Decreasing Arctic albedo boosts global warming

A new paper in PNAS, called Observational determination of albedo caused by vanishing sea ice, reminds me of scientific work Peter Wadhams published a year and a half ago wherein he showed Arctic ice melt is 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions'. He based this assertion on calculations, as can be read in this BBC article from around that time.

This new paper by Pistone et al., however, is based on observations (as it says in the title) and similarly concludes that the "decrease in albedo is equivalent to roughly 25 percent of the average global warming currently occurring due to increased carbon dioxide levels"

I've taken this last quote from a livescience article. Here's more:

Warming from Arctic Sea Ice Melting
More Dramatic than Thought

Credit: Stefan Hendricks, Alfred Wegener Institute

Since as early as the 1960s, scientists have hypothesized that melting sea ice amplifies global warming by decreasing Arctic albedo. Researchers have since devised climate models to demonstrate this phenomenon but, until now, nobody had relied entirely on satellite data to confirm this effect through time. [See Stunning Photos of Earth's Vanishing Ice]

Now, scientists based at the University of California, San Diego have analyzed Arctic satellite data from 1979 to 2011, and have found that average Arctic albedo levels have decreased from 52 percent to 48 percent since 1979 — twice as much as previous studies based on models have suggested, the team reports today (Feb. 17) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The amount of heat generated by this decrease in albedo is equivalent to roughly 25 percent of the average global warming currently occurring due to increased carbon dioxide levels, the team reports.

"Although more work is needed, a possible implication of this is that the amplifying feedback of Arctic sea ice retreat on global warming is larger than has been previously expected," study co-author Ian Eisenman told Live Science.

Previous models of Arctic albedo have suggested the reflectiveness of white cloud cover could potentially mitigate a portion of albedo loss due to melting ice; but these new observations show that cloud cover has had a negligible effect on overall Arctic reflectivity, the team says.

While Arctic sea ice will not likely return to 1979 values in the near future, the ice does change from year to year and might still experience some comeback this century, though the extent to which this might happen remains unclear, Eisenman said.

Read the rest here.

Here's another quote from the September 2012 BBC article mentioned above:

The melting ice could have knock-on effects in the UK. Adam Scaife, from the Met Office Hadley Centre told Newsnight it could help explain this year's miserable wet summer, by altering the course of the jet stream.

"Some studies suggest that there is increased risk of wet, low pressure summers over the UK as the ice melts."

There may be an effect for our winters too: "Winter weather could become more easterly cold and snowy as the ice declines," Mr Scaife said.

The increased risk of wet summers in the UK has shown its ugly face already in recent years. As fellow blogger Chris Reynolds shows on his Dosbat blog, 4 of the 10 wettest summers since 1910 all occurred in the last 7 years. The chance that this is due to natural variation, is 0.14%.

In fact, Chris says: "The UK is experiencing cooler wetter summers, likely as a result of sea ice loss. And this has lead to damaging flooding events in 2007, and 2012. This is not happening by chance, it is climate change, ongoing and causing damaging consequences to lives, property and agriculture."

Tewkesbury, in Gloucestershire, after the floods in July 2007. Photograph: Getty Images

Nevertheless, there's a lot of ongoing brouhaha in the deniosphere over the Met Office giving conflicting forecasts. It could be that what the Met Office isn't getting, and fake skeptics will probably never (want to) get, is that the very real risk for now is that weather systems get stuck because of changes in the jet stream.

Coincidentally, the BBC published another article a couple of days ago, explaining how this works:

The meandering jet stream has accounted for the recent stormy weather over the UK and the bitter winter weather in the US Mid-West remaining longer than it otherwise would have.

"We can expect more of the same and we can expect it to happen more frequently," says Prof Francis

The jet stream, as its name suggests, is a high-speed air current in the atmosphere that brings with it the weather.

It is fuelled partly by the temperature differential between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes.

If the differential is large then the jet stream speeds up, and like a river flowing down a steep hill, it ploughs through any obstacles - such as areas of high pressure that might be in its way.

If the temperature differential reduces because of a warming Arctic then the jet stream weakens and, again, like a river on a flat bed, it will meander every time it comes across an obstacle.

This results in weather patterns tending to becoming stuck over areas for weeks on end. It also drives cold weather further south and warm weather further north. Examples of the latter are Alaska and parts of Scandinavia, which have had exceptionally warm conditions this winter.

Perhaps the most spectacular example has been on Svalbard in the last 30 days (besides the fact that Svalbard is circumnavigable in February!) where the average temperature was -1.0 °C, 15.0 °C above the normal. This is Europe's northernmost territory, just 10 degrees latitude from the Pole. According to NOAA all of the Arctic Circle could be heading towards this kind of anomaly as the century progresses.

See that black line towards the bottom? That's the 1961-1990 average

So, when you get easterly cold and snowy, you keep getting easterly cold and snowy. When you get westerly storms and rainy, you keep getting westerly storms and rainy, as some folks in the UK have been noticing this winter.

Again, from the BBC article:

With the UK, the US and Australia experiencing prolonged, extreme weather, the question has been raised as to whether recent patterns are due to simple natural variations or the result of manmade climate change? According to Prof Francis, it is too soon to tell.

"The Arctic has been warming rapidly only for the past 15 years," she says.

"Our data to look at this effect is very short and so it is hard to get a very clear signal.

"But as we have more data I do think we will start to see the influence of climate change."

Prof Francis was taking part in a session on Arctic change involving Mark Serreze, the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado.

He said the idea that changes in the polar north could influence the weather in middle latitudes - so-called "Santa's revenge" - was a new and lively area of research and somewhat controversial, with arguments for and against.

