Circumpolar Musings: Climate change and weather

Amplified greenhouse effect shifts North's growing seasons

Amanda Graham — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 02:13:14 GMT

(NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center press release via Science Daily, 10 March 2013) -- Vegetation growth at Earth's northern latitudes increasingly resembles lusher latitudes to the south, according to a NASA-funded study based on a 30-year record of land surface and newly improved satellite data sets. An international team of university and NASA scientists examined the relationship between changes in surface temperature and vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. Results show temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982. "Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more," said Ranga Myneni of Boston University's Department of Earth and Environment. ... Myneni and colleagues used satellite data to quantify vegetation changes at different latitudes from 1982 to 2011. Data used in this study came from NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) onboard a series of polar-orbiting satellites and NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on the Terra and Aqua satellites. The study was published on March 10, in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Notes from the pole of cold

Amanda Graham — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:40:34 GMT

(Maxim Shemetov/Reuters, 18 February 2013) -- Oymyakon valley, Russia - One loses all bearings when faced with the shroud of white that obscures all things mid January in the Siberian city of Yakutsk. Only the traffic lights and gas pipelines overhanging the roads help you to find your way. Wrapped in frosty fog the city life seems frozen in a sleepy half-light. It is -48 C (-54 degrees Fahrenheit) outside. Before venturing out, I put on two layers of thermal underwear, trousers, two-sweaters, pants winterized up to my waist, and huge low-temperature boots. I pull close the hood of my down jacket and fasten it so that only my eyes are exposed. Lastly, I slip on two pairs of gloves and head for the entrance hall – the airlock. Now only the ice-bound door separates me from the cold. There is Space outside and I feel like an astronaut. However I do not have enough time to freeze today – the minibus is waiting for me at the corner and I pile in with my gear. Our routes lies along a Stalin-era road that is officially called “Kolyma Federal Highway”. Locals call it “the road on bones” after the thousands of Gulag prisoners who built it in the middle of the 20th century perished. ... After two days on the road, we finally arrive in the Oymyakon valley – the Pole of the Cold. This is the coldest known place in the Northern hemisphere. Thermometers registered a record chill of -67.7 degrees Celsius (-88 degrees Fahrenheit) in 1933 – shortly after weather monitoring began here in the end of the 1920s. [Follow the title link for Shemetov's pictures from the trip.]

Global warming may make the northernmost ocean less productive, not more so

Amanda Graham — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:44:10 GMT

(The Economist, 9 February 2013) -- ON SEPTEMBER 16th 2012, at the height of the summer melt, the Arctic Ocean’s ice sheet had shrunk to an area of 3.41m square kilometres (1.32m square miles), half what it was in 1979. And its volume had shrunk faster still, .... The world’s average temperature in 2012 was nearly 0.5°C above the average for 1951-80. In the Arctic, it was up almost 2°C. This sudden warming is like the peeling back of a lid to reveal a new ocean underneath. That prospect is spreading alarm (among greens) and excitement (at the natural resources and other economic opportunities that could be unveiled). Though most of the excitement has been about oil and gas, and the opening of sea routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific, some people hope for a fishing bonanza .... But they may be disappointed. At the moment, the waters around the Arctic account for a fifth of the world’s catch. There are few fish, however, under the ice itself. A fishing bonanza would require big ecological change. Arctic Frontiers, a conference organised at the University of Tromso in January, looked at how warming will change the ecology, to estimate whether it will bring one about. The consensus was that it won’t—not because the Arctic will change too little, but because it will change too much. ... The most important reason, though, for thinking that global warming will not produce an Arctic feeding frenzy is that it may increase ocean stratification. This is the tendency of seawater to separate into layers, because fresh water is lighter than salt and cold water heavier than warm. The more stratified water is, the less nutrients in it move around. ... A warming Arctic will not, in other words, be full of fish. It will simply be an ice-free version of the desert it already is.

As climate warms, Arctic spawns massive ice islands

Amanda Graham — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:07:58 GMT

(Tim Lister/CNN, 7 December 2012) -- In mid-July this year, a roar echoed around one of the most remote inlets of northern Greenland -- and an island was born. No ordinary island, but a huge chunk of ice, roughly twice the size of Manhattan, that had broken from the Petermann Glacier. Scientists gave it the romantic name of PII-2012 and watched it begin to drift slowly into the Nares Strait, which separates Greenland from Canada. Then it began to break up, spawning several smaller ice islands. The birth of PII-2012 was no isolated event. The Petermann Glacier had lost a much larger chunk in 2010. It also broke into fragments, though that may not be the right word. One of them alone was estimated to weigh 3.5 billion tonnes, or metric tons (3.86 billion short tons), according to E. Julie Halliday, a researcher at Memorial University in Canada. ... Halliday noted in a paper presented at the Arctic Technology Conference in Houston last week that while "management of a 3.5 billion-tonne ice island away from offshore structures may theoretically be possible, putting it into practice would be logistically very challenging." ... Scientists are only now beginning to research these ice islands and the rate at which they melt and divide, especially as the Arctic waters warm and the restraining effect of sea ice disappears. ... The same warmer temperatures that are encouraging the collapse of ice shelves are melting icebergs and ice islands before they reach the north Atlantic, according to the International Ice Patrol, a program led by the U.S. Coast Guard to protect shipping from the sort of disaster that befell the Titanic. ... The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in its annual Arctic Report Card, published this week, said dramatic melting of the Greenland ice sheet had occurred in July, "covering about 97 percent of the ice sheet on a single day." ... All the evidence says that what in effect is the world's source of air conditioning is getting weaker, with consequences that will be felt far below the 48th parallel.

Spring Arctic snow pack melting fast, study warns

Amanda Graham — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 21:35:43 GMT

(CBC News, 5 November 2012) -- The spring snow pack in the Arctic is disappearing at a much faster rate than anticipated even by climate change models, says a new study by Environment Canada researchers. That has implications for wildlife, vegetation and ground temperatures, say the scientists, who looked at four decades of snow data for the Canadian Arctic and beyond. Combined with recent news that the Arctic sea ice retreated to an all-time low this summer, it suggests climate change may be happening much faster than expected, said Dr. Chris Derksen, a research scientist for Environment Canada and one of the study's authors. "What we discovered was that there is a significant reduction in the amount of snow cover, particularly in May and June… and the rate of that decline is actually slightly faster than the loss of summer sea ice," Derksen said in an interview. They studied 40 years of data from across the Arctic from April to June, and found the decline in spring snow cover was actually slightly faster than the decline in sea ice that made headlines around the world.

Winter rains threaten reindeer and voles

Amanda Graham — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 23:13:30 GMT

(Asle Rønning/ScienceNordic, 6 October 2012) -- Norway’s Arctic Archipelago Svalbard gets some unseasonal rains now and then in winter. When it rains enough to soak through the snow and freeze against the topsoil, grass and other vegetation becomes hard for herbivores to reach. Two very different species are significantly affected by these rainfalls in the winter: the Svalbard reindeer and the sibling vole, which is Svalbard’s only rodent and only other mammalian land herbivore. The common factor impacting both stocks is winter rain, or the lack of it, according to a new study published in Biology Letters by scientists in Norway and Scotland. As the planet heats up, so far most in the polar regions, the Arctic is expected to get more rain in the season when powder snow would be expected. The study indicates that climate changes can have massive consequences on the entire Arctic ecosystem. This year with much more rain than average, calves of the Svalbard reindeer have a significantly smaller chance of survival and stocks of the sibling vole (Microtus kuis) are expected to plunge. On the Norwegian mainland in Finnmark County, well north of the Polar Circle, wet winter precipitation that freezes and locks vegetation under a sheet of ice is also known to aggravate reindeer browsing. “The Sami who maintain reindeer herds are familiar with this problem. What’s special about Svalbard is that this greatly impacts the voles. So it’s affecting large and small alike,” says one of the researchers behind the study, Audun Stien at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). Stien says that last winter, which wasn’t included in the study, was yet another with lots of winter rain. “Permafrost is what’s special about Svalbard. When the rain soaks down through the snow it freezes against frozen soil,” he says. Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) is a subspecies of reindeer found only on Svalbard.

