Watching The Arctic Die

Fig. 1 The Arctic is disintegrating

A big sorry to regular readers because I did not get out the daily yikes yesterday.

I have a "soil garden" that I had to harvest and put on the two vegetable gardens to prepare them for this year's springtime adventures.

In addition to that, I am upgrading, debugging, and otherwise improving the databases I use.

For example, I am switching to a hybrid monthly / yearly PSMSL database, using the monthly data to fill in gaps in the yearly data (more on that later).

I recommend that readers take a peek at Scribbler's piece about the Arctic (No Winter For the Arctic in 2016 — NASA Marks Hottest January Ever Recorded).

He points out that scientists he evidently read or talked to, are "floored" by the haps of this almost winter.

I had mentioned sometime back that the polar vortex and all of that Arctic system would break up and fade away, along with the ice caps there:

Under normal climate conditions, cold air is confined to the Arctic by the polar vortex winds, which circle counter-clockwise around the North Pole. As sea ice coverage decreases, the Arctic warms, high pressure builds, and the polar vortex weakens, sending cold air spilling southward into the mid-latitudes, bringing record cold and fierce snowstorms. At the same time, warm air will flow into the Arctic to replace the cold air spilling south, which drives more sea ice loss.

(On The Origin of Tornadoes - 6). I did a little artwork (Fig. 1) in that post to try to illustrate the fragmenting and breakup of the Arctic scene.

Then, in my last post I pointed out that contrary to common discourse, the melting Arctic ice cap, floating on the Arctic ocean, will contribute to sea level rise by the dynamics of relocation rather than by displacement (The AnthropoScenic Garbage-Gyre Level Rises).

As the sea level up there falls around Greenland, and as the ice floats toward the Equator, the methane clathrate phenomenon is going to be like a Porter Ranch methane leak on steroids:

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region. The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russia cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

(Deepwater Horizon Keeps On Killing & Drilling, Danger Lurks In The Deep Water - 3). It is too late to avoid this domino scenario.

"See you in the camps" (The 1% May Face The Wrath of Sea Level Rise First).

Later.

The next post in this series is here.