"Fundamentally, the strong warming that might drive this is tied in with the loss of sea-ice cover that we're seeing, because the sea-ice cover acts as this lid that separates the ocean from a colder atmosphere," Dr Serreze explained.

"If we remove that lid, we pump all this heat up into the atmosphere. That is a good part of the signal of warming that we're now seeing, and that could be driving some of these changes."

Which brings us back again, full circle. Or perhaps I should say full meander.

Comments

[Hans Gunnstaddar]

Jevon's paradox is resource specific and does not speak to fuel switching within an environment of resource depletion.

That's an interesting idea and presupposes people won't want their cake and eat it too (especially in poorer countries), but that aside, where does the capitol come from once amplifying economic feedbacks ensue as crude descends from peak? That means figuring out how to fund a new energy system on a net energy descent.

[Bob Wallace]

Hans, you apparently believe that we are six years from a global collapse.

Why is it that no government agency, from any government in the world is not warning us?

Why do we not see countries starting to hoard oil and rush alternatives into place?

Can you identify any major scientific agencies which have called out the alarm?

[jdallen_wa]

Bob - Hans may tend to be more aggressive than I am with his assessments, but just on my own anecdotal experience of the last forty years or so, and what I know of peak oil, his concerns have some merit.

I really do not think there is anything accidental about the rise of fracking for natural gas development and peak oil; not one bit.

It might be in time to avoid prompt chaos, but is still a stop gap. The system of global trade is far more fragile than most of us realize; the earthquake in Japan was a test run demonstrating just how badly a single event can disrupt it.

[Hans Gunnstaddar]

Why would they do anything to panic its people?

Where's the link you were going to provide that shutting down a blog proves peak oil is dead? You were actually sold on the idea that if a few people shut down a blog it somehow proves a finite resource is infinite? Does that make sense to you?

Did you read any of the links that were provided? Did you read the article linked about the German Army's resulting research on the topic? If so, respond to it. Did you read the article regarding recent reductions in oil major company reductions in Capex? If so, what are your thoughts on it? Did you acknowledge or do a search on Jdwallen's post of the US military's research into the topic? When you do post him back with your thoughts on it and provide links to disprove the US military's position on the topic.

It's pretty clear you won't though because you've apparently prejudged the topic. I'm not going to hold your hand with more links. You are old enough to type so do the research for yourself with an open mind.

[Neven]

My friends, this is one of the reasons why I started the Arctic Sea Ice Forum (especially if you're going to bicker :-) ).

[Apocalypse4Real]

Apologies Neven, but this needs inserted here to address Bob's question. I'd suggest a read of the National Academy of Sciences:

Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14682

Here is a hint:

Recommendation 6.3: The intelligence community should establish a system of periodic “stress testing” for countries, regions, and critical global systems regarding their ability to manage potentially disruptive climate events of concern. Stress tests would focus on potentially disruptive conjunctions of climate events and socioeconomic and political conditions.

[Shared Humanity]

Can you believe 90% humidity at the end of the arctic summer???

This makes absolute sense. As global atmospheric moisture climbs due to AGW, we should expect that the relatively low temperatures of the Arctic will result in persistently high relative humidity in the high latitudes. We should also see these cold temperatures wring out a lot of moisture from the increasing cloud cover. So, I would not be surprised if we see ongoing increases in humidity and summer precipitation. The only question I have is whether we will also see these trends during the Arctic winters.

[Jai Mitchell]

Shared,

from the reading of the paper it looks like they determined that the flora would emit more moisture and have subsequent more regional methane emissions at the end of summer to prepare for the long dark winter. But they did say that through that winter there was no heavy frost. Remember, at that time the earth's surface between 45'S to 45'N was largely uninhabitable due to high temperatures.

Hans.

There is enough bitumen in Alberta that, if enough investment is made, it would basically double the world's extractable oil resources, lasting through 2085 at current consumption rates. Imagine 5 or 6 nuclear power plants generating thermal energy to extract in-situ bitumen by 2030, if Oil reaches 300.00 per barrel then that proposition becomes a very economically favorable event.

re: Jevon's and developing countries, that is why the carbon tax has to be a global one.

[Jai Mitchell]

Chris,

This paper just came out that shows the land-surface warming extremes growing during the SST La Nina stagnation events very clearly.

http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/no-pause-in-the-increase-of-hot-temperature-extremes.pdf

figure 2 is very scary when compared to

(my) TOA projections
http://i58.tinypic.com/15twrs.jpg

[sofouuk]

wouldn't have to be a global carbon tax at first. if eg the EU introduced one, it could apply the same tax as an tariff on embedded carbon in imported products. legal under WTO rules as long as the same tax rate is applied to all goods, and then the incentive is there for firms exporting to the EU to improve energy efficiency; then they put pressure on their governments to introduce similar tax at home because they'll have an advantage if it does

[Colorado Bob]

New Study Yanks Away Glimmer of Hope on Climate Change.

According to NASA climate scientist Drew Shindell, the lead author of Sunday’s paper, the September IPCC study assumed aerosols were distributed uniformly over the Earth’s surface rather than concentrated over Northern cities. That assumption biased the IPCC’s results, says Shindell, causing them to conclude that the observed warming so far implied the possibility of low sensitivity.

Instead, says Shindell, when you account for the actual behavior of aerosols and other atmospheric pollutants such as ground-level ozone, the resulting conclusions about the Earth’s climate sensitivity are significantly more pessimistic than those in the IPCC’s study.
http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/climate-change/new-study-yanks-away-glimmer-of-hope-on-climate-change.html