Arctic sea ice may disappear within 4 years, according to one of the world’s leading sea ice researchers

Amanda Graham — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 17:56:24 GMT

(Planetsave, 21 September 2012) -- The complete collapse of Arctic sea ice during the summer months may happen within four years, according to one of the world’s leading sea ice researchers. In an email to the Guardian, Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University says: "Climate change is no longer something we can aim to do something about in a few decades' time, and that we must not only urgently reduce CO2 emissions but must urgently examine other ways of slowing global warming, such as the various geoengineering ideas that have been put forward." Some of those geo-engineering ideas could have unintended effects worse than climate change itself, though — they remain a heavily-debated solution. The most prominent current ideas include: reflecting the sun’s light back into space with aerosols or mirrors; turning clouds a whiter color; and seeding the ocean with minerals in order to encourage massive plankton blooms that, theoretically, could sequester more CO2. Professor Wadhams has spent “many years collecting ice thickness data from submarines passing below the arctic ocean. He predicted the imminent break-up of sea ice in summer months in 2007, when the previous lowest extent of 4.17 million square kilometres was set. This year, it has unexpectedly plunged a further 500,000 sq km to less than 3.5m sq km.” “I have been predicting [the collapse of sea ice in summer months] for many years. The main cause is simply global warming: as the climate has warmed there has been less ice growth during the winter and more ice melt during the summer,” Dr Wadhams said. “At first this didn’t [get] noticed; the summer ice limits slowly shrank back, at a rate which suggested that the ice would last another 50 years or so. But in the end the summer melt overtook the winter growth such that the entire ice sheet melts or breaks up during the summer months. “This collapse, I predicted would occur in 2015-16 at which time the summer Arctic (August to September) would become ice-free. The final collapse towards that state is now happening and will probably be complete by those dates”.

Dire warnings issued on diminishing Arctic ice

Amanda Graham — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 17:49:55 GMT

(Peter Fednysky/Voice of America, 21 September 2012) -- NEW YORK - The extent of Arctic sea ice this week shrunk to a new low in the era of satellite record-keeping that began in 1979. The increased expanse of water near the top of the world could have implications for global shipping, wildlife and even international diplomacy. Polar bears hunt seals from sea ice, but could drown if forced to swim long distances in open water. Satellite photos released by America’s space agency, NASA, illustrate the daunting threat to such bears. An image shows the amount of Arctic Sea ice in 1979. Another shows the record minimum set this year on September 16. The shrinkage is equivalent to an area greater than Texas, an impossible distance for even the mightiest polar bear to swim. Scientists say fossil fuels are increasing carbon emissions in the atmosphere. This not only warms the oceans, but threatens biodiversity in cold and warm waters alike. “As we increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a high proportion, about 40 percent of that, goes back into the ocean, and so it’s increasing the acid content of the ocean and that’s threatening coral reefs,” said Ben Orlove, a Columbia University climate research scientist.

NASA says Arctic cyclone played "key role" in record ice melt (video)

Amanda Graham — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 17:48:31 GMT

(Reuters, 21 September 2012) -- Weather data collected by NASA suggests that this summer's record Arctic ice melt may have been partially due to a powerful cyclone that scientists say ''wreaked havoc'' on ice cover during the month of August. Rob Muir reports.

Arctic sea ice extent continues to melt below former record lows: data center

Amanda Graham — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 22:41:45 GMT

(Nunatsiaq News, 6 September 2012) -- Following the new record low Arctic sea ice extent recorded Aug. 26, ice coverage has continued to drop and has now shrunk to less than four million square kilometres — smaller than the previous low extent of 2007. Compared to September conditions in the 1980s and 1990s, the Arctic sea ice extent has dropped by 45 per cent, the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center said Sept. 5. And that skimpy sea ice cover is likely to get lower yet, because at least one more week remains in the melt season.

Arctic Row: Preparing to depart

Amanda Graham — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:02:27 GMT

(Collin West/Bloomberg Businessweek, 12 July 2010) -- This blog will capture my personal experience as our team of four attempts “one of the last great firsts.” If successful, our crossing will be the first rowing expedition to travel from continent to continent for a total of 1,300 miles. What will we learn about ourselves and the Arctic along the way? Visit this blog regularly to find out as we explore this question in real time. But today, the Arctic Row expedition finally starts. I am sitting on the first of four flights as we make our way to Inuvik, a tiny town that sits 2 degrees north of the Arctic Circle. Our first stop is Edmonton, Canada. My excitement builds as the towns get progressively smaller. While in Inuvik, we will make final preparations on our boat, including packing our supplies and film gear for our documentary Into Thin Ice. Then we will drop our boat in the MacKenzie River about 70 miles north of the Arctic Ocean and commence our record-breaking attempt.

Bering Sea sees surprising record ice cover

Amanda Graham — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:17:02 GMT

(OurAmazingPlanet Staff/LiveScience.com via Yahoo! News, 7 May 2012) -- Arctic sea ice has persistently dwindled over the last three decades, yet sea ice set record highs in waters around Alaska this past winter. Ice in the Bering Sea not only covered more area than usual, it also stuck around longer, bucking the downward trend in sea ice cover observed since 1979, when satellite records for the region began. The Arctic as a whole had below-average sea ice cover during the 2011 to 2012 winter season. At its maximum, reached in mid-March, sea ice covered 5.88 million square miles (15.24 million square kilometers), the ninth lowest in the satellite record. Yet Alaskan waters were choked with ice. Sea ice cover in the Bering Sea was well above normal for much of the season, and reached a record-high extent in March 2012. In addition, ice surrounded the Pribilof Islands, tiny volcanic islands in the middle of the Bering Sea, for a record number of days this winter. On May 3, ice had surrounded St. Paul Island for 103 days, up from the record of 100 days, set in 2010. The record ice numbers were fueled by two main factors: low temperatures and strong winds from the north. Persistent winds pushed ice from the Arctic Ocean down toward the Bering Strait, which acted as a temporary dam, trapping the sea ice in a bottleneck. The sea ice continued to pile up, and the icy barrier eventually collapsed, allowing the trapped ice to surge southward into the Bering Sea. Alaska's mainland spent this last winter in the grip of bone-chilling low temperatures and record-high snowfalls, the result of cyclical climate conditions that kept much of the lower 48 states at record high temperatures, while plunging Alaska into a deep freeze that helped keep the ice frozen.

