CONFIRMED: OCEAN CIRCULATION PATTERNS CHANGING
By jbalazs
dailykos.com
September 11, 2007
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/11/114645/811
As some of you may already be aware, the loss of arctic sea ice this summer
has been extraordinary. According to the NSIDC <http://nsidc.org/>, the
amount of ice that melted this year that had never melted since recording
began is about the size of the State of Florida.
The NSIDC website is updated a couple of times a week with the latest sea
ice extent measurements and I watch the numbers with horror because I am one
of those who think we have gone past the tipping point already and news like
this just further validates my opinion.
Well in today’s update there was a very scary section I want to share with
you related to the BIG tipping point for climate change: changes to ocean
circulation patterns.
I was concerned back in May that there was evidence out there indicating
that the ocean circulation patterns may have already changed. You can read
that diary here in case you missed it: Have the ocean¹s circulation patterns
ALREADY been altered?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/18/14222/7465
Today’s update at NSIDC has confirmed that ocean circulation patterns have
changed on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic Ocean:
“In the August 22 report, we explained that another part of the 2007 story
is ‘memory’ of the sea ice to changes that have been unfolding over the past
few decades. Our focus there was on the apparent transition to younger,
thinner ice since the late 1970. As discussed, factors contributing to this
thinning involve a general rise in air temperatures, and changing winds that
have transported fairly thick ice out of the Arctic Ocean into the North
Atlantic. An issue that we haven’t addressed, yet, is changes in ocean
circulation.
“One prominent researcher, Igor Polyakov at the University of Fairbanks,
Alaska, points out that pulses of unusually warm water have been entering
the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic, which several years la(t)er are seen in
the ocean north of Siberia. These pulses of water are helping to heat the
upper Arctic Ocean, contributing to summer ice melt and helping to reduce
winter ice growth. Another scientist, Koji Shimada of the Japan Agency for
MarineEarth Science and Technology, reports evidence of changes in ocean
circulation in the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean. Through a complex
interaction with declining sea ice, warm water entering the Arctic Ocean
through Bering Strait in summer is being shunted from the Alaskan coast into
the Arctic Ocean, where it fosters further ice loss.”
So it seems as though scientists are now confirming changes to ocean
circulation patterns, at least in the northern parts of the oceans. I have
to assume then that changes are also taking place elsewhere, even in the
North Atlantic. If you look at temperature anomalies (see picture on NSDIC
page), it is startling to see how Siberia is about 7 degrees celcius hotter
than average over the past couple of weeks (permafrost melt anyone???) and
England is about 5 degrees Celsius colder than average.
And then you read something like this:
Scientists fear ice caps melting faster than predicted:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2164776,00.html
“The Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that it is triggering
earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off.”
“Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in
Ilulissat today: ‘We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with
which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at two
metres an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 metres deep. That
means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year
to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year.’ “
“He had flown over the Ilulissat glacier and ’seen gigantic holes in it
through which swirling masses of melt water were falling. I first looked at
this glacier in the 1960s and there were no holes. These so-called moulins,
10 to 15 metres across, have opened up all over the place. There are
hundreds of them.’ “
