How much did temperatures rise since 1900?

Differences in baseline (reference period) can result in dramatic differences in temperature rise. The U.K. Met Office HadCRUT4 dataset typically presents temperature anomalies relative to a 1961-1990 baseline. NASA typically uses a 1951-1980 baseline, but the NASA website allows for different baselines to be selected. When selecting a 1961-1990 baseline, the temperature of the past period of six months was 1.05°C (1.89°F) higher than this baseline, as illustrated by the NASA map in the left panel of the image below. But when compared to 1890-1910, the temperature of the past period of six months was 1.48°C (or 2.664°F) higher, as illustrated by the NASA map in the right panel of the image below.

A polynomial trend can reduce variability such as caused by volcanoes and El Niño events. The graph below was created with the NASA L-OTI monthly mean global surface temperature anomaly, which has a 1951-1980 baseline, and then with 0.29°C added, which makes the anomaly 0°C in the year 1900 for the added polynomial trend.



This gives an idea of how much temperatures have risen since the year 1900, with a rise for both February and March 2016 showing up that was more than 1.5°C, as also illustrated by the image below. The trend further points at temperature anomalies that will be more than 1.5°C (from 1900) within a decade and more than 2°C soon thereafter.

Temperature Rise before 1900

To see by how much temperatures have risen compared to pre-industrial levels, we need to go back further than 1900. The graph below shows that carbon dioxide concentrations have gone up and down between levels of roughly 180 ppm and 280 ppm over the past 800,000 years. Recently, carbon dioxide levels reached a peak of well above 400 ppm (411 ppm peak hourly average on May 11, 2016).

The image below, from an earlier post, shows how in the past, over the past 420,000 years, temperatures have gone up and down within a window of approximately 10°C (18°F), in line with cycles in the Earth orbit (Milankovitch cycles). Levels of carbon dioxide and methane have gone up and down accordingly, with carbon dioxide moving between 180 ppm and 280 ppm and methane roughly between 300 ppb and 700 ppb.

Meanwhile, carbon dioxide concentrations have been as high as 411 ppm (as discussed further above), i.e. a 131 ppm rise on top of the historic maximum of 280 ppm. The rise in methane concentrations is even steeper, as discussed at the Methane page.

Has the rise in greenhouse gases due to emissions by humans set the scene for a temperature rise of some 10°C (18°F) above 1750 levels, and how rapidly could such a temperature rise eventuate? Could warming caused by humans result in a temperature rise of more than 10°C (18°F) within a decade?

In its First Assessment Report, the IPCC explains that temperatures have come down since the Holocene peak, i.e. the natural maximum of the most recent Milankovitch cycle (image right, top panel). As the bottom panel shows, temperatures have risen since the 1600s. There has been a rise from the year 1750 to the year 1900 and there has been a further rise from the year 1900 onward up to recent times (the dotted line indicates the temperature at the year 1900).

The graph on the right, created by Jos Hagelaars, shows that temperatures started rising some 20,000 years ago, reaching a peak some 7000 years ago (in the blue part of the graph). For more detail, also see the comic added at the end of this post.

The graph underneath, based on work by Marcott et al., focuses on this blue part of the graph, while using a 1961-1990 baseline. Temperatures reached a peak some 7000 years ago, and then came down to reach a low a few hundred years ago.

The peak and the bottom temperatures (highlighted in red on image on the right below) for that period suggest there was a fall of more than 0.7°C.

So, a few hundred years ago, temperatures were falling and they would have kept falling, in line with the Milankovitch cycles, had there been no warming caused by humans.

From that bottom point, temperatures first rose by about 0.4°C, overwhelming the downward trend that would otherwise have taken temperatures down further, and then there was an additional rise of at least 1.05°C, when using a baseline of 1961-1990, indicating that humans caused a total of at least 1.45°C warming.

Lewis & Maslin (2015) suggest that, because CO2 began to rise from a low point in 1610, that year could be taken as the start of the Anthropocene. The image on the right also shows that the year 1750 was a low point for CO2 levels and temperature, i.e. well below the baseline of 1961-1990.

The image below shows Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions by Moberg et al.

The image on the right is from BerkeleyEarth.org. The wider fluctuations back in time reflect volcanic activity and greater uncertainty, while a simple fit shows a temperature rise of 1.5°C in the past 250 years (1750-2000), of which about 0.9°C occurred in the past 50 years.

Humans have caused even more warming?

The situation looks to be even worse than what the above figures may suggest. Indeed, the bottom low point in the Marcott graph would have been even lower had there been no warming by humans.
The fact that humans did cause substantial warming between 1800 and 1900 is illustrated by the graph below, from a recent post by Michael Mann, who adds that some 0.3°C greenhouse warming had already taken place between the year 1800 and the year 1900.

