[TheClimate.Vote] December 9, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Dec 9 09:50:28 EST 2020
/*December 9, 2020*/
[NOAA official report]
*Arctic Report Card: Update for 2020The sustained transformation to a
warmer, less frozen and biologically changed Arctic remains clear*
*Arctic Essays*
2020 Headlines
The sustained transformation to a warmer, less frozen and biologically
changed Arctic remains clear
Extreme warm air temperatures in the Eurasian Arctic illustrate
significant region-wide effects of year-to-year variability and
connections across the Arctic environment.
*Highlights*
The average annual land surface air temperature north of 60 N for
October 2019-September 2020 was the second highest on record since at
least 1900. Record warm temperatures in the Eurasian Arctic were
associated with extreme conditions in the ocean and on the land.
*In the oceans*
Sea ice loss in spring 2020 was particularly early in the East Siberian
Sea and Laptev Sea regions, setting new record lows in the Laptev Sea
for June. The end of summer sea ice extent in 2020 was the second lowest
in the 42-year satellite record, with 2012 being the record minimum year.
August mean sea surface temperatures in 2020 were ~1-3C warmer than the
1982-2010 August mean over most of the Arctic Ocean, with exceptionally
warm temperatures in the Laptev and Kara seas that coincided with the
early loss of sea ice in this region.
During July and August 2020, regional ocean primary productivity in the
Laptev Sea was ~2 times higher for July and ~6 times higher for August
compared to their respective monthly averages.
Bowhead whales have been a staple resource for coastal Indigenous
peoples for millennia and are uniquely adapted for the arctic marine
ecosystem. The Pacific Arctic population size has increased in the past
30 years likely due to increases in ocean primary production and
northward transport of the zooplankton they feed on.
Shifts in air temperatures, storminess, sea ice and ocean conditions
have combined to increase coastal permafrost erosion rates, in regions
where a high proportion of Arctic residents live and industrial,
commercial, tourist and military activities are expanding.
*On the land*
The exceptional warm spring air temperatures across Siberia resulted in
record low June snow cover extent across the Eurasian Arctic, as
observed in the past 54 years.
Extreme wildfires in 2020 in the Sakha Republic of northern Russia
coincided with unparalleled warm air temperatures and record snow loss
in the region.
Since 2016, tundra greenness trends have diverged strongly by continent,
declining sharply in North America but remaining above the long-term
average in Eurasia.
From September 2019 to August 2020, the Greenland Ice Sheet experienced
higher ice loss than the 1981-2010 average but substantially lower than
the record 2018/19 loss.
Glaciers and ice sheets outside of Greenland have continued a trend of
significant ice loss, dominated largely by ice loss from Alaska and
Arctic Canada.
*Observing Arctic change*
Advancements in the integration of models and observations have
increased the skill and utility of Arctic sea ice predictions on
seasonal to decadal to century timescales.
Important additions to the Arctic Observing Network (AON) systems and
data products and advancements in process-level understanding have
improved the quality and accessibility of information used to produce
the Arctic Report Card.
The unique Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of
Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) project concluded a historic, international,
yearlong expedition into the Arctic ice pack in September 2020,
collecting a legacy dataset that aims to advance the understanding,
modeling and predicting of Arctic environmental change.
Opening of the new NOAA Barrow Observatory, near Utqiaġvik, Alaska,
enables the continuation of nearly half a century of atmosphere and
terrestrial in situ observations...
https://arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2020
- -
[4 min Video report]
*Arctic Report Card 2020*
Dec 8, 2020
NOAAPMEL
Arctic Report Card: Update for 2020 - Tracking recent environmental
changes, with 16 essays prepared by an international team of 134
researchers from 15 different countries and an independent peer review
organized by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme of the
Arctic Council.
This is the 15th anniversary of the Arctic Report Card.
See https://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card
https://youtu.be/TcfQiKUkgBY
[Cold Arctic now warm]
*Warning bells jingle for December climate*
The Christmas month starts with exceptional heat across major parts of
the Arctic.
Atle Staalesen - December 07, 2020
Alarm bells are sounded over and again by climate experts, and the
Christmas season is unlikely to be much different than the preceding months.
According to the Russian meteorological service Roshydromet, the
extraordinary Arctic heat of November was on the first day of December
followed by temperature records in a number of places across the Russian
north.
In the island of Bely, north of the Yamal Peninsula, the winter month
started with plus 1,1C, the highest ever local registration for December
1. The same was the case in Dikson, the town on the Kara Sea coast,
where the registration was minus 0,6 C.
