Independent analyses from multiple independent sources indicate Arctic Siberia was 3 to 5°C warmer than today during the peak of the last glacial, or when CO2 levels were below 200 ppm.
Measurements from Antarctica’s ice sheet are almost invariably used to characterize both the global-scale atmospheric CO2 levels and climate for the last 10s to 100s of thousands of years.
But it is rather odd that Antarctica’s climate is considered globally representative (i.e., “global warming”) since there has been no warming here for the last seven decades.
Further, ice samples from Antarctica have CO2 values that range between 900 and 2900 ppm (Matsuo and Miyake, 1966) for the modern period (i.e., the 1960s). These values are far outside the range of the accepted modern global atmospheric values (~300 to 400 ppm).
Unusual temperatures for early December…knocking at energy-deprived Europe’s door
German meteorologist Dominik Jung of wetter.net says, after having reported yesterday of -50°C in Oimjakon, Siberia: “-54°C were measured there this morning.”
-54°C is 65 below Fahrenheit.
“For early December, these are extremely low temperatures there, which are normally expected only at the end of December or beginning of January,” says Jung.
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Moreover, Jung reports that all weather models are on an early winter course for Europe and that there is more winter than in the December months of the past 12 years.
“For the 3rd Advent, fresh snow is expected down to low altitudes. Winterly it goes on.”
There’s a real threat the extreme cold may spill over Europe, which is energy deprived. This could spell disaster. Let’s hope the model forecasts for more cold, like today’s GEM output of -16°C for Düsseldorf on December 14th, don’t turn into reality.
From the Siberian Times today (20 October) is a story with few facts but a fabulous video of six fat adults and four fat cubs as they set siege to a stalled open garbage truck in the Russian Arctic. It may have been filmed on Novaya Zemlya but that has not been confirmed.
There were two families that I could see in the video: a female with two cubs-of-the-year and another with two year old cubs. All were in excellent condition, as were the other four adults. Novaya Zemlya, if indeed this is where the incident took place, is between the Barents and Kara Seas (see below):
Northern hemisphere summer – the season when forest fires in Siberia are on the loop. And usually every single new article about the Siberian forest fires somehow links them to climate change. Therefore it is good time to see how the forest fires has changed during the years. Is there really an increasing trend of Siberia forest fires as the news suggests and what is continuously predicted based on climate models?
With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), Siberia accounts for 77% of Russia’s land area. Majority of the Siberia is sparsely inhabited wilderness with little or no roads. Therefore, what sets on fire, usually burns until rain or other natural factor ends the fire. Southern Siberia also has extensive logging.
Getting reliable fire area data based on available literature seems to be problematic. According to the literature (1) USSR-era fire area data is unreliable and was consistently and severely underreporting fires on sparsely populated areas due to incomplete reporting structure that left most of the country unmonitored (6). The situation was improved only after western satellite data was taken in use by post-USSR Russia. But considering the size of Siberia and the fact that it is very sparsely populated, it is not wonder that no reliable data can be generated without the help of satellites. But even on satellite era some smaller fires goes undetected due to cloud cover or sensor detection limits (6).
After extensive literature study, I found no actual study providing satellite-based dataset for Siberian forest fires for post-USSR era either, which is strange considering how much coverage the Siberian forest fires have got lately. There seem to be an effort going on to create such a dataset for USSR-era years, however, by digitizing old satellite images taken since 1979, but let’s discuss that later a bit more.
This essay from director of NSIDC, Mark Serreze, is provided for reference. You may remember Serreze who once said “the Arctic is screaming” while botching and then backpedaling on claims of “ice free summers” on the near horizon for the Arctic that never happened. Give it all the consideration it is due. For some perspective, see my article on a previous 100 degree event above the Arctic circle over 100 years ago. By the way, with 24 hours daylight above the Arctic circle, and near 24 hour daylight in Siberia this time of year, (the first day of summer aka the summer solstice) is it any surprise it would get warm?
This Arctic heat wave has been unusually long-lived. The darkest reds on this map of the Arctic are areas that were more than 14 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the spring of 2020 compared to the recent 15-year average. Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory…
by P. Homewood, June 27, 2020 in NotaLotofPeoppleKnowThat
The Conversation has now got involved in the Arctic heatwave scare, with this article by Jonathan Bamber, Professor of Physical Geography, University of Bristol :
On the eve of the summer solstice, something very worrying happened in the Arctic Circle. For the first time in recorded history, temperatures reached 38°C (101°F) in a remote Siberian town – 18°C warmer than the maximum daily average for June in this part of the world, and the all-time temperature record for the region.
New records are being set every year, and not just for maximum temperatures, but for melting ice and wildfires too. That’s because air temperatures across the Arctic have been increasing at a rate that is about twice the global average.
All that heat has consequences. Siberia’s recent heatwave, and high summer temperatures in previous years, have been accelerating the melting of Arctic permafrost. This is the permanently frozen ground which has a thin surface layer that melts and refreezes each year. As temperatures rise, the surface layer gets deeper and structures embedded in it start to fail as the ground beneath them expands and contracts. This is what is partly to blame for the catastrophic oil spill that occurred in Siberia in June 2020, when a fuel reservoir collapsed and released more than 21,000 tonnes of fuel – the largest ever spill in the Arctic.
So what is wrong with the Arctic, and why does climate change here seem so much more severe compared to the rest of the world?