Some 0.3C greenhouse warming had already taken place by 1900, and some 0.2C warming by 1870

Further studies suggest that humans also caused substantial warming well before 1800, as illustrated by the image on the right. While this study focuses on Europe, it does suggest a rise from 1600 to 1800.

Another example of warming caused by humans before 1800 is presented in research by Dull et al., which suggests that burning of Neotropical forests increased steadily in the Americas, peaking at a time when Europeans arrived in the late fifteenth century. By 1650, some 95% of the indigenous population had perished. Regrowth of forests led to carbon sequestration of some 2 to 5 Pg C, thereby contributing to a fall in atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded in Antarctic ice cores from about 1500 through 1750.

Since at least the fourth century A.D., coal has
been burned in China. W. F. Ruddiman further points in a 2007 paper at human emissions from burning biomass and irrigation, livestock and human waste, and the resulting climate system feedbacks. As illustrated by the image on the right, this had already caused substantial warming prior to the industrial revolution.

In conclusion, substantial warming took place before 1900, making that temperatures were higher than what they would have been had humans caused no warming. Greenhouse gases emitted by people held off a temperature fall that would otherwise have naturally occurred, and they caused a temperature rise on top of that.

Paris Agreement

NASA data suggest that it was 1.48°C (or 2.664°F) warmer than in 1890-1910 for the period from November 2015 to April 2016. Note again that this 1890-1910 baseline is much later than pre-industrial times. The Paris Agreement had pledged to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. On land on the Northern Hemisphere, it was 1.99°C (or 3.582°F) warmer (right map of the image below).

[ Temperature anomalies for the period from November 2015 to April 2016, see also comments ]

The above images only account for a half-year period (November 2015 to April 2016), so they are only indicative for what the total rise will be for the year 2016. Nonetheless, when taking into account warming caused by people before 1900, the year 2016 looks set to hit or even exceed the guardrails that the Paris Agreement had pledged would not be crossed. The situation looks even worse when considering that temperatures measured in ice cores already included a substantial amount of warming due to humans even before the start of the Industrial Revolution.

February 2016 was 1.67°C (3°F) warmer than 1890-1910

Again, at the Paris Agreement nations pledged to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

When looking at a single month, February 2016 was 1.67°C (3°F) warmer than 1890-1910 (see image right). When adding a mere 0.34°C to account for warming before 1900, total warming in February 2016 did exceed 2°C. Looking at it that way, the guardrails set in Paris in December 2015 were already crossed in February 2016.

Situation

So, what is the situation? On the one hand, there's the current observed temperature rise (∆O). This rise is typically calculated as the difference between the current temperature and the temperature at a given baseline.

However, this ∆O does not reflect the full impact of human emissions. Temperatures would have been lower had there been no emissions by humans. The full warming impact due to people's greenhouse gas emissions therefore is ∆E. This ∆E is higher than the often-used observed rise, since the baseline would have been lower without warming caused by humans, i.e. including the warming that was already caused before the year 1750.

At the same time, part of global warming caused by people is currently masked due the aerosol emissions (∆M). Such aerosol emissions result mainly from burning of fossil fuel and biomass. There's no doubt that such emissions should be reduced, but the fact remains that the current temperature rise may increase substantially, say, by half when the masking effect disappears.

Thus, the full (unmasked) current warming caused by humans is the sum of these two, i.e. ∆E + ∆M, and the sum could be well over 3°C.

In addition, there is a future temperature rise that's already baked into the cake (∆F). Some feedbacks are not yet very noticeable, since some changes take time to become more manifest, such as melting of sea ice and non-linear changes due to feedbacks that are only now starting to kick in. Furthermore, the full effect of CO2 emissions reaches its peak only a decade after emission, while even with the best efforts, humans are likely to still be causing additional emissions over the coming decade. All such factors could jointly result in a temperature rise greater than ∆E + ∆M together, i.e. ∆F could alone cause a temperature rise of more than 5°C within a decade.

In summary, total anthropogenic global warming warming (∆A) or all warming caused by humans (∆E + ∆M + ∆F) could be more than 10°C (18°F) within one decade, assuming that no geoengineering will take place within a decade.

[ image added later from this post, click on images to enlarge ]

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action as described in the Climate Plan.

