The North Pole is an insane 36 degrees warmer than normal as winter descends

[DFighter]

Political people in the United States are watching the chaos in Washington in the moment. But some people in the science community are watching the chaos somewhere else — the Arctic.

 

It’s polar night there now — the sun isn’t rising in much of the Arctic. That’s when the Arctic is supposed to get super-cold, when the sea ice that covers the vast Arctic Ocean is supposed to grow and thicken.

 

But in fall of 2016 — which has been a zany year for the region, with multiple records set for low levels of monthly sea ice — something is totally off. The Arctic is super-hot, even as a vast area of cold polar air has been displaced over Siberia.

At the same time, one of the key indicators of the state of the Arctic — the extent of sea ice covering the polar ocean — is at a record low. The ice is freezing up again, as it always does this time of year after reaching its September low, but it isn’t doing so as rapidly as usual.

 

In fact, the ice’s area is even lower than it was during the record-low 2012:

 

 

Twitter’s expert Arctic watchers also are stunned. Zack Labe, a PhD student at the University of California at Irvine who studies the Arctic, tweeted out an image on Wednesday from the Danish Meteorological Institute showing Arctic temperatures about 20 degrees Celsius higher than normal above 80 degrees North Latitude.

 

“Today’s latest #Arctic mean temperature continues to move the wrong direction . . . up. Quite an anomalous spike!,” Labe wrote. Here’s the figure:

As you can see, temperatures north of 80 latitude were around -5 degrees Celsius — still below freezing, but not by that much — instead of the normal of around -25 degrees C.

 

“Despite onset of #PolarNight, temperatures near #NorthPole increasing. Extraordinary situation right now in #Arctic, w/record low #seaice,” added Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.

 

This is the second year in a row that temperatures near the North Pole have risen to freakishly warm levels. During 2015’s final days, the temperature near the Pole spiked to the melting point thanks to a massive storm that pumped warm air into the region.

 

So what’s going on here?

 

“It’s about 20C [36 degrees Fahrenheit] warmer than normal over most of the Arctic Ocean, along with cold anomalies of about the same magnitude over north-central Asia,” Jennifer Francis, an Arctic specialist at Rutgers University, said by email Wednesday.

 

“The Arctic warmth is the result of a combination of record-low sea-ice extent for this time of year, probably very thin ice, and plenty of warm/moist air from lower latitudes being driven northward by a very wavy jet stream.”

 

Francis has published research suggesting that the jet stream, which travels from west to east across the Northern Hemisphere in the mid-latitudes, is becoming more wavy and elongated as the Arctic warms faster than the equator does.

 

“It will be fascinating to see if the stratospheric polar vortex continues to be as weak as it is now, which favors a negative Arctic Oscillation and probably a cold mid/late winter to continue over central and eastern Asia and eastern North America. The extreme behavior of the Arctic in 2016 seems to be in no hurry to quit,” Francis continued.

 

Francis cited the work of Judah Cohen, a forecaster with Atmospheric and Environmental Research, who has linked odd jet stream behavior with cold air over Siberia.

 

Indeed, another Arctic expert, James Overland with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that the jet stream at the moment is well configured to transport warmth northward into the Arctic. “There is strong warm advection into the Arctic, especially northern-central Canada, in through the Atlantic,  and east Siberian/Chukchi Sea,” Overland said.

 

The whole situation is pretty extreme, several experts agreed.

 

“Both the persistence and magnitude of these temperature anomalies are quite unusual,” Labe added by email. “Large variability in temperatures is common in the Arctic (especially during the cold season), but the duration of this warm Arctic — cold Siberia pattern is unusual and quite an impressive crysophere/sea ice feedback.” (The “cryosphere” refers to that part of the Earth’s system that is made up of ice.)

 

Abnormally warm air has flooded the Arctic since October. Richard James, a meteorologist who pens a blog on Alaska weather, analyzed 19 weather stations surrounding the Arctic Ocean and found that the average temperature was about 4 degrees (2 Celsius) above the record set in 1998.

 

Since November, temperatures have risen even higher. “It is amazing to see that the warmth has become even more pronounced since the end of October,” James wrote on his blog.

 

Mark Serreze, who heads the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., agrees that something odd is going on. Not only are air temperatures unusually warm, but water temperatures are as well.  “There are some areas in the Arctic Ocean that are as much as 25 degrees Fahrenheit above average now,” Serreze said. “It’s pretty crazy.”

 

What’s happening, he explains, is sort of a “double whammy.” On the one hand, there is a “very warm underlying ocean” due to the lack of sea ice forming above it. But, at the same time, kinks in the jet stream have allowed warm air to flow northward and frigid Arctic air to descend over Siberia.