Temperature deviations in the Russian Arctic on December 1, 2020. Map by
Roshydromet
https://thebarentsobserver.com/sites/default/files/arctic.temperatures.1dec2020-roshydromet.jpg
In Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost point on the Russian mainland, the
meteorologists measured minus 4,7C, which is almost three degrees higher
than the previous record for that day.
A temperature map presented by Roshydromet shows that parts of Arctic
Siberia on the 1 December had a temperature deviation from normal of
more than 20 degrees Celsius.
"These temperatures are very far from winter [cold] records of northern
Siberia and Yakutia," Roshydromet laconically explains.
According to the Russian state service, the average temperatures along
major parts of the Russian Arctic coast are now for a long period
between 10-15 C above normal, and in November the deviation from
normality in the region was set to 12 C.
The November temperatures follow a great number of months with abnormal
heat across the whole Arctic.
In October, the average temperature for the whole circumpolar Arctic was
6,7C higher than normal, and in the Russian Arctic archipelago of
Severnaya Zemlya the average October temperature was as much as 10 C
above normal.
The melting of the Arctic sea-ice continues. According to the National
Snow and Ice Data Center, the sea ice extent averaged for October 2020
was the lowest in the satellite record.
Sea-ice levels increased through November, but still ended up as second
lowest in the satellite record for the month, just above 2016.
The November average extent of 8.99 million square kilometers was 1.71
million square kilometers below the 1981 to 2010 average, the Snow and
Ice Data Center informs.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2020/12/warning-bells-jingle-december-climate
[Activism]
*NRDC Energy Report: Slow & Steady Won't Win the Climate Race*
December 02, 2020 - Amanda Levin Sophia Ptacek
Climate-related emergencies over the last two years have made it clear:
the time for ambitious climate action in the United States and abroad is
now. Deadly heat waves blanketing Europe during 2019 killed nearly 1,500
people in France alone, massive wildfires raged from Australia to the
Amazon to the western U.S. in 2019 and 2020, and this year's Atlantic
hurricane season has been the busiest on record. NRDC's Eighth Annual
Energy Report, released today, digs into U.S. energy trends over the
last two years to understand how our energy system has changed since our
last report, where we may be headed, and what it all means for the
worsening climate crisis.
This year's report details both the good and bad news on energy and
climate in the United States in an interactive and explanatory webpage.
It focuses largely on 2019 because final energy data is not released
until 10 months after the previous year's conclusion. Our report also
includes early signs from 2020. You can scroll through the maps, videos,
graphics and text to learn more about the trends on air pollution,
renewable energy, energy efficiency, transportation, oil & gas, and coal
in the United States...
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amanda-levin/slow-and-steady-will-not-win-climate-race
[video - follow-the-money activism]
*Divestment and Climate Action*
Streamed live on Dec 1, 2020
Oxford Climate Society
Divestment and Climate Action
Earlier this year, Greta Thunberg called on world leaders at Davos to
end the 'madness' of fossil fuel investments and subsidies. In a letter
co-authored with other youth climate activists from across the globe,
they demanded that all companies, banks, institutions and governments
'immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels', citing the $1.9tn
that has been poured into fossil fuels since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The global climate movement has grown exponentially over the past few
years, increasingly putting pressure on high profile institutions and
companies to take action and change their investment portfolios to
exclude fossil fuel companies, with some notable successes. Many
universities hold endowments funds comprising millions of pounds, and
whether these investments are held in companies that discover, extract
and distribute fossil fuels raises difficult moral questions.
But is divesting from these companies the best way for large
institutional investors like universities to effect change in the energy
sector, or is it just needless 'virtue-signalling'? Is it a problem that
universities considering divestment accept large donations from the
energy sector? Finally, would it not be more productive to stay invested
and capitalised on their position as stakeholders to pressure Big Oil to
be more environmentally responsible?
In the light of Cambridge University's recent announcement to fully
divest and the tireless campaigns within Oxford and its colleges for
divestment, we look forward to discussing the role that universities and
colleges can play, as investors, in the transition to a cleaner economy.
To provide insight to this debate, we are delighted to be joined by
Jonathon Porritt and Dr Ellen Quigley.