[ image from xkcd.com/1732 ]

Links

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Feedbacks
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• Methane Erupting From East Siberian Arctic Shelf
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/11/methane-erupting-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf.html

• Jos Hagelaars' graph, created with graphs by Shakun et al., Marcott et al. and more, is at:
https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/the-two-epochs-of-marcott/

• Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation, by Shakun et al.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html

• A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years, by Marcott et al.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198

• The Columbian Encounter and the Little Ice Age: Abrupt Land Use Change, Fire, and Greenhouse Forcing, by Dull et al., in:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/columbus-arrival-linked-carbon-dioxide-drop

• Arctic Climate Records Melting
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/05/arctic-climate-records-melting.html

• 2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility, Ulf Büntgen et al. (2011)
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6017/578

• Paris Agreement
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-agreement.html
http://unfccc.int/documentation/documents/advanced_search/items/6911.php?priref=600008831
https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf

• February Temperature
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/03/february-temperature.html

• Defining the Anthropocene, Lewis & Maslin (2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7542/full/nature14258.html

• Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data, Anders Moberg et al. (2005)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7026/full/nature03265.html

• The early anthropogenic hypothesis: Challenges and responses, by W.F. Ruddiman (2007)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006RG000207/abstract

• Berkeley Earth, Summary Of Findings
http://berkeleyearth.org/summary-of-findings

• Reconciling divergent trends and millennial variations in Holocene temperatures, by Marsicek et al. (2018)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25464

Reconciling divergent trends and millennial

variations in Holocene temperatures

Jeremiah Marsicek

Last year I ran the Quicksilver (QS) 100k right in the middle of buying a house and therefore I just realized I never recapped the race. However, the short and dirty of it is: I ran, it was hot, I ended up getting a total time of 13:11.

This year, I decided to tackle the beast again. On my birthday. Happy birthday to me. My goal was to at least beat my time from last year, but I really wanted to try to break the 13 hour mark. Either way, if I made my goal, I would have a 100k PR. This race is a Western States qualifier and to qualify, you have to finish within 16 hours. Therefore my C goal was to just finish within 16 hours.

The good thing about 100k is that basically whatever pace per minute you are running will be the number of hours it will take you to finish. For example, if you want to finish in 13 hours, you have to run a 13 minute mile or faster. 

One of the things I have been doing in my training is to attempt to run the hills that I can run. There is a regular loop that I do with a friend and we have been trying to get faster and faster at the loop each time we do it. It's hard to pace yourself though; knowing when to run the ups and still have enough energy for the downs or the later miles is a bit of an experiment.

Mile 1 - 10: The race starts, of course, with an uphill, which whether good or bad in this case, was runnable as per the new training plan. It is a loop course with a series of out and backs. The first four miles is about a 1,100 ft. gain and I ran it at about an 11 minute pace, which was plenty ahead of my goal. The next few miles are rollers and then around mile 8 comes the long out and back (uphill) to Bald mountain. This out and back is great because you get to see everyone else. I noticed at this point that there was only one woman ahead of me and maybe about 15 other runners in total! My average pace at this point was about a 10:49/mi.

Mile 11 - 20:  11:19/mi average. As you can see above, this portion has a long downhill! But first, you have to do the Bald Mountain out and back. Afterward, you have a steep uphill to the Kennedy aid station and then it's the 6 mile long steep downhill. I still felt good up until about the second half of the long downhill, when my knees started to ache a little.

Mile 21 - 30: 13:35/mi average. The main part of this section is a long 6 mile uphill back to Kennedy aid station. One of the parts of the climb is called "dog meat" which is exactly how you feel when you reach that point. It was also getting hot and there is no tree cover, so this section is hot, plus I ran out of water before the top because I was so thirsty!

Mile 31 - 40: 11:42/mi average. This section is the final part of the first loop. It goes from Kennedy back down to the start line at Hacienda. It is a long but less steep downhill. This part was also bothering my knees and I was dreading the final downhills later in the race. When I got back down to the start line I had to do some blister control, I had a bite to eat and I was on my way again.

Mile 41 - 50: 14:40/mi average. From Hacienda there is a 3 mile section to get to the finish line, which is also the 42 mile mark. It is really hard to leave the aid station since there are already people done and they are sitting around eating and drinking beers and it is so tempting to stay. However, I headed back out after filling up with ice water and fruit. This section has a lot of windy single track, which is both uphill and down, neither of which were really that great. Also, it was hot. The only saving grace was the aid station that had popsicles, which I ate while I ran (running with popsicle?). However, my stomach was starting to get that feeling where you don't feel like eating, even though you know that you should.

Mile 51 - finish: 14:53/mi average. This section goes up, down, up, down, up and then there is a 3 mile downhill to the finish. The first up was slow but then you get to aid, where I ate some turkey sandwich and a bunch of grapes. The next up seemed like a long slog, but really wasn't too bad. However in the middle of this one, they make you do an out and back down a hill where you punch your bracelet and head back up before doing the last climb of the race. Then it's the popsicle aid station, where I did not stop for long before heading out and down to the finish. Right at the very end a friend of mine passed me and he ended up beating me by about 30 seconds. Darn it.

