska and parts of the western U.S.-Canadian border were notably cooler than average.
Snow cover on the Northern Hemisphere was significantly below average in May, according to NOAA records.
Globally, this spring ranked as the fourth warmest. Meanwhile, May brought a slew of temperature records to the continental U.S. after an unusually warm spring and mild winter.
Because of natural fluctuations in weather, climate scientists are loath to connect events that occur over a short-time frame, from a strong storm to an unusual warm spring, to climate change. However, the warming effect of humans’ greenhouse gas emissions forms a backdrop for the weather the world is experiencing and shows up as a longer-term trend. It is not a coincidence that the first decade of this century was the warmest on record, according to NOAA’s State of Climate in 2010 report.
Cherry blossoms on March 4, a sign of early spring in Brooklyn.
CREDIT: Wynne Parry
For parts of North America, this winter was the winter that nearly wasn’t.
January ranked as the fourth-warmest for the 48 U.S. states on record since 1895. December, too, was above average, although not as significantly. The final analysis for February is not yet in, but weather watchers expect last month to rank above average temperature-wise as well.
Of course, this year hasn’t brought early beach weather for everyone; just ask residents of Alaska and Europe, where a frigid cold snap is blamed for hundreds of deaths. And the warmth has been blamed for contributing to the slew of devastating tornadoes that hit the Midwest and southern U.S. on Friday (March 2).
While scientists have said that global warming willcause an uptick in extreme weather, they are hesitant to link any one event or even an unusual season to climate change. Even so, they say, global warming may play a role in the weird winter weather.
The jet stream
The key to understanding the unusually warm winter lies in the jet stream. It is made up of high-altitude, westerly winds. Its polar branch, the one important for determining winter weather, travels over the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere in winter, according to Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the weather service and news site Weather Underground.
The polar jet stream divides cold Arctic air to the north from warmer air to the south. This year, meteorologists say, the jet stream has kept the cold air bottled up farther north than usual.
As a result, warmer-than-usual temperatures this year have graced much of the United States, particularly in New England, the Great Lakes and the Upper Plains, according to Mark Paquette, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com. Southern Canada, too, has gotten its share of mild winter weather
The polar jet stream is influenced by natural patterns, the most prominent being fluctuations in the Northern Annular Mode, also called the Arctic Oscillation. When the mode is in its so-called positive phase, air pressure over the far north remains low, leading to a stronger jet stream. This keeps the cold Arctic air bottled up to the north. The negative phase, meanwhile, is associated with a weaker, meandering jet that allows cold air to spill south.
Reversals
Until late January, the mode was in its positive phase, resulting in warmer temperatures farther north.
But a reversal of phase allowed the jet stream to meander some, and let Arctic cold air move down into Eastern Europe. The result was a cold snap that is blamed for killing hundreds.
The mode has shifted again since then. In fact, a strong jet stream contributed to the tornados that hit the south and the Midwest last week, as did the arrival of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, according to Masters, who discusses the tornados on his blog.
La Niña and the future
Another large-scale atmospheric pattern, one related to temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, is also at play. This winter La Niña, associated with cooler water temperatures in the Pacific, has been in effect. La Niña is typically associated with drier-than-normal conditions for the southern and eastern U.S. — largely consistent with precipitation this winter, according to Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Boulder, Colo.
“The dryness looks like what we would expect with La Niña, the warmth we saw is consistent with the positive Arctic Oscillation,” Arndt said. “The two of them tougher, all else being equal, would tend to produce a warmer and drier winter, especially east of the Rockies.”
Paquette predicts an end to this trend. “Mother Nature or weather patterns have a way of evening themselves out. I think it only matter of time before this mild dry pattern flips and we get into a much different weather pattern.”
Wind speed at 18,000 feet in the atmosphere. The darkest shade represents winds of up to 150 mph.
CREDIT: NOAA/NASA.
A warm spell and a low-dipping jet stream are fueling the monster storms that are spawning tornadoes today across a wide swath of the country, weather experts said.
Today, the Storm Prediction Center has received 311 reports of severe weather, including 48 reported tornadoes and a few reported fatalities. This massive storm system also spawned deadly tornadoes on Leap Day, which raked Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. The severe storms killed at least 12 people and included a strong EF-4 twister in Harrisburg, Ill., a rarity for February.
As of this morning, the severe storm risk area covered an estimated 162 million people, or 56 percent of the United States, according to weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the main tornado season runs from spring to early summer, this year’s early outbreaks show that tornadoes can form under a variety of conditions and strike during fall and winter, too. This year’s mild winter and warm start to meteorological spring has upped the risk of dangerous storms.
“We’ve been in a very warm pattern all winter,” said meteorologist Mark Rose of the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Ala. “Because it has been so mild, it increases our chances for severe weather.”