Jonathon Porritt is a veteran campaigner and eminent writer, broadcaster
and commentator on sustainable development. A prominent member of the
Green Party in its early days, he served as co-chair and presided over
changes that rapidly expanded the party's membership. He is the
Founder-director of the Forum for the Future, one of the UK's leading
sustainable development charities, and was previously the Director of
Friends of the Earth from 1984-1990. An alumnus of Magdalen College,
where he studied modern languages, Jonathon was installed as the
Chancellor of Keele University in February 2012 and is also a Visiting
Professor at Loughborough University and UCL.
Dr Ellen Quigley is the Advisor to the Chief Financial Officer at the
University of Cambridge, on Responsible Investment. A Research Associate
in Climate Risk and Sustainable Finance at the Centre for the Study of
Existential Risk, she was lead author of a report titled Divestment:
Advantages and Disadvantages for the University of Cambridge, published
earlier this year. She holds an A.B in english literature from Harvard
College, an MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy from the
University of Oxford and a PhD in Economics Education from the
University of Cambridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LE__4BeIE
[Revised site offers daily mailings]
*Inside Climate News*
Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis
facing our planet.
Science -- Politics & Policy -- Justice -- Fossil Fuels -- Clean Energy
https://insideclimatenews.org/
[some stunning photos from Siberia]
*Beauty of frozen methane bubbles on the world's deepest lake shown in
stunning video*
By The Siberian Times reporter - 24 November 2020
Irkutsk photographer captures multi-layered columns of bubbles through
crystal clear ice.
https://siberiantimes.com/PICTURES/OTHERS/Baikal-methane/st5.jpg
https://siberiantimes.com/upload/information_system_52/7/9/2/item_7926/information_items_7926.jpg
A tranquil video of white and silver bubbles of methane caught in
newly-formed ice was filmed at Maloye More, a strait that separates the
lake's largest island of Olkhon from the western shore of Lake Baikal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA2y3v4T3OY&feature=emb_logo
'Ice covering the shallow straits and bays begins to form by the end of
November, while the rest of Baikal freezes by the middle of January.
'This kind of ice, the purest, can only be seen in some areas of the
lake in November and December', said Stanislav Tolstev, 46, photographer
and tour guide from Irkutsk.
'The first time I paid attention to these bubbles was about four years
ago, then I learned to distinguish methane from air bubbles.
'Methane bubbles freeze in layers one over the other, and the floors of
them can grow 1.5 metres (5ft) deep.
'Local anglers say that other, smaller and more chaotic, bubbles are
'the breathing of Baikal seals' and point to the areas where these
animals rise to the surface to take some air'...
Baikal is located in a rift zone which is a deep - in fact the largest
on the planet - crack in the Earth's crust which narrows at depths of
several dozen kilometres.
It does not have a solid bottom: instead there is a cushion of bottom
sediments that has been filling the most narrow lower part of the crack
for millions of years
These bottom sediments are similar to bogs in that they contain a lot of
gas, including methane.
In deep winter, there are roads over the ice, but the larger methane
bubbles pose a threat.
'There are areas of the lake where bubbles grow so big that cars fall
through the ice,' he said.
'The location may vary from year to year, and usually the large bubbles
appear starting from February and can be seen through March and April.'
Scientists monitor methane rising from the floor of Baikal, and while it
is said to be increasing, they have disputed this is due to global warming.
Dr Nikolay Granin, from the Limnological Institute, Irkutsk, previously
said: 'There are deepwater seeps - at a depth of more than 380 metres
(1,247ft) - and shallow seeps, at a depth less than 380 metres.
'Currently, we have information about 22-24 deepwater seeps and more
than 100 shallow seeps.'
The temperature at the bottom of the lake - the deepest in the world,
with a maximum depth of 1,642 metres (5,387ft) - has not warmed, he said.
'There is a lot of speculation about this. We believe that warming does
not affect the seeps, as the bottom temperature practically doesn't change.'
Yet the lake's level has fallen, and this leads to increased methane
seeps, he said.
The quantity of methane hidden in gas hydrates in Baikal is estimated at
one trillion cubic metres.
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/beauty-of-frozen-methane-bubbles-on-the-worlds-deepest-lake-shown-in-stunning-video/
- -
[video]
*Methane bubbles Baikal*
Nov 24, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA2y3v4T3OY&feature=emb_logo
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - December 9, 2009 *
On MSNBC's "Countdown," Chris Hayes strongly criticizes the Washington
Post for running an article by Sarah Palin peddling climate-denial
conspiracy theories.
http://youtu.be/R8rZ7YXHHfk
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