Warming Arctic will affect south as well

Amanda Graham — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:28:33 GMT

(Ed Struzik/Times Colonist, 6 May 2012) -- University of Alberta scientist Andrew Derocher was in the High Arctic in late April getting a rare, first-hand glimpse of what the future of the Arctic might look like right around the time 3,000 researchers, policy-makers and indigenous leaders were gathered in Montreal at the International Polar Year 2012 conference to try to imagine the same thing. Derocher was on the sea ice catching and tagging polar bears off the coast of Victoria Island when Inuvialuit hunter Pat Epakohak hunted and killed a female polar bear that had two very unusual-looking cubs with her. "One of the cubs was very grizzly-bear-like and the other looked more like a polar bear," Derocher wrote in an email after getting a chance to look at the carcasses of the animals. "I guess we can expect more of these hybrids as the population of grizzly bears continues to grow in this part of the world." Up until about 20 years ago, sightings of grizzlies in the High Arctic were extremely rare, a quirk of nature, many biologists thought, that may have occurred because the bear walked the wrong way or strayed too far following mainland caribou that sometimes cross the sea ice to Arctic islands. No one imagined that hybrids such as the one Derocher saw would be part of the land or seascape. But that thinking began to change in recent years as more brown bears and a succession of other animals, such as red fox, coyotes, white-tailed deer, Pacific salmon and killer whales, began showing up in areas traditionally occupied by Arctic fox, Arctic wolves, caribou, Arctic char and beluga whales. Some of these animals, we now know, are also producing hybrids.

Signs of spring: cranes finally return to North Sweden for the summer

Amanda Graham — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:21:05 GMT

(Radio Sweden via Eye on the Arctic, 16 April 2012) -- Swedish news agency TT reports that two thirds of the cranes that were observed earlier this month at Lake Hornborga in western Götaland in southern Sweden have finally moved on northwards. The sight of thousands of cranes at Lake Hornborga is usually a sign that spring has come. This year however, the lake was over-crowded with cranes, due to cold weather which prevented them from continuing on their journey north. Every April, birds and birdwatchers alike flock to the lake when migrating cranes returning north for the summer arrive on its shores. The cranes use the lake as a stop-over point where they rest and feed before flying on to northern Sweden and Finland.

Anchorage, Alaska breaks seasonal snowfall record

Amanda Graham — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 05:11:46 GMT

(Eric Christopher Adams/Alaska Dispatch, 7 April 2012) -- An epic winter in Anchorage, became an historic one Saturday afternoon. With several inches of new snowfall, according to the National Weather Service, the city officially broke the all-time record of 132.6 inches of snow. That record snowfall came in the winter of 1954-55, before Alaska was even a state. As of 4 p.m., 133.6 inches of snow had fallen on Anchorage during the winter of 2011-12. Snow continued to fall into the evening. And while some celebrated, others lamented the unending snow. Some places in the South Anchorage Hillside neighborhood, which has a significantly higher elevation than the city proper, have recorded upwards of 200 inches of snow this winter. All that snow has caused thousands of dollars in home and commercial property damage. It became fodder for the city's mayoral election. It prompted fights and lawsuits between neighbors over snowberms. It left city "snow dumps" bulging beyond capacity while running up millions of dollars of street-clearing and other fees for city government. ... A meteorologist with Accuweather, a company providing weather data for news and TV stations across the country, recently warned that those sorts of temperatures would likely be the norm for Alaska this spring. April and May look to be chilly, wet months for Anchorage and much of Alaska, said Jack Boston of Accuweather. A weather phenomenon known as Arctic Oscillation has, in layman's terms, left a stubborn "dome" of cold air stuck over the 49th state that's blocking warm air from the Pacific Ocean from moving through. In other words, Anchorage might not just break the all-time snow record. With potential for another three or four weeks of damp weather hovering near freezing temperatures, this winter could be a once-in-a-lifetime snow season.

Arctic sea ice hits max for winter, driven by record floes off Alaska

Amanda Graham — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 20:42:23 GMT

(Doug O'Harra/Alaska Dispatch, 4 April 2012) -- After growing to one of the biggest polar packs seen during the past decade, sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has officially maxed out for the winter and begun its slow, seasonal melt into another summer of retreat. “Arctic sea ice reached its annual maximum extent on March 18, after reaching an initial peak early in the month and declining briefly,” according to the newest analysis posted by the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC). “Ice extent for the month as a whole was higher than in recent years, but still below average.” Driven by record-breaking floes in Alaska’s Bering Sea, and above average ice cover in Baffin Bay between Greenland and Canada, the ice cap averaged about 5.87 million square miles last month — the greatest March ice cover seen since 2008. The total was tempered by below-average ice cover in the Barents and Kara seas north of Europe and Russia (though the Kara rebounded somewhat in March), where temperatures remained 7 to 11 degrees F above normal. Only eight seasons have produced smaller March ice footprints in the Arctic during the 34 years of satellite coverage. [Follow title link to see] a chart making comparisons to several of those years, and another image showing the current status updated every day.

Extremely mild winter in the Arctic

Amanda Graham — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:15:04 GMT

(aftenbladet.no, 23 March 2012) -- The 80 first days of 2012 were a lot warmer than normal on the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard. We have to go back to 30 December last year to find a day that was colder than normal temperatures of Longyearbyen, according to Svalbardposten. The year 2012 has so far offered a record heat, landslides, rain and ice-free fjords. The year so far has been over 11°C warmer than normal in Longyearbyen. "It is a sturdy Norwegian record," comments Norwegian weather expert Bernt Lie on his website. The highest temperature in Longyearbyen this year was on February 8th with summer temperature of 7°C. The coldest day was only a week later, on February 16th when it was measured minus 19.1°C at Svalbard Airport.

Wonky winter brings Arctic birds south, sparks early migration

Amanda Graham — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:36:28 GMT

(CBC News, 22 March 2012) -- North America's wonky winter forced its different bird populations to flock much farther afield this year as Arctic species moved south and southern watefowl showed up in ice-free Canada much earlier in the year. Snowy owls from the Arctic and tundra swans, which normally winter in the southern U.S., as far south as Florida, were among the birds reported in unusually high numbers in Canada during this year's annual Great Backyard Bird Count. Four times as many snowy owls and nearly 17 times more tundra swans were reported by Canadian participants this year than last year, said Bird Studies Canada this week. The group partners with the U.S.-based Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society of the U.S. to coordinate the annual count, which ran across Canada and the U.S. from Feb. 17 to 20. Scientists think the snowy owls moved further south than usual this winter due to a shortage of food such as lemmings. They were spotted in much greater number in the central U.S. plains and the Pacific Northwest as well. Meanwhile, the jump in waterfowl such as tundra swans, canvasbacks, redheads and sandhill cranes was likely due to the warm winter weather and lack of ice, Bird Studies Canada said. Many of these species migrate to the Arctic area for summer breeding but don't usually head there until much later in the year.

Abnormally warm winter on Svalbard

Amanda Graham — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:47:16 GMT

(Barents Observer, 23 March 2012) -- The 80 first days of 2012 were a lot warmer than normal on the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard. The weather has been anything but normal on Svalbard this year. Since the beginning of the year the inhabitants of one of the world’s northernmost settlements have experienced record heat, avalanches, rain and ice-free fjords. The temperature has been 11°C above the normal since the beginning of the year, Svalbardposten writes. The warmest day so far this year was February 8, with +7°C. Longyearbyen has had 90 millimeters of precipitation so far this year, nearly twice the normal. But this is nothing compared to Ny-Ålesund, where 97 percent of the normal annual precipitation came during the first 80 days of the year.

