Summer storm spins over Arctic
Source: Phys.org
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.
The storm had an unusually low central pressure area. Paul A. Newman, chief scientist for Atmospheric Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., estimates that there have only been about eight storms of similar strength during the month of August in the last 34 years of satellite records. “It’s an uncommon event, especially because it’s occurring in the summer. Polar lows are more usual in the winter,” Newman said.
Arctic storms such as this one can have a large impact on the sea ice, causing it to melt rapidly through many mechanisms, such as tearing off large swaths of ice and pushing them to warmer sites, churning the ice and making it slushier, or lifting warmer waters from the depths of the Arctic Ocean.
“It seems that this storm has detached a large chunk of ice from the main sea ice pack. This could lead to a more serious decay of the summertime ice cover than would have been the case otherwise, even perhaps leading to a new Arctic sea ice minimum,” said Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist with NASA Goddard. “Decades ago, a storm of the same magnitude would have been less likely to have as large an impact on the sea ice, because at that time the ice cover was thicker and more expansive.”
Read more: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-summer-storm-arctic.html
It's really hard to overstate the significance of this event. You see, an ice free arctic could well result in the kind of extreme droughts and heating seen in our breadbasket becoming a permanent weather feature of the planet. The heartland of the USA becomes the new Sahara.
Many arctic scientists are running around with their hair on fire. And that was before this event. See:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/missing-sea-ice-ameg-and-_b_1753994.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
We wanna hear what Snooki thinks about her pregnancy.
fyi
Commodity brokers are betting on a sharp rise in long-term feed corn futures BEFORE the news hits the mainstream.
Get my broker on the phone....
This arctic storm isn't nearly as important as a cat traveling hundreds of miles to be reunited with its family (5 minute news spot and all).
YOU are responsible for causing America and the world to fart around and do diddley squat while
pollution worsened and worsened.
YOU, Republicans, denied reality and rammed a corporately funded (R) campaign onslaught of lies at America and the world about the obvious truth.
You, Republicans, screwed America and the planet based on your own ignorance, fear, and greed.
sold them our automobile/high carbon footprint culture and started the process of shipping our factories over there, where they grew to be ten times as big and dirty as what we once had here.
The entire planet thanks GHW for cheap Chinese plastics and the other wonder things he's done for the world.
The impacts of increased open water in the Beaufort Sea were investigated for a summer Arctic storm in 2008 using a coupled atmosphere-ice-ocean model. The storm originated in northern Siberia and slowly moved into the Beaufort Sea along the ice edge in late July. The maximum wind associated with the storm occurred when it was located over the open water near the Beaufort Sea coast, after it had moved over the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The coupled model system is shown to simulate the storm track, intensity, maximum wind speed and the ice cover well. The model simulations suggest that the lack of ice cover in the Beaufort Sea during the 2008 storm results in increased local surface wind and surface air temperature, compared to enhanced ice cover extents such as occurred in past decades. In addition, due to this increase of open water, the surface latent and sensible heat fluxes into the atmosphere are significantly increased. However, there were no significant impacts on the storm track. The expanded open water and the loss of the sea ice results in increases in the surface air temperature by as much as 8°C. Although the atmospheric warming mostly occurs in the boundary layer, there is increased atmospheric boundary turbulence and downward kinetic energy transport that reach to mid-levels of the troposphere and beyond. These changes result in enhanced surface winds, by as much as ?4 m/s during the 2008 storm, compared to higher ice concentration conditions (typical of past decades). The dominant sea surface temperature response to the storm occurs over open water; storm-generated mixing in the upper ocean results in sea surface cooling of up to 2°C along the southern Beaufort Sea coastal waters. The Ekman divergence associated with the storm caused a decrease in the fresh water content in the central Beaufort Sea by about 11 cm.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011JD016985.shtml
I love the patch, sums it up so wonderfully!
We don't need no steenkin False Equivalency around here.
Republicans have made a RELIGION out of denying climate change.
Republicans need to man up and take responsibility for their willful ignorance, fear and greed -- and for the massive harm they have done in the world.
The RNC finds guys like Nixon, Reagan, and Bush to further their agenda. Look to the big picture and the continuity while the lackeys just come and go in quick succession.
It is never the butler who commits the crime
does anyone recognize that tipping points are real and that we are, globally, near a catastrophic tipping point that will affect every man, woman child, animal species, aquatic species, oh the hell with it, every living thing?
I didn't know russia was experiencing massive wildfires also. Nothing in MSM. Only thing I know,the perpetrators of this massive crime will go out just like me, and that's some solace. thanks for the link, bookmarked.