Total time: 12:55
Total elevation: 12,714 ft

Moving time: 12:30 (this means I spent about 25 minutes total at 12 aid stations, an average of about 2 minutes each)

The verdict? This is my second time doing this race and I will probably do it again. It is a great training race, as it has a lot of elevation gain, some very steep climbs and descents and it is usually hot. However, this is exactly why when I am running this race I sometimes wonder what the heck I was thinking when I signed up.

Where could I improve? I went out too fast. However, it's hard to go slow in the morning, when you are feeling fresh and it's not too hot, especially when you know it's going to be hot and you are going to be tired later no matter what. Time in the bank is good, but you don't want to end up slogging through the final miles like I did. The other thing I need to work on is a good hydration/nutrition plan, since I generally have no appetite, even though I know I need to eat and am sometimes even hungry (if that even makes sense). I also need to eat "early and often", which I do sometimes forget.

What races (or other fun outdoor activities) do you have on your schedule this summer? What's your favorite kind of Popsicle or other cool treat?

An intensely warm winter and spring are melting climate records across Alaska, reports NOAA in the post 'Arctic set for record-breaking melt'. The January-April 2016 period was 11.4°F (6.4°C) warmer than the 20th century average, reports NOAA. The NOAA image below further illustrates the situation.

The sea ice is melting rapidly. Warm water from the Mackenzie River contributes to dramatic melting in the Beaufort Sea, as illustrated by the image below, showing that on May 20, 2016, the Arctic Ocean was 5°F (2.8°C) warmer than in 1981-2011 at the delta of the Mackenzie River.

The image below shows that on May 20, 2016, sea ice extent was 10.99 million square km, compared to the 12.05 million square km extent of the sea ice in May 20, 2012, as measured by JAXA. 

Sea ice reached a record minimum extent of 3.18 million square km on September 15, 2012, and chances are that the sea ice will be largely gone by September 2016.

The year 2016 is an El Niño year and insolation during the coming months of June and July is higher in the Arctic than anywhere else on Earth. Higher temperatures come with increased danger of wildfires. Greenhouse gases are at record high levels: in April and may, CO2 was about 408 ppm, with hourly peaks as high as 411 ppm (on May 11, 2016). Methane levels are high and rising, especially over the Arctic. Smoke and methane are speeding up sea ice melting, as illustrated by the image below showing smoke from wildfires in Canada extending over the Beaufort Sea (main image), in addition to high methane levels that are present over the Beaufort Sea (inset). 

Ocean heat is also very high and rising. Oceans on the Northern Hemisphere were 0.93°C (or 1.7°F) warmer in the most recent 12-months period (May 2015 through April 2016) than the 20th century average.

The image below shows sea ice extent as measured by the NSIDC, confirming that melting of the sea ice in 2016 is way ahead on previous years.

Here's an animation comparing sea surface temperatures of the North Atlantic between May 25, 2015, and May 25, 2016.

Arctic sea ice extent was 10.7 million km² on May 25, 2016, 1.1 million km² less than it was on May 25, 2012, as the update below shows.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.

Embed from Getty Images

A month or so ago it looked as if the Republican convention would be the best spectacle for those who love a bit of political anarchy.  With Donald Trump marauding his way through the Republican primaries, faced by establishment opponents who clearly loathe him, what would have been better than a convention which tried to overturn the popular vote and insinuate a more acceptable candidate.  This would be a better spectacle even than Ronald Reagan's attempt to usurp the nomination of sitting president Gerald Ford in 1976.

Yet in such a short space of time the Republican conflict appears to have died down in the face of a pretty well invulnerable Trump candidacy and it's the Democrats who look like hosting at least a fractious, if not fully contested convention.  While Republican leaders accept the inevitable and start looking to make their peace with the candidate they desperately didn't want, the Sanders campaign for the Democratic nomination strides on, now even bringing violence and chaos in its wake.

The difference would seem to be party loyalty.  Trump himself may not be particularly loyal to his newly acquired Republican brand, but he's holding the good hand.  He's the presumptive nominee.  Those old establishment Republicans - or, to be more accurate, those new establishment Republicans like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio - are going to hold their noses and endorse Trump, because they need their party to win in November.  And win not just the White House but Congress as well. Trump can corral the Republican party because the party needs him.