Plover brings tidings of spring [to Iceland]

Amanda Graham — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:22:03 GMT

(Iceland Review News, 21 March 2012) -- The plover in Hvalfjarðarsveit certainly brings tidings of spring if the weather forecast is anything to go by, predicting temperatures as high as 15°C (59 F°) in the northern and eastern parts of Iceland this weekend. "We can expect to see temperatures reach 8 to 10 °C in the south and western corner of the country, and 8 to 12 C° in northern and eastern parts of Iceland," Óli Þór Árnason, a meteorologist at the Icelandic Met Office told visir.is. Óli Þór predicts dry weather and bright skies in North and East Iceland, but informed residents in the south and west that they may have to settle for showers over the weekend. Temperatures will drop again on Monday but there is reason to be optimistic now that the plover has been sighted. The Golden Plover was spotted near Ytri Hólmur, a local farm in the area south of Akranes, and was photographed by a photographer for the local newspaper, Skessuhorn.

Increase in Arctic shipping poses risk to marine mammals

Amanda Graham — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 05:27:08 GMT

(Wildlife Conservation Society press release ᔥ redOrbit, 19 March 2012) -- A rapid increase in shipping in the formerly ice-choked waterways of the Arctic poses a significant increase in risk to the region’s marine mammals and the local communities that rely on them for food security and cultural identity, according to an Alaska Native groups and the Wildlife Conservation Society who convened at a recent workshop. The workshop—which ran from March 12-14—examined the potential impacts to the region’s wildlife and highlighted priorities for future management of shipping in the region. The meeting included participants from the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, Eskimo Walrus Commission, Alaska Beluga Whale Committee, Ice Seal Committee, Indigenous People’s Council for Marine Mammals, and the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Other participants included the University of Alaska, government agencies such as the U.S. Coast Guard, Arctic Research Commission, and the Marine Mammal Commission, and regional Alaska Native groups such as Kawerak Inc., North Slope Borough, Northwest Alaska Borough, and Association of Village Council Presidents. At issue is the effect of climate change on Arctic waters, which over the last few decades have become increasingly ice-free during the summer and fall. The lengthening of the open-water season has led to new industrial developments, including oil and gas activities and a rising number of large maritime vessels transiting either the Northern Sea Route over the Russian Arctic from Europe, or the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic from the Atlantic. Whichever route is being used, the only gateway to the Pacific is through the Bering Strait—an important migratory pathway for marine mammals.

Arctic tree line not moving as fast as thought, despite climate change

Amanda Graham — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:38:15 GMT

(Carey Restino/The Arctic Sounder, 18 March 2012) -- A study released this month by Cambridge University indicates the advance of the treeline in the Arctic is moving slower than previously predicted. The study, which was released March 17 by Gareth Rees, a researcher with the university’s Scott Polar Research Institute, says the relationship between climate change and tree growth is more complicated than initially thought. “To generalize our results, the tree line is definitely moving north on average but we do not see any evidence for rates as big as 2 kilometers per year anywhere along the Arctic rim,” he said in a news release. “Where we have the most detailed information, our results suggest that a rate of around 100 meters per year is more realistic. In some places, the tree line is actually moving south. The predictions of a loss of 40 percent of the tundra by the end of the century is probably far too alarming.” According to the report, Earth’s surface temperature has risen an average of 1.3 degrees F, but the average is greater in the far north. Rees’ study coordinated experts from across various Arctic nations, primarily in northern Europe. But Canada, Alaska, Russia and Scandinavia also participated. “What we are saying is that when you take the step from a climate model to a vegetation model, we may be doing that in a way that exaggerates what is actually happening,” he said. “Furthermore, the response around the Arctic rim is by no means uniform.”

In Alaska, private snow removers are running out of places to put it

Amanda Graham — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:47:03 GMT

(Michelle Theriault Boots/Anchorage Daily News, 14 February 2012) -- With more than 100 inches [2.54 m] on the ground and more falling, Anchorage is running out of places to dump its snow. According to Marcel Warmilee, who owns a business hauling snow from condominium properties and business properties, six of the seven private dump sites he usually uses are full. The seventh is getting close. "You go to a condo, you pick up some snow and take it down (to a private snow disposal site) and realize the dump is closed," said Warmilee of Arctic Green LLC. "And maybe you have five or six dump trucks full of snow you don't know what to do with." In an unusual move, the city is responding by proposing an ordinance, scheduled to be introduced to the Assembly Tuesday, to streamline the permitting process so new temporary sites can quickly open. The idea is to create a "speedy permit process that might allow a few more sites to open if necessary," said municipal attorney Dennis Wheeler. New sites "are needed to keep driving on city and state roads, parking on private properties ... and other activities from becoming unduly problematic or even dangerous" to the general public, according to the text of the proposed ordinance. Part of the problem is huge amounts of snow, Wheeler said. Another problem is scarcity: As the city has grown, the number of vacant lots available for snow dumping has diminished. The city's own snow disposal sites for use by road crews are doing fine, says Alan Czajkowski, the head of the municipality's maintenance and operations department. "They're getting full but we still have plenty of capacity," Czajkowski said. "Unless we get a ton more snow we should be fine to the end of the year." It would take 30 to 40 inches [76 to 101 cm] more for the city-owned dumps to reach capacity, he said.

Cold snapped: Record warm Alaska winter weather out of nowhere

Amanda Graham — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:09:08 GMT

(Alex DeMarban/Alaska Dispatch, 10 February 2012) -- What's up with this winter? Fresh off the heels of record cold and snow, an Arctic heat wave is melting Alaska’s icebox while producing record warmth. The wild swing follows a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that contrasts Alaska's frigid January and the Lower 48's mild month. This week, Alaska weather forecasters on Facebook noted the state's suddenly see-sawing temperatures. Few locations have swung as widely as the Interior community of McGrath. On Thursday, the town of 350 set a Feb. 9 record high of 43 degrees, said Michael Lawson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. Just five days earlier, McGrath's temperature was 85 degrees lower, when the mercury dipped to minus-42. It was even colder during some January days, said Phil Graham, acting city clerk. The weather service says on Jan. 28 the low was minus-54. That's a 97-degree swing in a dozen days. "Anybody who's been here a while said no one has seen anything like it before," Graham said. The change is welcome in McGrath. Residents weren't wearing shorts on Thursday, but "they were walking around with smiles on their faces." Juneau also set a record high of 48 degrees yesterday, beating the old 1968 record by one degree, said Lawson.

Eider duck population declining in Arctic as polar bears devour eggs

Amanda Graham — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:30:40 GMT

(Anita Li/Toronto Star, 25 January 2012) -- An Arctic duck is at risk because polar bears have developed a newfound appetite for their eggs, scientists say. The eider populations in Nunavut and Nunavik, Que., are declining partly because the bears have been eating more of their eggs, which are laid on the southern coasts of Baffin Island and Southampton Island. “The bears were essentially eating every single egg on the island(s),” said Samuel Iverson, a field researcher with Environment Canada. “We are seeing just major nest depredation.” Over the past three decades, climate change has caused sea ice to disappear, making it more difficult for polar bears to hunt for seals, their primary prey. To compensate, the bears have been raiding eider nests for food. “These bears might be energy-deficient and more willing to consume resources, which before, weren’t very important to them, but now are piquing the bears’ interest in a way that they haven’t in the past,” he said. “The number of colonies where we saw this happening was much higher than anybody has ever recorded before.” But eating a diet of eggs isn’t enough to sustain the polar bear population in the long-term, Iverson added.