 

“The sea ice is at a record low right now, for this time of year, that’s one thing,” Serreze said. “And why it’s so low — again, there’s so much heat in the upper ocean in these ice-free areas, the ice just can’t form right now. The ocean’s just got to get rid of this heat somehow, and it’s having a hard time doing so.”

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/17/the-north-pole-is-an-insane-36-degrees-warmer-than-normal-as-winter-descends/

 

[BitchPudding]

as the only player and meteorologist in this forum, i can say this isnt global warming. we have had consecutive el ninos for the past decade and now a la nina. People arent the alarm on climate change, but the stored methane in the greenland ice is the concern.

 

Sea Ice always will fluctuate. its in part of ocean temperatures and salinity than it is with air temperatures, not to say air temperature isnt a big factor neither.

 

what i would suggest is a physical oceanography class to understand it but heres a briefing

 

 

 

 

 

this pretty much sums... if you place a block of ice in warm water vs hanging on a string... the warm water will melt it faster than the air at the same temperature because the calories needed to heat it up to 1 degree C is better in water than air

[BitchPudding]

also on other thing... just checking the temperature now on the ocean and even off nova scotia is above freezing which is alittle warm but there is still a large blob of hot water to the south. check this https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-65.50,40.16,640/loc=-55.132,55.026

 

click on Ocean under mode and SST under overlay. you can also see the warm water currents under the current overlay

 

 

the north atlantic is THE ONLY ONE that contributes to the arctic sea ice

Edited November 21, 2016 by BitchPudding

[vehx]

well i am no scientist , but i do alot of research lol . i know that many peole will deny , and say that i am paranoid , and a conspiracy nut , but H.A.A.R.P. is a real thing , and so is weather modification , there are departments of the american and canadian governments specifically to deal with weather modification and geo engineering  , that being said , i am not saying that "THEY" are out to get us or that "THEY" are directly responsible for any of this . what i am  suggesting is that if you read about how H.A.A.R.P. works , you will find that it is an array of radio anttenas that focus energy (heat) , into the ionosphere , this causes a massive displacement of our atomasphere , causing changes in weather patterns around the world , so yes climate change is actually a thing , and has been a thing since the dawn of time lol , but this time it is man made ,,, and it wasnt your old car that did it lol  ... it is no surprise that there are higher temperatures in the arctic since that is where one of the first H.A.A.R.P. arrays was built , and again let me be VERY VERY clear about this .... i am NOT saying that they are doing this on purpose to raise the temperature ,  what i am saying is that like the atomaspheric atomic detonations done in the 1950's and 60's , there may not be alot of forethought going into the research and methods that H.A.A.R.P. is using .... and the consequences of these short sighted projects are what we , the people of the world , will have to deal with and clean up after ..... if you have made it this far , i thank you for taking to time to read my little rant lol ......

[BitchPudding]

well i am no scientist , but i do alot of research lol . i know that many peole will deny , and say that i am paranoid , and a conspiracy nut , but H.A.A.R.P. is a real thing , and so is weather modification , there are departments of the american and canadian governments specifically to deal with weather modification and geo engineering  , that being said , i am not saying that "THEY" are out to get us or that "THEY" are directly responsible for any of this . what i am  suggesting is that if you read about how H.A.A.R.P. works , you will find that it is an array of radio anttenas that focus energy (heat) , into the ionosphere , this causes a massive displacement of our atomasphere , causing changes in weather patterns around the world , so yes climate change is actually a thing , and has been a thing since the dawn of time lol , but this time it is man made ,,, and it wasnt your old car that did it lol  ... it is no surprise that there are higher temperatures in the arctic since that is where one of the first H.A.A.R.P. arrays was built , and again let me be VERY VERY clear about this .... i am NOT saying that they are doing this on purpose to raise the temperature ,  what i am saying is that like the atomaspheric atomic detonations done in the 1950's and 60's , there may not be alot of forethought going into the research and methods that H.A.A.R.P. is using .... and the consequences of these short sighted projects are what we , the people of the world , will have to deal with and clean up after ..... if you have made it this far , i thank you for taking to time to read my little rant lol ......

My professor did work on weather modification. its called project storm fury. if you want to do the research on it, then http://www2.fiu.edu/~willough/PUBS/STORMFURY_85.pdf but to save you from hype... it wasnt plausible to do weather modification and if anyone would know about different weather modification, he would be the first to know since it was originated by him. asking about HAARP, i did ask him about it a while back ago. he said it doesnt exist as geo engineering.