The Democratic party, meanwhile, neither needs nor wants Bernie Sanders.  The problem is that Sanders will fail to get the Democratic nomination but will still need to create the maximum disruption against the party in order to gain any traction.  Like his fellow insurrectionist, Sanders has no loyalty to the party whose label he recently adopted.  In a two-party system, both he and Trump saw their only chance for presidential success as being to take a major party hostage rather than run as a failed Independent.  Trump's gamble has succeeded, Sanders' has failed.  But Sanders' momentum is such that he can at least keep going, and since he's not really a Democrat that party's leadership appeals to him will have no impact.  Any more than Republican appeals had any impact on Trump.

Effectively what we are seeing are the attempts of two maverick insurrectionists to turn the party system against itself.  It is arguably the logical consequence of a political system which forces everyone to adapt to the two-party system.  If that's all you can use, then it is hardly surprising that the parties themselves become a target for otherwise independent, or socialist, or Green, or whatever other type of candidate who might be out there.

As it stands, then, the Democratic convention is going to be the most exciting.  Sanders is looking to gain traction in the California primary and has made no bones about taking his fight all the way to the convention floor.  The cries from the Clinton camp, and the establishment Democrats, will fall on deaf ears because Sanders has no use for party unity.  The slightly maudlin calls for Sanders to accept his defeat graciously so that Clinton can look to the general election battle against Trump are mis-directed and misconceived.  There would be no need to make appeals to Sanders if Clinton had managed to effectively dispatch his candidacy via the primary vote.  His continued campaign is as much an indication of her serious electoral difficulties as it is his own stubbornness.

2016 will not mark the end of the two-party system in American politics, but it has shown just how it is possible to subvert the parties in the interests of outsider campaigns.  The establishment - in either party - rules no more.

It’s always interesting to see how groups regard themselves.  It is not unusual for any sort of group to take a rather positive view of itself and, by contrast, demean other groups.  Nowhere is this more likely than in the tribal bear-pit of politics.  Political parties have long had a rather favourable view of themselves which doesn’t seem to have been readily passed on to anyone outside their nicely insular organisations, and now the two sides of the European referendum campaign are at it too. 

The loudest bleaters seem to be the Out campaign.  Barely a week of the campaign goes by without a slew of Outers complaining about the tone and attitude of everyone else.  There was a particularly concerted campaign today to claim that they themselves were all lovely, decent people while the mean old Remainers are unpleasantly attacking them.  In particular, various Leave partisans professed to be wounded and upset by the terrible attacks launched against their de facto leader, Boris Johnson.

We should certainly take these with a hefty shovelful of salt.  Firstly, Mr. Johnson’s incendiary comments are deliberately aimed to provoke mass outrage and they succeed wonderfully.  His most recent invocation of Hitler as a sort of pre-cursor to the EU is precisely the sort of ludicrous, over-the-top assertion that Mr. Johnson has made his stock in trade for years.  As a historical observation, it is panders to the outer fringes of myopic lunacy.  Whatever Mr. Johnson’s intelligence, it is certainly great enough to understand that there is no comparison between the dictators and monarchs of history trying to subjugate Europe, and the rather more collegiate endeavour – no matter how flawed – of the European Union.   Also, barely a week after his mayoral predecessor, Ken Livingstone caused such outrage with his own Hitler comments, it is inconceivable that Boris didn’t know that using the H word would do the same for him.

Boris wanted us to talk about him, and about Europe, probably in that order, and he succeeded admirably.  He is also perfectly capable of throwing brick-bats towards the Remain campaign, and especially the Prime Minister, who he accused of deviously planning to sell Britain to the corporate backers of the EU campaign during his battlebus tour.  It was Boris, also, who described David Cameron as “demented” for suggesting that leaving the EU would lead to “bubonic plague and world war three”, neither of which Cameron had in fact specifically mentioned in his speech. (The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland penned an interesting piece associating Boris with Trump as one of what he called the "post-truth politicians".)

As for the Leave campaigners themselves, they have emerged from one of the most vicious training schools of fratricidal politics that Britain has ever seen – the Euro-sceptic wing of the Tory party.  Nothing has ever been too extreme for the sceptics, and we saw some of their parliamentary ilk seek yesterday to try and sabotage their own government’s Queen’s Speech as they apparently plotted to defeat it in an unholy alliance with Jeremy Corbyn.  Last week they unloaded shed-loads of venom on the governor of the Bank of England for having the temerity to suggest that there might be economic consequences if we leave.  Before that, Barack Obama was their target - an unprincipled president who had dared to remove a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.  And ITV, of course, has been threatened with reprisals for not doing the Leave campaign's bidding, with a sinister reminder that the present lot in No. 10 won't be there for very long.  Not exactly a litany of loveliness and politeness I'd say.  

Euro-sceptics, and now the Leave campaign at large, have always portrayed themselves as plucky little mavericks fighting against the fascistic vested interests of the state and the EU.  If you want to stick with misbegotten historical analogies, that’s about as accurate as suggesting Hitler was simply a brave German freedom fighter. 