Sun hurls strong geomagnetic storm toward Earth

Amanda Graham — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:41:28 GMT

(Deborah Zabarenko/Reuters, 23 January 2012) -- The strongest geomagnetic storm in more than six years was forecast to hit Earth's magnetic field on Tuesday, and it could affect airline routes, power grids and satellites, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center said. A coronal mass ejection — a big chunk of the Sun's atmosphere — was hurled toward Earth on Sunday, driving energized solar particles at about 5 million miles an hour (2,000 km per second), about five times faster than solar particles normally travel, the center's Terry Onsager said. "When it hits us, it's like a big battering ram that pushes into Earth's magnetic field," Onsager said from Boulder, Colorado. "That energy causes Earth's magnetic field to fluctuate." This energy can interfere with high frequency radio communications used by airlines to navigate close to the North Pole in flights between North America, Europe and Asia, so some routes may need to be shifted, Onsager said. It could also affect power grids and satellite operations, the center said in a statement. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station may be advised to shield themselves in specific parts of the spacecraft to avoid a heightened dose of solar radiation, Onsager said. The space weather center said the geomagnetic storm's intensity would probably be moderate or strong, levels two and three on a five-level scale, five being the most extreme.

Polar bears turn cannibalistic as climate change depletes arctic food supply

Amanda Graham — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:17:24 GMT

(Rheana Murray / New York Daily News, 11 January 2012) -- Dwindling Arctic Sea ice is cutting off polar bears’ food supply, forcing the starving animals to devour their own kind. While cannibalism among polar bears isn’t unheard of, experts say the behavior is becoming increasingly common. “There are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring,” photojournalist Jenny Ross told BBC News. “Particularly on land where polar bears are trapped ashore, completely food-deprived for extended periods of time due to the loss of sea ice as a result of climate change.” Ross explained how the higher temperatures melt ice more quickly, leaving the bears less time to fuel up on ice-dependent seals, the animals’ main source of food. “Weights of adults are decreasing, litters are smaller, fewer young bears are surviving, and the overall population size is shrinking,” she said. Ross, whose research was published in the January 2012 edition of <e>Ocean Geographic Magazine</e>, described watching a bear guard its kill, a cub. “As soon as the adult male became aware that a boat was approaching him, he basically stood to my attention — he straddled the young bear’s body, asserting control over it and conveying ‘this is my food,’” she recalled to BBC News. “He then picked up the bear in his jaws and, just using the power of his jaws and his neck, transported it from one floe to another. “And eventually, when he was a considerable distance away, he stopped and fed on the carcass.” See the entire article here.

Satellites help Nome-bound Russian fuel tanker avoid sea ducks

Amanda Graham — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:00:50 GMT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, January 6, 2012 (ENS) - This weekend, on its way to deliver more than a million gallons of emergency fuel to the town of Nome, Alaska, the Russian tanker Renda will move through an area used by wintering spectacled eiders, a federally threatened sea duck. To protect the ducks and their habitat, resource managers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and navigators from the U.S. Coast Guard are using satellite telemetry information from the U.S. Geological Survey to plot a route for the tanker that minimizes its impact. "Protecting America's fish and wildlife resources is a shared responsibility. It is satisfying to see agencies working together to protect threatened and endangered species, while meeting the needs of our communities," said Ellen Lance, the Endangered Species Branch chief for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Alaska Region. The arctic nesting sea ducks are now wintering south of St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea, where sea ice and abundant prey make their winter survival possible. But in Nome, a fuel shortage is creating an emergency. Fuel delivery to the town of 3,600, located on the edge of the Bering Sea on the southwest side of the Seward Peninsula, was delayed by what AccuWeather's Vickie Frantz calls the "snowicane" conditions that struck during the first week of November. A fuel barge carrying 1.6 million gallons of fuel was en route to Nome when the storm hit. The barge was delayed and was unable to reach the town before winter sea ice closed in. Nome is now surrounded by foot-thick ice. In early December, the Sitnasuak Native Corporation of Nome signed a contract with the Alaska company Vitus Marine to deliver more than a million gallons of diesel fuel and 400,000 gallons of gasoline to Nome via a double-hulled Ice Classed Russian tanker. The vessel is certified to travel through four feet of ice and recently traveled through five feet of ice for extended distances while delivering fuel to communities in the Russian Far East.

Sea ice hastens Bering Sea snow crab fishery

Amanda Graham — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:40:20 GMT

(Laine Welch/Anchorage Daily News, 7 January 2012) -- The Bering Sea snow crab fishery is picking up earlier than usual as the fleet scrambles to pull up the catch before encroaching sea ice shuts them down. About 25 boats are out so far, soon to be joined by 60 or so more, with a weather forecast calling for frigid weather and high winds.Although the fishery opens by regulation Oct. 15, most crabbers usually wait until mid-January to begin dropping pots. The snow crab catch quota was boosted 64 percent this season to nearly 80 million pounds. Boats left the dock without settling on a price, and the increased supply is depressing the market. "The problem we have in the snow crab market is that before the catch share program began in 2005, the fishery started on the 15th of January, so that is when the market formed, and negotiations were typically done about a week before. Although the fishery has been starting earlier and earlier, negotiations are still taking place at the traditional time period. "There's negotiations taking place between the packers and the Japanese and domestic buyers as we speak," said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, which represents a majority of the crab fleet. There also is quite a bit of Canadian snow crab in freezers that buyers are trying to sell before that fishery begins in April. Jacobsen said it all adds up to lower crab prices.

Lack of sea ice could be causing more seal deaths, say researchers

Amanda Graham — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:23:32 GMT

(Canadian Press via CTV, 4 January 2012) -- HALIFAX - A new scientific study suggests harp seals in the North Atlantic are dying at high rates because of warming waters and a steady decline of sea ice in their traditional breeding grounds. The research by scientists at Duke University in North Carolina tracked the decrease of sea ice due to global warming and the mortality of harp seals from 1992 to 2010. David Johnston, a marine scientist who co-wrote the report, said it's the first study to show that seasonal ice cover in the four seal breeding areas of North America has receded by as much as six per cent per decade. "There has been a string of light ice years recently and we're starting to be concerned that if ice continues to decline, this might have longer-term effects on the harp seal population," Johnston said from his office in Beaufort, N.C. "I'm concerned that these animals are in for a tough road with what we're seeing with climate change." The authors warned that they could see the disappearance of a year's entire seal pup herd due to a lack of ice, where females traditionally go to give birth every February and March. Pups usually drown if born in the water or on thin, unstable ice. The study was funded by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which has lobbied against the annual Canadian seal hunt. Johnston said the participation of the animal-rights group didn't affect the objectivity of the report, which was peer-reviewed.

Record breaking December snow in Iceland

Amanda Graham — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:12:07 GMT

(IceNews, 30 December 2011) -- Those in Iceland who say they cannot remember such a snowy December have been proven right by the Icelandic Met Office, which has released details of two records which have been broken in Reykjavík this month. Yesterday morning the depth of snow was 33 centimetres in Reykjavík and neighbouring municipalities; which is a record. Since records began being kept in 1921 there has never been a 24 hour period in December with more snowfall over the Icelandic capital. Intermittent snow showers continued throughout yesterday, but the Met Office predicts a change in the weather today; with initial snow, followed by sleet and eventually rain. The forecast is for a warming trend and temperatures above zero in all lowland areas of Iceland on New Year’s Day. Another record has also been set in the capital region, where snow has laid on the ground uninterrupted since the 26th November — the longest period of early winter snow cover since records began. It is by no means certain yet that the rise in temperatures will last long enough to stop the uninterrupted snow cover record carrying on into January.