Also behind this week’s twisters is a low-dipping jet stream. The jet stream is moving at a blistering pace today across the Mid-South and Ohio River Valley. NOAA satellites clocked the jet stream at 150 mph (241 kph) across these regions. The jet stream is bringing cold air from Canada to mix with the warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. Where these two differing air masses meet is often an area of severe weather, hail, winds and even tornadoes. [Infographic: 2012’s Active Tornado Season]
The warm air and rapid jet stream will keep fueling the storms thru tonight and into the weekend, according to NOAA. Weather experts continue to warn that dangerous tornado outbreaks could explode throughout the evening and overnight hours across the Mid- and Deep South and Ohio River Valley.
“We actually are looking at a risk from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes to west of the Mississippi to the East Coast,” Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the Weather Channel. “And these storms are moving fast.”
If you live from the Midwest to the Northeast and thought your jacket or heavy coat usage was less often than usual this November, you are right. The month will close out with a number of cities recording a top ten warmest November.
First up, check out the geeky looking map below. This graphic shows the departures from average temperatures throughout the first 28 days of the month. The darker orange and red shaded locations over the Midwest and Northeast had temperatures the farthest above average during the month. (Note: The figures for the month are computed by taking the high and low from each day and averaging them out over the course of the entire month.)
For some locations in the Northeast, this mild November comes on the heels of the historic, damaging late-October snowstorm dubbed “Snowtober”. After that storm, perhaps you thought bouts of snow and cold temperatures would be in full effect through February? That’s not the case so far.
In the next section below, we will highlight some of the cities that will end up with a top ten warmest November.
Departure from average temperatures: November 2011 (Credit: cpc.ncep.noaa.gov)
November: A Top Ten Warmest
November 2011 will go down as a top ten warmest for all of the cities listed below. The rankings displayed for each location are through November 30th.
Al Gore take your Global Warming to another planet you scammer
Published on September 13, 2011 12:00 am PT
– By Kevin Martin – Senior Meteorologist
– Article Editor and Approved – Ron Jackson
(TheWeatherSpace.com) — Al Gore is yet again planning on pushing the agenda for his theory on global warming with a 24 hour event on September 15th through 16th. Gore states that we are killing the planet, making it warmer.
As a meteorologist this is absurd and quite honestly the most irresponsible non-thought of theory I’ve ever seen and I’ve been following this for years. Al Gore is in it for business and money and nothing else.
Humans in business do not just push the agenda to help the cause. When will people that follow him realize that he pushes it for a cause, and the planet is not it….
Al Gore says we are killing the planet yet records have shown a warming period over 300 years ago. I do not believe the car was invented, nor factories for that matter!
The planet goes through cycles. We live on average of about 70 years, some living shorter and longer than others. However because we do not live 1000 years we cannot see the evolution of the planet’s natural cycles.
We are not the cause of this “global warming”, Al Gore’s pockets for power and money is. Al Gore cares nothing about you, or I, or anyone else for that matter. Al Gore is a businessman and cares only for what he can take from you.
Carbon Tax was the last straw with me. His companies and investments would make billions if it ever went through. Taxing you for air? Who the heck does this guy think he is? I for one would never allow it and I hope the American people reading this finally understand who Al Gore really is. Nothing more than a liar, a cheat, and a scammer..
While other networks are afraid to put out the truth in fear, I am not. Never be afraid to speak the facts staring at us in the face.
The point of this article is not to slam Al Gore for his “theory” … but to show you that Carbon Tax is absurb and you should not stand for it. I am up for theories and differed opinions but I am not up for someone scamming the world just so he can benefit off it.
August 5, 2009: This ‘before’ picture shows the disintegrating ice shelf before it floated away.
CREDIT: Jason Box, Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University.
An ice shelf is poised to break off from a Greenland glacier and float out to sea as an island twice the size of Manhattan, scientists say.
“I don’t know exactly when,” Jason Box, a climatologist with Ohio State Unversity’s Byrd Polar Research Center, told OurAmazingPlanet. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened today — or if it happened next summer.”
Just a year ago, in August 2010, the same glacier produced an even larger iceberg — a mass of ice four times the size of Manhattan, the largest in recorded Greenland history — yet researchers warn that the next spectacular break could have more-dire consequences.
Box said it’s not clear when the 62-square-mile (160 square kilometers) ice shelf, which is dangling from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, will detach from the mainland. “I think it’s more likely to occur during periods of melt, and that’s coming to an end, so I’m losing confidence it’s going to break this year,” Box said.
Ice shelves are enormous plates of ice that float on polar seas but are connected to the shoreline by the land-bound glaciers that feed into them.
During much of the Arctic melt season, summer sunlight pounds the Earth’s highest latitudes nearly 24 hours a day. Melting typically draws to a close in early to mid-September, when cooler temperatures and shorter days arrive.
Box said scientists first noticed a jagged crack in the glacier’s ice — a growing rift he dubbed ‘The Big Kahuna’ — in 2008. However, a subsequent search through satellite data revealed the rift first appeared about eight years earlier.
“We can see the crack widening in the past year through satellite pictures, so it seems imminent,” Box said.