Since early April, 2016, there have been problems with the sensor on the F-17 satellite that provided the data for many Arctic sea ice images. On April 12, NSIDC issued a notice that it had suspended the provision of sea ice updates. On May 6, NSIDC announced that it had completed the shift to another satellite. The red dotted line in the image below shows data from the F-18 satellite from April 1 to May 15, 2016.

The JAXA site also provides sea ice extent images, obtaining data from a Japanese satellite. They show that Arctic sea ice extent on May 15, 2016 was 11,262,361 square km, 1.11 million square km less than it was on May 15, 2012.

The Cryosphere Today is still using data from the F17 satellite, showing some weird spikes. Albert Kallio has taken a recent image and removed faulty spikes, resulting in the image below showing sea ice area up to May 3, 2016.

[ yellow line is 2016, red line is 2015 ]

Importantly, above image confirms that Arctic sea ice in 2016 has indeed been very low, if not at its lowest for the time of the year. Especially since April 2016, sea ice has fallen far below anything we've seen in earlier years. Below, Albert elaborates on comparing data.

by Albert Kallio‎ REPAIRED USA (F-17) SATELLITE DATA SHOWS RECORD SMALL SEA ICE AREA IN MAY 2016 AGREEING JAPANESE (JAXA) DATA A corrected Special Sensor Microwave Imager and Sounder (SSMIS) data set on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F-17 satellite that provides passive microwave brightness temperatures (and derived Arctic and Antarctic sea ice products) has been corrected here for the system instrumentation error. This agrees with the Japanese JAXA curve, and has been accomplished by removal of the uncharacteristic upward 'ice growth' spikes by linear intrapolation of the corrupt data points. This reinforces the JAXA data that shows the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area is seasonally at new record low which has continued in May 2016. Smoothened F-17 curve agrees with the Japanese JAXA satellite curve. The reconciliation of the two has been accomplished by removal of the uncharacteristic upward spikes by linear intrapolation of the corrupt days' data points which incorrectly showed immense sea ice area growth in the middle of spring melt season. This reinforces the JAXA data that shows the sea ice area is seasonally at record lows. Therefore, media who are citing recent F-17 satellite sea ice area figures are intentionally distorting the facts with their claims of the Northern Hemisphere having a record sea ice area for this time of season - whereas in reality - the exact opposite has been happening.

Arctic sea ice is in a bad shape and looks set to deteriorate even further, for a number of reasons.

The year 2016 is an El Niño year, as illustrated by the 51.1°C (124.1 °F) forecast for May 22, 2016, over the Indus Valley in Pakistan (see image right).

Insolation during the months June and July is higher in the Arctic than anywhere else on Earth. Greenhouse gases are at record high levels: CO2 was 408.2 ppm on May 12, 2016, and methane levels are high and rising, especially over the Arctic.

Ocean heat is also very high and rising. The image below shows that oceans on the Northern Hemisphere were 0.93°C (or 1.7°F) warmer in the most recent 12-months period (May 2015 through April 2016) than the 20th century average.

The situation is further illustrated by the image below, using the NOAA data with a trendline added that points at a rise of 3°C (5.4°F) before the year 2040.

Chances are that Arctic sea ice will be largely gone by September 2016. As the ice declines, ever more sunlight gets absorbed by the Arctic Ocean. This is one out of numerous feedbacks that are hitting the Arctic. The danger is that, as these feedbacks start to kick in more, heat will reach the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and trigger methane to be released in huge quantities from the Arctic Ocean seabed.

Recently, an abrupt methane release from the Arctic Ocean seafloor did enter the atmosphere over the East Siberian Sea, showing up with levels as high as 2578 ppb (at 586 mb on May 15, 2016, pm, see image below). Such abrupt releases are indications that methane hydrates are destabilizing and are warnings that climate catastrophe is waiting to happen.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action as described in the Climate Plan.

Arctic sea ice extent is very low, much lower than it was in other years at this time of year. On May 11, 2016, Arctic sea ice extent was 12.328 million square km, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), while JAXA's figure for extent on May 11, 2016, was only 11.57 million square km.

[ based in image from JAXA ]

JAXA figures show that Arctic sea ice extent on May 9, 2016, was 11.68 million square km, more than 18 days ahead on 2012 and 1.1 million square km smaller than it was on May 9, 2012.

The image on the right compares the Beaufort Sea and the northern part of Alaska between May 9, 2012 and May 9, 2016. As the image illustrates, there now is a lot less ice and snow cover than there was on 2012.