Greenland rising as ice melts

Amanda Graham — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:15:27 GMT

(A. Rienstra/IceNews, 18 December 2011) -- Greenland’s bedrock rose significantly last year due to the loss of 100 billion tonnes of ice during the particularly warm summer. Researchers from Ohio State University found that during 2010, part of country’s landmass rose more than half a centimetre more than in recent years. The data were collected from GPS stations which usually record an average uplift of about a centimetre per year in the Arctic country. “But a temperature spike in 2010 lifted the bedrock a detectably higher amount over a short five-month period – as high as 20 mm in some locations,” Michael Bevis, an geologist from the POLENET research network told a conference of the American Geophysical Union this week. He added that the changes must be due to the increased ice loss. “Really, there is no other explanation. The uplift anomaly correlates with maps of the 2010 melting day anomaly. In locations where there were many extra days of melting in 2010, the uplift anomaly is highest,” Bevis said. For every 100 billion tonnes of loss from the Greenland ice sheet, global sea levels are thought to increase by around 0.25mm. “Pulses of extra melting and uplift imply that we’ll experience pulses of extra sea level rise. The process is not really a steady process,” Bevis said.

Arctic sea freezing fast north of Alaska but may be too little, too late

Amanda Graham — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:27:25 GMT

(Doug O'Harra/Alaska Dispatch, 6 December 2011) -- After shrinking to one of the smallest summer extents of the past 30 years, the ice cap over the Arctic Ocean has been re-growing quickly as the dark polar winter tightens its grip. During November, plunging temperatures refroze an average of more than 30,000 square miles of ocean every day — growing enough pans and floes to cover an area almost the size of South Carolina every 24 hours. That’s faster growth than usual, according to records going back to the 1970s. And yet, despite weather patterns that plunged the ocean off Alaska's north coast into frigid conditions, the Arctic ice cap remained trapped close to record lows for the time of year, according to the latest sea ice analysis posted by the National Sea & Ice Data Center. Only 2006 and 2010 had a smaller area of sea ice this time of year, the NSIDC said here. By Nov. 30, the ice cap covered some 4.19 million square miles — about 241,000 square miles above the minimum record for that date set in 2006, but hundreds of thousands of square miles below the long-term average. Overall, November sea ice has been declining about 4.7 percent per year, compared to the 1979-to-2000 average, the NSIDC explained. That’s a loss of about 20,500 square miles of frozen habitat each year.

Record warm temperatures affecting indigenous reindeer herders in Arctic

Amanda Graham — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:00:19 GMT

(Sami Radio Sweden via Eye on the Arctic, 5 December 2011) -- Mild weather continued throughout the fall in the traditional Sami territories in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and northwestern Russia. This has been the warmest fall since the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) began recording temperatures. SMHI meteorologist Sverker Hällström reports that this fall has had primarily southerly and westerly winds. Sameradion (Radio Sami) compared the temperatures of several locations in northern Sweden and Norway. In all locations, this fall's average temperature has been from three to eight degrees warmer than the normal average temperature. In Kiruna, Sweden's northernmost town, the average temperature in the first half of November was over 1 degree Celsius. November's average temperature is usually minus 6.5 degrees Celsius. "November as a month and this entire fall will be the warmest on record, and we've been measuring for over 100 years," says Sverker Hällström. The reason is a low pressure system over the Atlantic causing warm air to blow from the south or west, resulting in wind and rain with some snow in the mountains. And the warm weather will continue, according to meteorologist Sverker Hällström. "We still can't see a real cold air outbreak, so the temperature will remain on the milder side," says Sverker Hällström, adding that the climate is changing. "A mild fall like this fits right into the pattern: we're slowly but surely moving toward slightly warmer conditions," says Hällström.

Arctic growing warmer and greener: Annual report card

Amanda Graham — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:57:41 GMT

(ENS, 1 December 2011) -- WASHINGTON, DC - The Arctic is entering a new state with warmer air and water temperatures, less summer sea ice and snow cover, and changed ocean chemistry, finds the annual Arctic Report Card. Less habitat for polar bears and walruses but increased access to feeding areas for whales characterizes the new Arctic pattern. The 2012 Arctic Report Card was prepared by an international team of scientists from 14 different countries and issued today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. "This report, by a team of 121 scientists from around the globe, concludes that the Arctic region continues to warm, with less sea ice and greater green vegetation," said Monica Medina, NOAA principal deputy under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere. "With a greener and warmer Arctic, more development is likely," Medina said. "Reports like this one help us to prepare for increasing demands on Arctic resources so that better decisions can be made about how to manage and protect these more valuable and increasingly available resources." The Report Card tracks the Arctic atmosphere, sea ice, biology, ocean, land, and Greenland. This year, new sections were added, including greenhouse gases, ozone and ultraviolet radiation, ocean acidification, Arctic Ocean primary productivity, and lake ice.

Thawing permafrost poised to increase climate change

Amanda Graham — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:31:20 GMT

(Doug O'Harra/Alaska Dispatch, 30 November 2011) -- The coming decades will thaw a growing expanse of permafrost in Alaska and across the Arctic. What will that mean? Any Alaskan who’s spent time in trekking over summer tundra knows part of the answer -- a ripe-smelling slurry of boot-sucking muck will deepen and liquefy. It will smell rotten in the summer sun, and for good reason. The sudden decay of organic matter deposited over centuries has the potential to dribble vast quantities of carbon dioxide and the super greenhouse gas methane into the air, boosting climate change and contributing to warmer temperatures throughout the region. But no one has ever been sure how much of the region’s stored carbon will be spewed as this process unfolds. Now, 41 permafrost specialists have taken a new stab at adding up the potential of this pending Arctic belch, and it’s much worse than anyone thought. The thawing of permafrost over the century will dump up to five times more carbon into the air than some previous estimates -- warming the Arctic by at least 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to a survey of international scientists working together as the Permafrost Carbon Network. Under the worst-case scenario, the scientists predicted that the Arctic region could heat up even faster, with increases in the average annual temperature of 4.5 degrees by 2040 and 13.5 degrees by 2100.

Arctic sea ice in longest decline seen over past 1,450 years: study

Amanda Graham — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 06:27:54 GMT

(Bob Weber/Globe and Mail, 23 November 2011) -- Research published in a top scientific journal says Arctic sea ice has declined more in the last half-century than it has any time over the last 1,450 years. The study, which gives the most detailed picture ever of the northern oceans over the previous millennium-and-a-half, also concludes the current decline has already lasted longer than any previous one in that period. “When we look at our reconstruction, we can see that the decline that has occurred in the last 50 years or so seems to be unprecedented for the last 1,450 years,” Christian Zdanowicz of the Geological Survey of Canada said Wednesday. “It's difficult not to come up with the conclusion that greenhouse gases must have something to do with this,” added Mr. Zdanowicz, one of the co-authors of the report in Nature. “We cannot account for this decline by processes that are ‘natural.’” Climate change is thought to be occurring faster in the Arctic than anywhere else on Earth and sea ice is considered one of the main indicators. The ice is crucial in northern ecosystems because it provides habitat for everything from plankton to polar bears. Its gradual disappearance is also opening previously inaccessible areas to the possibility of resource development, as well as to commercial shipping. Mr. Zdanowicz and his team combined 69 different data sources to determine the extent of sea ice for every decade going back about 1,000 years and every 25 years beyond that.

