North Pole Temperatures at 36° above normal

[Ego]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... 90cc677717

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.”

[daylen]

Anyone else excited for the next few decades of increasing chaos and frequency of severe weather events? Sure, people die, infrastructure is destroyed, and ecosystems crumbled, but the small localized catastrophes put stress on political, economical, and ecological systems; this will not only promote anti-fragilie behavior, but also lead to more interesting news.

[FBeyer]

It won't lead anywhere. Humanity in the aggregate is unable to do anything useful about it. From a position of ignorance humans are more envious than adaptable.

We're quite blindly terraforming and we will all claim to do something, but the actual necessary steps to be taken are beyond what humans will actually do. We will adapt as a species, but we will not react as a species. Get ready to kiss your world map goodbye.

We're looking at a century of lame patching, then maybe a century of pro activity.

[vexed87]

Political upheaval and social instability are definitely not desirable and may make reaching FI difficult, or possibly impossible. We can only change course if we let go of excessive consumption of energy. From an anti-fragility point of view, a few shocks would be great and make resilience more mainstream concern, but a collapse of ecosystems and economies is very bad for early retirement prospects. Expect to be either starving or subsistence farming for the rest of your life, unless of course you position yourself somehow to be lord of the manor at the expense of those around you.

Humans are pretty adaptable, for the most part, although most are forced to change only once they are pushed over the metaphorical cliff, rather than take the initiative. The ERE folk here are the few who would likely take the jump before they are pushed. Once the rest of the population start to notice the benefits of jumping, under the right conditions, a few might be tempted to follow, but most won't. I think jacob did a blog post where he said that 20% are capable of learning and taking proactive action, and 20% of that 20% (4%) are capable of showing others the way. The timing however is crucial for most of the population, the changes will only happen once the current way of life has demonstrably failed, i.e lost everything in a recession and sea front home is about to fall into the sea.

I guess it makes sense that on aggregate, humans don't all change so easily, less an otherwise sustainable society might inadvertently change course towards unsustainable courses of action because a few kooky pioneers found a 'better' way of doing things. Collectively as a species we are hard wired to make the best of what we have, until we can't and move on to the next best thing. As with overeating, it takes extreme discipline not to over-consume, and most just don't have it. The only way they will change, is to get used to it there being a lot less stuff around to consume.

At least we as a (ERE type) group can see it coming and can best position ourselves for the storm. Collapse now, and avoid the rush comes to mind.

[BRUTE]

what has the North Pole ever done for brute?

[jennypenny]

Where else is Santa going to live?

[jacob]

@vexed87 - I might have said it, but the 0.2^2=0.04 is Charles Hugh Smith (or it might go further back to some of the Daily Reckoning writers?). CHS calls it the Remnant and it's described in Survival+.

@brute - A few things. It has a material impact on the planetary albedo. This is a positive feedback coupling (melt ice, the darker ocean absorbs more heat which melts more ice---this is big reason for why the polar regions are heating much faster). Melted ice (freshwater) floats on top of salt water and thus impacts thermohaline currents. More importantly, if too much freshwater is added, the top layer of the ocean no longer mixes with the deeper ocean where all the nutrients are. If those top layers become too warm, mixing also stops entirely and the top layer dies (and turns into a beautiful blue---those nice tropic waters are deserts). It's a double-whammy effect. More than half of the world's oxygen is produced by plankton in the top layers of the oceans. So the poles contribute to maintaining and regulating brute's supply of oxygen and brute should be thankful.

[cmonkey]

This is one of the warmest/longest autumns I've ever experienced. I haven't seen any official "warmest on record" yet. We still have green leaves on some of the trees here. Most others are still in bright color. It was 75 here yesterday. Almost everyone I talk to mentions how they can't believe how warm it is, yet you bring up climate change and they shut down.

[Dragline]

It may be time to buy that place in Duluth, MN. Not too close to the lake, though.

[Riggerjack]

Fecundity means not needing to adapt.

[7Wannabe5]

Everybody is going to keep eating the pudding until the pudding is all gone. That's pretty much a given. I just wonder how much of a difference it will make at what rate each flavor of pudding is eaten? IOW, it seems to me that the major conclusion is forgone, but there is also a lot of potential for unintended consequences of well-meant attempts to forestall. Dunno.

[BRUTE]

.. facts ..

ok, but apart from enabling basic life on this planet, what has the north pole ever done?

[Toska2]

Is this a one off spike or a major spike among smaller ones?


@ Brute. It gave us a colorful swirly striped pattern used by candy cane manufactures and barbershops.

[jacob]

Also, not covered so much in the news is that temperatures in Siberia are 30 degrees BELOW normal while having the highest snow cover since 1998. This makes for supercold air that can easily move into the US Midwest, such as today. We went from near 70F (21C) a two days ago to freezing today with strong winds (force 5 or so).

[George the original one]

Oh, is this going to be one of those rare years where the cold zone slipped off the north pole and is wobbling around the planet? Last one like that was dreadful because us temperate zones got winter about 3 times in the spring. I remember how cyclical the cold was, would take 2-3 weeks to hit us again & again & again and you could follow the progress around the globe.

[Ego]

Global sea ice. Red line is this year.

[theanimal]

2016 set to surpass 2015 as hottest year on record.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2016 ... told-20875

...2016 is set to be the hottest year on record by a significant margin, with temperatures that are 2.2˚F (1.2˚C) above pre-industrial times...

While there is still a month and a half left in the year, preliminary temperature data through October suggests that 2016 will easily best 2015’s record temperature. Final temperature data for the month will be released this week by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Both reports also underscore other major climate milestones, including record-high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and record-low Arctic sea ice levels during many months of this year.

Warmth in the Arctic has been particularly notable, with parts of Arctic Russia running nearly 11˚F to 13˚F (6°C to 7°C) above the 1961-1990 average....