The situation looks set to deteriorate further over the coming months. The image below shows temperature forecast to reach anomalies as high as 5.19°C or 9.34°F for the Arctic as a whole (forecast for May 19, 2016, 0300 UTC), with temperature anomalies at the top end of the scale forecast for Alaska and eastern Siberia.

These temperature anomalies go hand in hand with a very wavy jet stream, as illustrated by the image on the right, showing loops extending all the way over the Arctic Ocean (in particular over the Beaufort Sea), taking along warm air in their path.

At the same time, the jet stream can extend far south at other places, making that cold air is moving south, out of the Arctic.

The result is a rapidly warming Arctic, which in turn makes the jet stream even more wavier, as one out of numerous feedbacks that are all  hitting the Arctic at the same time.

The image below compares sea ice thickness between May 13, 2012, and May 13, 2016.

The image on the right shows that sea surface temperatures near Svalbard were as high as 55°F (12.8°C) on May 11, 2016, an anomaly of 21.2°F (11.8°C) from 1981-2011. In other words, the temperature of the sea surface was 1°C in that spot from 1981 to 2011, and now this spot is 11.8°C warmer.

The image below compares sea surface temperature anomalies from 1961-1990 between May 12, 2015, and May 12, 2016.

Sea surface temperatures in the Arctic Ocean are higher than they used to be, in particular in the Bering Strait, the Beaufort Sea, in Baffin Bay and the Kara Sea.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

In summary, Arctic sea ice is in a very bad shape, while ocean heat is very high and rising. Greenhouse gas levels are at record high levels, as discussed in an earlier post and as further illustrated by the image below.

The image below shows that, over the past 365 days, warming over the Arctic have been much stronger than over the rest of the world. Air temperature anomalies of more than 2.5°C (4.5°F) show up over most of the Arctic Ocean. Furthermore, as discussed above, high temperatures are forecast to hit the Arctic over the next week.

From November 2015 to April 2016, global temperatures over land and oceans were 1.48°C (or 2.664°F) higher than in 1890-1910 (left map of the image below). On land, it was 1.99°C (or 3.582°F) warmer (right map of the image below).

[ also see comments ]

Since some 0.3°C (0.54°F) greenhouse warming had already taken place by the year 1900, warming was well above the 1.5°C (or 2.7°F) guardrail the Paris Agreement had pledged wouldn't be crossed.

Given the above, chances are that the sea ice will be largely gone by September 2016.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.

I went with at least a partially open mind when I attended the premier of “Brexit: The Movie” with friends last night.  Whilst believing that a vote to remain in the EU is probably best for the UK’s future, I’m nonetheless familiar enough with arguments about a democratic deficit and trade strangulation to be swayable on the crucial issue of our continuing membership of that flawed body.  So I was attending the IEA sponsored movie in the hope of hearing some of the rational arguments that appeared to have been missing from the campaign trail so far.

Alas, such optimism was terribly mis-placed.  First of all, it was apparent that what we were attending was less a general audience viewing of a carefully established case, and more a sort of rally for the committed Brexiteers.  There they all were, bow-tied up to the nines, greedily clutching champagne glasses on entry, double chins wagging away in righteous sympathy with each other at the Odeon Leicester Square.  I hadn’t come across such a very distinctive gathering since my days in the Young Conservative movement, or that time I went to the South African embassy to hear why apartheid was really quite a pragmatic idea back in the 80s.

But each to their own.  So what if the audience was a caricature of the metropolitan Brexit supporter, wanting not so much to leave the EU as leave the twenty first century.  They were perfectly entitled to gain solace by watching a film that helped articulate their wildest dreams and ambitions.

So we settled back in the cheap seats and waited for our intellectual Brexit fare to materialise on screen.  After all, the side that so regularly scolded the Remainers for their emotive “Project Fear” would hardly play the same trick themselves.  Would they?

Turned out they would, and more.  As the film began, there was little effort to drop us into the argument gently.  The first minutes were occupied with a selection of outraged middle-class tones competing with each other to screech out the worst offences of the EU.  After this political ice-plunge, the film’s presenter, Martin Durkin, took us on the sort of guided tour of the Bad EU that you might find in animated educational films for children.  His tone remained relentlessly patronising and light-weight throughout, as if we were somehow too stupid to be given any serious evidential meat.

Durkin’s potted history of the downfall of Europe included a paean of praise to post-war Germany, condemnation of over-regulated 1970s Britain, and some hilarious racial stereotypes, like Italian factory workers downing tools to snog a curvaceous woman, or eager-beaver Asian lab assistants exhibiting their maths skills.  In between the cheap animations and terrible sketch-show attempts we kept cutting to some talking heads.   Although the film’s case appeared to be that Brexit was on the side of the entrepreneur and the small businessman, all of the talking heads appeared to belong to rather inconsequential and definitely unproductive journalists and think tank authors.  It’s not that I don’t think Janet Daley or James Delingpole have a right to be heard.  It’s just that I don’t think penning “Why oh Why” columns for the Telegraph, or selling “My not very interesting memories of Dave Cameron at uni” to the  highest bidder qualifies them as particularly good spokespeople for the plucky industrial spirit the film seemed to want to identify itself with.   