Lack of snow hits car testing in Arjeplog

Amanda Graham — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:10:36 GMT

(Radio Sweden, 15 November 2011) -- The small Lappland town of Arjeplog which takes in millions of dollars every winter from major car companies keen to test out their new vehicles in extreme conditions, is currently losing thousands of dollars every day because of the mild November. 3,000 engineers from companies such as BMW and Volkswagen come to Arjeplog between November and April as well as tourists from Russia and Germany, keen to test their private vehicles. The town's 3,000 inhabitants benefit from full hotel rooms and bed and breakfasts establishments, but the news agency TT reports that a lack of snow and ice this month has meant several companies have postponed testing.

Ham radio vital link during Alaska super storm

Amanda Graham — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:55:26 GMT

(Jill Burke/Alaska Dispatch via Eye on the Arctic, 14 November 2011) -- The jet stream feeding the wintery sea-spun tempest that sideswiped Alaska's western coast wasn't the only worldwide conveyer belt in motion this week. As howling winds whipped up and crashing waves pounded beaches, the people who live in the remote, isolated villages along the storm's path stayed connected via a web of global radio frequencies. When other communications failed, ham radio operators came to the rescue. Throughout the storm, they were the eyes for scientists in Fairbanks and Anchorage who otherwise would have been blind to weather conditions they could predict but not see. "They were providing critical observations. We don't have a lot of meteorological observations in the west. We don't have the instruments out there," Carven Scott, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Anchorage, said Thursday as messages sent via the amateur radio network zapped into his inbox. The messages were deceptively simple: how fast the wind was blowing and from what direction; sea level; wave height; whether it was snowing or raining; and the temperature. These seemingly small details from various villages made a big difference for the weather service -- enough so, Scott said, that a lead forecaster told him, "Whatever you do, don't cut it off because this stuff is really helping us."

Strong winds in northern Sweden expected

Amanda Graham — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:38:05 GMT

(Radio Sweden, 13 November 2011) -- Strong winds and precipitation are expected in the northern mountains of Sweden during Sunday. And the Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI) has gale force wind warnings out from the southern Bothnian sea north to the Gulf of Bothnia for Sunday evening. SMHI is warning for strong or very strong winds and rain or snow from the middle of the country all the way to northern Lapland. Winds are expected to reach 54 to 72 kilometers per hour. The SMHI warning for the northern mountains and sea are class 1, the lowest level on a three grade scale system. Class 1 means the weather can produce certain risks for the public and cause delays in civic functions.

Worst of Alaska storm over but more surges expected

Amanda Graham — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:24:00 GMT

(Yereth Rosen/Reuters via Chicago Tribune, 11 November 2011) -- Anchorage, AK - The worst was over on Thursday for an "epic" winter storm that pounded Alaska's west coast with wind and snow and left one man missing after a 10-foot surge of seawater into Nome, officials said. The storm, considered the strongest to hit western Alaska in several decades, has largely moved northwest toward the Russian Arctic, said Don Moore, a National Weather Service meteorologist. A second, smaller Bering Sea storm is now brewing, and will send additional surges into the coastal towns and villages during high tide later in the day, said Moore, who has been working at the state's emergency operations center. The surges will not be as dramatic as those from the first storm but could cause more flooding, he said. "If the water levels were not elevated from the storm that had just passed, this other storm would not be a major issue," he said. "Once this passes off, this is when we'll see conditions start returning to normal." One person was missing in the storm. Authorities in Teller, a small community north of Nome, were searching Thursday for 26-year-old Kyle Komok, said the Alaska State Troopers. Komok was last seen Wednesday evening driving a four-wheel vehicle toward a small local jetty, trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said. At the time, waves eight to 10 feet high were hitting the local seawall, Peters said.

Alaskans weathering epic Bering Sea storm

Amanda Graham — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:07:04 GMT

(Anchorage Daily News, 10 November 2011) -- A giant Bering Sea storm with hurricane-force winds roared up the Western Alaska coastline Wednesday, sending waves over storm barriers, knocking out electricity, flooding parts of some villages and leading to evacuations. But as of late Wednesday, officials had heard no reports of injuries nor massive damage.

Arctic sea ice 'to melt by 2015'

Amanda Graham — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:49:51 GMT

(Nick Collins/Telegraph, 8 November 2011) -- Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, said the ice that forms over the Arctic sea is shrinking so rapidly that it could vanish altogether in as little as four years' time. Although it would reappear again every winter, its absence during the peak of summer would rob polar bears of their summer hunting ground and threaten them with extinction. The mass of ice between northern Russia, Canada and Greenland waxes and wanes with the seasons, currently reaching a minimum size of about four million square kilometres. Most models, including the latest estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), track the decline in the area covered by ice in recent years to predict the rate at which it will deteriorate. But citing research compiled by Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, a researcher from the American Naval Postgraduate School, last year Prof Wadhams said such predictions failed to spot how quickly climate change is causing the ice to thin. While the IPCC suggests the ice will remain in place until the 2030s, Dr Maslowski's study also takes into account the rate at which it is thinning and calculates that it will vanish much more quickly. Dr Maslowski's model, along with his claim that the Arctic sea ice is in a "death spiral", were controversial but Prof Wadhams, a leading authority on the polar regions, said the calculations had him "pretty much persuaded." Prof Wadhams said: "His [model] is the most extreme but he is also the best modeller around. "It is really showing the fall-off in ice volume is so fast that it is going to bring us to zero very quickly. 2015 is a very serious prediction and I think I am pretty much persuaded that that's when it will happen."

Storm begins to whip western Alaska coast

Amanda Graham — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:11:11 GMT

(Kyle Hopkins, Casey Grove and Mike Dunham/Anchorage Daily News, 8 November 2011) -- Villages and towns across Alaska's western and northwest coasts braced Tuesday for a winter megastorm that the National Weather Service says could be among the worst on record. Forecasters warned of life-threatening surf, wind and snow clobbering villages along the Bering and Chukchi sea coasts Tuesday night and today. Some villagers moved to higher ground. Officials in Nome evacuated half of the city's Front Street, the famous finish line of the Iditarod Trail. "These things get named hurricanes down south and get a category. It's that magnitude," said Jeff Osiensky, regional warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The storm was expected to hit across hundreds of miles of coastline, with the worst expected from the Yukon River Delta all the way north to the Arctic Coast. The wind was forecast to reach 50 to 75 mph for much of the coast, with gusts of 90 to 100 mph in some areas, according to the Weather Service. A lack of protective, shore-fast sea ice worsened the high-water danger compared to a similarly powerful storm in 1974, forecasters said. Severe shoreline erosion was forecast, as was a storm surge of up to 9 feet that was expected to cause coastal flooding.