The most egregious talking head, though, was Kelvin Mackenzie.   You’d have thought by now that Kelvin would be willing to spare the world his carefully manufactured down to earth “say it as I see it” salty wisdom.  Not a bit of it.  There’s still plenty of unfathomable rage waiting to find its inarticulate way out of Mackenzie.  What’s worse is the sheer hypocrisy of the man.  There he was, praising the “little man” and piously harping on about the awful abuse of power without a moment’s reflection that one of the worst abuses of power conducted in the modern age was by one K. Mackenzie.  No-one has ever managed to shit so relentlessly on an already ground down mass of people than Mackenzie as editor of the Sun, when he savaged the reputations of the dead and the friends of the dead Liverpool fans at Hillsborough, following as he did the dictates of one of the most corrupt police forces to have operated in the UK.  Abuse of power?  Lack of accountability?  Never were both more in evidence than in that wretched man’s tenure at the top of Murdoch’s calamitous empire.

By contrast, Simon Heffer’s faintly ludicrous comment in the film that if his whole family had to eat stewed grass as a result of leaving the EU it would still be worth it was merely barking rather than mendacious.

Heffer’s comment was loudly applauded by the audience of Brexit true-believers, but they applauded a lot.  Whenever Farage, or Dan Hannan, or Douglas Carswell appeared on screen to give us their well-cut middle-class faux outrage about the EU, the applause rippled around the auditorium.  There was some irony in these champagne quaffing, bow-tie clad Brexiteers clapping the regular mentions of the mythical “little man”, but then the evening seemed to be about fantasy for the most part in any case.  A cinema was an entirely appropriate venue.  And we had the bad guys to boo at too.  Edward Heath of course, although that other election-winning Tory, David Cameron, just about made it through unscathed, even if the tension when he appeared on screen was palpable.  Oh, if he would just leave office and let Boris or Michael take over, then all would be well with the world.

There was some meat buried in the film.  There were some genuinely strong points to be made about the collapse of the British fishing industry, or the struggles faced by Tate and Lyle.  It’s just that they seemed smuggled in amongst the more satisfying polemic, or the lengthy section on the wonders of Switzerland. 

With the end credits rolling, as the chant to “Leave, leave” started to gather pace amongst the committed, we took their advice, and left.  It had been an interesting evening.

What's the saying about April? It it the one who goes in like a lion and out like a lamb? Or is it that April showers bring May flowers? The latter is probably more fitting, as it did rain a bit in April and now the days are sunny and bright and the tomatoes are starting to grow!

Running: April was a good month for running! I ended up doing a couple of really long weekend runs with some wicked elevation (one on Mt. Diablo was 25 miles with over 6,000 ft of gain) which helped achieve a total of 223.2 miles of running with 37,500 ft. of climbing. In addition, a couple of commutes plus riding around Brooklyn got me 39.6 miles of cycling with 1,300 ft of climbing. I also clocked one hike, which was 8.1 miles.

Reading: I feel like April was not a good reading month, probably due to the fact that I was often with people. However, once I checked I realized that I actually read 5 books, which is more than my goal of one per week! Here they are (starred ones are for the Read Harder Challenge):

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee -- 3 stars
The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel -- 3 stars
Finding Someplace by Denise Lewis Patrick* -- 3 stars
Spinster by Kate Bolick* -- 3 stars
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline* -- 4 stars

Travel: I actually did not travel that much in April, but I did have events each and every weekend. The first weekend I did some canning with a friend and some trail maintenance volunteer work in Pacifica. The weekend after that, I volunteered at a race, had dinner with my brother and friends in Santa Rosa, and then my parents came to visit and we had a nice dinner and a catch up. The weekend after that, I had breakfast with my grandma in Mill Valley and went to pace/cheer on a friend at a San Francisco race. Then I hosted Lisa and Phil and we had a great time gadding about the city, hiking, walking, going to a Giants game and just hanging out and chatting.

Marshall's Beach

View from Green Point

For the last part of the month I flew to New York and spent a couple of days in the office before heading over to Brooklyn to spend some time with friends. We rode bikes around the borough, drank beer, ran in the park and had lots of fun reliving the "good old days" when we were all traveling around Africa.

How was April for you? Did you travel? What book are you reading now?