Wind blows shipping container away in east Iceland

Amanda Graham — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:08:11 GMT

(IceNews, 7 November 2011) -- Remarkable scenes in eastern Iceland yesterday as a gust of wind so strong that it blew an entire shipping container off the dock and out to sea, was caught on film. A 40-foot freezer container is a common sight on the quays of coastal towns all around Iceland. The metal boxes are the size of small buildings — and just as hard to move without heavy machinery. But yesterday morning in the tiny East Fjords village of Stodvafjordur (on the shore of the fjord with the same name), the wind managed the seemingly impossible. Local resident Bjorgvin Valur Gudmundsson got the whole thing on a video which he quickly uploaded to the internet. It can be watched here. The viewer sees an undeniably blustery day, before a gust visibly comes in, almost looking like a sandstorm or a tidal wave. All the boats in the harbour move in unison, and so does their pontoon. And the unlucky shipping container does not stand a chance. The Coastguard was called upon for help and the brand new cruiser, Thor, was sent to the scene. By lucky coincidence, Thor was located in neighbouring Faskrudsfjordur following Saturday’s rescue of the rudderless freighter, Alma. It now appears that Thor’s first proper search and rescue mission in Iceland will be less dramatic and glamorous than perhaps some had imagined: to save a 40-foot shipping container. That is not yet certain, however; because no decision had been made at the time of writing as to whether or not the container would be brought aboard. In other news related to Saturday’s rescue, divers in Faskrudsfjordur yesterday discovered that Alma has completely lost her rudder, in its entirety. Details are expected early this week as to whether Alma will be repaired; where; when and how long it might take.

Arctic weather conditions disrupt Iceland fishing grounds

Amanda Graham — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:00:55 GMT

(FishUpdate, 4 November 2011) -- An early sign of wintry conditions has appeared on some of the Icelandic fishing grounds which may not bode well for supplies in the next few weeks. At the moment fewer than 100 of Iceland's vessels are at sea because of the weather. The trawler company HB Grandi has said it has suspended fishing for capelin – the season is currently in full swing – over the past several days because of some very difficult weather and plenty of sea ice in the Denmark Strait. ... So far supplies of cod and haddock to the Humber have not been affected and Grimsby has had some good supplies in recent days. But bad weather has a habit of blowing itself from the Denmark Strait towards the cod and haddock fishing grounds.

Wild strawberries in mild Arctic autumn

Amanda Graham — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 07:35:57 GMT

(Radio Sweden, 6 November 2011) -- Winter is late, even in the Swedish Arctic. The far northern city of Kiruna usually meets winter on the 10th of October, and the northern coastal city of Umeå usually has winter weather by the 4th of November. But instead of winter, fresh wild strawberries are still growing. Alexandra Ohlsson at the Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI) says to news agency TT that winter will probably be at least another week away. As well as ripening strawberries, the mild temperatures in the northern part of Sweden are also good for pests like mosquitoes and ticks. Winter is officially defined as an average temperature of below zero for five days in a row. It usually reaches Stockholm by the 1st of December, Gothenburg by the 29th, and Malmö by the 7th of January.

For Inuits dealing with climate change, science can be slow and bumbling

Amanda Graham — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:05:13 GMT

(Carol Berry/Indian Country, 25 October 2011) -- An Inuk woman practicing a traditional craft finds the sealskin she’s working with doesn’t have the nice fur of times past and it has rotten patches that tear easily. Her husband finds that hunting seals is more difficult than in the past because the formerly stable edge of an ice-floe has broken off and fewer seals are there. He carries a gun as protection against increasing numbers of polar bears. They are among Native people in the circumpolar North who experience climate change in their everyday lives and for whom conventional science, despite its ability to describe the change, sometimes has been unhelpful. One Inuk hunter accuses wildlife biologists of “meddling [that] is causing problems” by putting radio collars on bears so they “can’t hunt properly” or using helicopters that destroy animals’ hearing. Carcasses of over-drugged bears have been found, he says, and wildlife policies “make our lives difficult” even though “we know our wildlife intimately.” His and others’ experiences are told in Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, the last film in the Eighth Annual Indigenous Film & Arts Festival, presented Oct. 12-16 by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management (IIIRM), Denver. The festival’s theme was “Adaptation: Finding Balance in a Changing World.” Mervyn Tano, IIIRM president, said both ground-level science and science policy are needed to “cut through some of the conventional wisdom” to discern, for example, what the role should be of wildlife biologists crafting wildlife regulations. Government inflexibility in wildlife rules is difficult to change, one scientist found after doing research in the remote northwest interior of Alaska. Shannon McNeeley, with the Integrated Science Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research, conducted a post-film panel with Tano and talked about changes in moose behavior patterns with climate change. ... That change is indeed occurring is documented by the film’s co-director, Zacharias Kunuk, who interviewed elders on Baffin Island, located in the eastern part of Nunavut in the Canadian polar North. Environmental change “is dangerous to people worldwide—it affects both Inuit and Southerners,” said Mary Simon, Inuk, Canada’s first Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs. “These big money-makers in the world are all contributors to climate change.”

Unusually chilly stratosphere behind 2011's record Arctic ozone hole

Amanda Graham — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:07:38 GMT

(NOAA Climate Services via RedOrbit,20 October 2011) -- This past spring, scientists observed the largest, most severe ozone destruction ever witnessed in the Arctic since records began in 1978. In part, it’s because CFCs stick around in the atmosphere for a very long time. But the maps above reveal the main reason this winter’s Arctic ozone loss was so much worse than it normally is: unusually persistent cold temperatures. From January through March 2011, monthly average temperatures in the Arctic stratosphere were colder than usual. Places where temperatures were up to 9 degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term average (1979-2009) are red, while places where temperatures were up to 16 degrees cooler than average are blue. Colder-than-usual temperatures dominated the stratosphere all three months, especially in March. What does the cold have to do with the ozone hole? Extreme cold allows clouds to form in the stratosphere, even though the air there is extremely dry. The clouds make rare chemical reactions possible. Normally, when CFCs break down, the chlorine they release gets incorporated into very stable molecules that don’t react with ozone. But on the surface of particles in these unusual ice clouds, the stable molecules are converted into forms of chlorine that are much more reactive. In general, the colder the stratosphere is over the winter, the more of the reactive, ozone-destroying chemicals that build up. The return of the Sun to the polar regions in the spring triggers the ozone-destroying reactions. However, once the temperatures begin to warm up, fewer stratospheric clouds form, and the creation of ozone-destroying forms of chlorine slows. The ozone loss bottoms out for the season, and the ozone layer gradually regenerates over the summer. (Ozone naturally forms when oxygen is exposed to ultraviolet light.)

Arctic sea ice continues decline, hits second-lowest level

Amanda Graham — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 22:24:11 GMT

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center press release via Science Daily, 6 October 2011) -- Last month the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean declined to the second-lowest extent on record. Satellite data from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder showed that the summertime sea ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low. The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and shrinks each summer as the sun rises higher in the northern sky. Each year the Arctic sea ice reaches its annual minimum extent in September. It hit a record low in 2007. The near-record ice-melt followed higher-than-average summer temperatures, but without the unusual weather conditions that contributed to the extreme melt of 2007. "Atmospheric and oceanic conditions were not as conducive to ice loss this year, but the melt still neared 2007 levels," said NSIDC scientist Walt Meier. "This probably reflects loss of multiyear ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as well as other factors that are making the ice more vulnerable." ... While the sea ice extent did not dip below the 2007 record, the sea ice area as measured by the microwave radiometer on NASA's Aqua satellite did drop slightly lower than 2007 levels for about 10 days in early September, Comiso said. Sea ice "area" differs from extent in that it equals the actual surface area covered by ice, while extent includes any area where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean.