Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees (40 degrees Celsius) warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees (30 degrees Celsius) warmer than average.
© Provided by The Canadian Press
Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The two-mile high (3,234 meters) Concordia station was at 10 degrees (-12.2 degrees Celsius),which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station hit a shade above 0 degrees (-17.7 degrees Celsius), beating its all-time record by about 27 degrees (15 degrees Celsius), according to a tweet from extreme weather record tracker Maximiliano Herrera.
The coastal Terra Nova Base was far above freezing at 44.6 degrees (7 degrees Celsius).
It caught officials at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, by surprise because they were paying attention to the Arctic where it was 50 degrees warmer than average and areas around the North Pole were nearing or at the melting point, which is really unusual for mid-March, said center ice scientist Walt Meier.
“They are opposite seasons. You don’t see the north and the south (poles) both melting at the same time,” Meier told The Associated Press Friday evening. “It’s definitely an unusual occurrence.”
“It’s pretty stunning,” Meier added.
“Wow. I have never seen anything like this in the Antarctic,” said University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos, who returned recently from an expedition to the continent.
“Not a good sign when you see that sort of thing happen,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matthew Lazzara.
Lazzara monitors temperatures at East Antarctica’s Dome C-ii and logged 14 degrees (-10 degrees Celsius) Friday, where the normal is -45 degrees (-43 degrees Celsius): “That’s a temperature that you should see in January, not March. January is summer there. That’s dramatic.”
Both Lazzara and Meier said what happened in Antarctica is probably just a random weather event and not a sign of climate change. But if it happens again or repeatedly then it might be something to worry about and part of global warming, they said.
The Antarctic warm spell was first reported by The Washington Post.
The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 8.6 degrees (4.8 degrees Celsius) warmer than a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, based on U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration weather models. That 8-degree heating over an already warmed-up average is unusual, think of it as if the entire United States was 8 degrees hotter than normal, Meier said.
At the same time, on Friday the Arctic as a whole was 6 degrees (3.3 degrees) warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.
By comparison, the world as a whole was only 1.1 degrees (0.6 degrees Celsius) above the 1979 to 2000 average. Globally the 1979 to 2000 average is about half a degree (.3 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century average.
What makes the Antarctic warming really weird is that the southern continent — except for its vulnerable peninsula which is warming quickly and losing ice rapidly — has not been warming much, especially when compared to the rest of the globe, Meier said.
Antarctica did set a record for the lowest summer sea ice — records go back to 1979 — with it shrinking to 741,000 square miles (1.9 million square kilometers) in late February, the snow and ice data center reported.
What likely happened was “a big atmospheric river” pumped in warm and moist air from the Pacific southward, Meier said.
And in the Arctic, which has been warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe and is considered vulnerable to climate change, warm Atlantic air was coming north off the coast of Greenland.
___
Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://apnews.com/hub/climate
___
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.
____
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The two-mile high (3,234 meters) Concordia station was at 10 degrees (-12.2 degrees Celsius),which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station hit a shade above 0 degrees (-17.7 degrees Celsius), beating its all-time record by about 27 degrees (15 degrees Celsius), according to a tweet from extreme weather record tracker Maximiliano Herrera.
The coastal Terra Nova Base was far above freezing at 44.6 degrees (7 degrees Celsius).
It caught officials at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, by surprise because they were paying attention to the Arctic where it was 50 degrees warmer than average and areas around the North Pole were nearing or at the melting point, which is really unusual for mid-March, said center ice scientist Walt Meier.
“They are opposite seasons. You don’t see the north and the south (poles) both melting at the same time,” Meier told The Associated Press Friday evening. “It’s definitely an unusual occurrence.”
“It’s pretty stunning,” Meier added.
“Wow. I have never seen anything like this in the Antarctic,” said University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos, who returned recently from an expedition to the continent.
“Not a good sign when you see that sort of thing happen,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matthew Lazzara.
Lazzara monitors temperatures at East Antarctica’s Dome C-ii and logged 14 degrees (-10 degrees Celsius) Friday, where the normal is -45 degrees (-43 degrees Celsius): “That’s a temperature that you should see in January, not March. January is summer there. That’s dramatic.”
Both Lazzara and Meier said what happened in Antarctica is probably just a random weather event and not a sign of climate change. But if it happens again or repeatedly then it might be something to worry about and part of global warming, they said.
The Antarctic warm spell was first reported by The Washington Post.
The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 8.6 degrees (4.8 degrees Celsius) warmer than a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, based on U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration weather models. That 8-degree heating over an already warmed-up average is unusual, think of it as if the entire United States was 8 degrees hotter than normal, Meier said.
At the same time, on Friday the Arctic as a whole was 6 degrees (3.3 degrees) warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.
By comparison, the world as a whole was only 1.1 degrees (0.6 degrees Celsius) above the 1979 to 2000 average. Globally the 1979 to 2000 average is about half a degree (.3 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century average.
What makes the Antarctic warming really weird is that the southern continent — except for its vulnerable peninsula which is warming quickly and losing ice rapidly — has not been warming much, especially when compared to the rest of the globe, Meier said.
Antarctica did set a record for the lowest summer sea ice — records go back to 1979 — with it shrinking to 741,000 square miles (1.9 million square kilometers) in late February, the snow and ice data center reported.
What likely happened was “a big atmospheric river” pumped in warm and moist air from the Pacific southward, Meier said.
And in the Arctic, which has been warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe and is considered vulnerable to climate change, warm Atlantic air was coming north off the coast of Greenland.
___
Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://apnews.com/hub/climate
___
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.
____
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Wildfires Are Fueling a Dangerous Feedback Loop of Arctic Warming
Ed Cara
Wildfires across the globe are contributing to conditions that make future fires more likely, new research finds. The study estimates that brown carbon emissions from sources like wildfires are a greater contributor to warming in the Arctic atmosphere than previously thought. And because this warming then contributes to the weather conditions that give rise to wildfires in the first place, today’s fires are likely helping fuel increasingly stronger ones in the future, the researchers say.
Ed Cara
Wildfires across the globe are contributing to conditions that make future fires more likely, new research finds. The study estimates that brown carbon emissions from sources like wildfires are a greater contributor to warming in the Arctic atmosphere than previously thought. And because this warming then contributes to the weather conditions that give rise to wildfires in the first place, today’s fires are likely helping fuel increasingly stronger ones in the future, the researchers say.
© Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto (Getty Images)
A nighttime view of a wildfire on the Greek island of Evia on August 9, 2021.
Brown carbon aerosol particles are known by their ability to absorb sunlight. This then traps solar radiation within Earth, as opposed to other aerosol particles that reflect it back out to space. Alongside black carbon—caused by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels that can be seen from sources like diesel engines—brown carbon is thought to play an important role in climate change, but there’s still much we don’t know about its relative contributions to it.
This new research, published in the journal One Earth, was five years in the making. In 2017, scientists took the Chinese icebreaker ship Xue Long on a two-month expedition to the Arctic. Once there, they took direct measurements of the atmosphere, focusing particularly on brown carbon emissions that had ended up there.
The Arctic has been warming even faster than the rest of the world, and the team’s modeling, based on the direct observations made from their trip, indicate that brown carbon has been one major reason why.
“The warming effect of brown carbon in the Arctic was generally ignored in previous climate models,” study author Pingqing Fu, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry at Tianjin University, told Gizmodo in an email. “By the addition of it, we find that brown carbon can be a strong warming agent in the Arctic, which highlights the importance to manage the wildfires in its surrounding regions in the future.”
Fu and his team now figure that brown carbon’s warming effect in the Arctic is about 30% of that of black carbon’s. About 60% of these emissions come from sources of biofuel burning, including wildfires in the middle and high latitude areas of the world, which release both black and brown carbon into the air. And as the Arctic warms, so do other regions of Earth, setting the stage for an ever-increasing ramp-up of climate disaster.
“The increase in brown carbon aerosols will lead to global or regional warming, which increases the probability and frequency of wildfires. Increased wildfire events will emit more brown carbon aerosols, further heating the earth, thus making wildfires more frequent,” Fu said.
So far, wildfires are holding up their end of the bargain. Last year, fires broke regional records in carbon emissions, including in parts of Siberia close to the Arctic. Last month, a UN report estimated that the number of wildfires is likely to increase around 30% percent by 2050 and 50% by 2100. Much as the current study’s authors found, these fires are likely to have a “mutually exacerbating” effect on climate change, the UN authors concluded—one that countries aren’t prepared for.
Indeed, while the news gets more dire every day, global cooperation on fighting climate change continues to be muddled as even meager attempts to dial down emissions in general are being fiercely resisted by some governments and fossil fuel interests.
The authors, for their part, say that “the careful management of vegetation fires, especially in the mid- to high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, will prove important in mitigating the warming in the Arctic region.” And Fu notes that every effort to tamp down emissions across the board still matters.
“People can do something to hamper the positive feedback loop among the link of brown carbon, arctic melting, and wildfires. For example, the continuous reduction of the anthropogenic activities such as fossil fuel combustion efficiently decreases the emissions of both black carbon and brown carbon,” he said.
The team next plans to investigate how wildfires may affect the aerosol chemistry of the marine atmosphere over the western Pacific, as well as its potential climate effects there.
Brown carbon aerosol particles are known by their ability to absorb sunlight. This then traps solar radiation within Earth, as opposed to other aerosol particles that reflect it back out to space. Alongside black carbon—caused by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels that can be seen from sources like diesel engines—brown carbon is thought to play an important role in climate change, but there’s still much we don’t know about its relative contributions to it.
This new research, published in the journal One Earth, was five years in the making. In 2017, scientists took the Chinese icebreaker ship Xue Long on a two-month expedition to the Arctic. Once there, they took direct measurements of the atmosphere, focusing particularly on brown carbon emissions that had ended up there.
The Arctic has been warming even faster than the rest of the world, and the team’s modeling, based on the direct observations made from their trip, indicate that brown carbon has been one major reason why.
“The warming effect of brown carbon in the Arctic was generally ignored in previous climate models,” study author Pingqing Fu, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry at Tianjin University, told Gizmodo in an email. “By the addition of it, we find that brown carbon can be a strong warming agent in the Arctic, which highlights the importance to manage the wildfires in its surrounding regions in the future.”
Fu and his team now figure that brown carbon’s warming effect in the Arctic is about 30% of that of black carbon’s. About 60% of these emissions come from sources of biofuel burning, including wildfires in the middle and high latitude areas of the world, which release both black and brown carbon into the air. And as the Arctic warms, so do other regions of Earth, setting the stage for an ever-increasing ramp-up of climate disaster.
“The increase in brown carbon aerosols will lead to global or regional warming, which increases the probability and frequency of wildfires. Increased wildfire events will emit more brown carbon aerosols, further heating the earth, thus making wildfires more frequent,” Fu said.
So far, wildfires are holding up their end of the bargain. Last year, fires broke regional records in carbon emissions, including in parts of Siberia close to the Arctic. Last month, a UN report estimated that the number of wildfires is likely to increase around 30% percent by 2050 and 50% by 2100. Much as the current study’s authors found, these fires are likely to have a “mutually exacerbating” effect on climate change, the UN authors concluded—one that countries aren’t prepared for.
Indeed, while the news gets more dire every day, global cooperation on fighting climate change continues to be muddled as even meager attempts to dial down emissions in general are being fiercely resisted by some governments and fossil fuel interests.
The authors, for their part, say that “the careful management of vegetation fires, especially in the mid- to high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, will prove important in mitigating the warming in the Arctic region.” And Fu notes that every effort to tamp down emissions across the board still matters.
“People can do something to hamper the positive feedback loop among the link of brown carbon, arctic melting, and wildfires. For example, the continuous reduction of the anthropogenic activities such as fossil fuel combustion efficiently decreases the emissions of both black carbon and brown carbon,” he said.
The team next plans to investigate how wildfires may affect the aerosol chemistry of the marine atmosphere over the western Pacific, as well as its potential climate effects there.
Carbon from wildfires warms the Arctic TWICE as much as fossil fuels
Shivali Best For Mailonline
Last year was a record year for wildfires, with devastating blazes wreaking havoc in California, Australia and Siberia.
While wildfires destroy homes, plant life and animals, they also contribute to global warming, according to a new study.
Researchers from Tianjin University have revealed how 'brown carbon' released during wildfires in the northern hemisphere are accelerating global warming in the Arctic.
Their study revealed that brown carbon from burning biomass – including from wildfires – was responsible for at least twice as much warming as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.
Worryingly, they say this could spark a vicious cycle, leading to even more wildfires in the near future.
'The increase in brown carbon aerosols will lead to global or regional warming, which increases the probability and frequency of wildfires,' said Professor Pingging Fu, senior author of the study.
'Increased wildfire events will emit more brown carbon aerosols, further heating the earth, thus making wildfires more frequent.'
© Provided by Daily Mail Researchers from Tianjin University revealed how 'brown carbon' released during wildfires in the northern hemisphere is accelerating global warming in the Arctic. Pictured: The Dixie wildfire in California
Wildfires in the US are increasing due to climate change
Recent fires have fueled concerns that regional and global warming trends are leading to more extreme burning.
Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder analyzed data on thousands of wildfires since 1984.
They found evidence that average fire events in regions of the US were four times the size, triple the frequency, and more widespread in the 2000s than in the previous two decades.
The most extreme fires were also larger, more common, and more likely to co-occur with other extreme fires.
'This documented shift in burning patterns across most of the country aligns with the palpable change in fire dynamics noted by the media, public, and fire-fighting officials,' they said.
Brown carbon is a major product of wildfires, and is created when grasses, wood, and other biological material burn.
It poses severe health hazards and can even block out the sun enough to cause measurable temperature differences at the surface - even after the flames have died down.
In contrast, black carbon, also known as soot, is released from high-temperature fossil fuel burning.
To understand how brown carbon affects the Arctic, the team travelled there in 2017 on board the Chinese icebreaker vessel Xue Long.
There, they completed observational analyses and numerical simulations to understand the contributing factors behind ice melt in the Arctic.
Their analysis revealed that brown carbon was contributing to warming in the Arctic more than previously thought.
'To our surprise, observational analyses and numerical simulations show that the warming effect of brown carbon aerosols over the Arctic is up to about 30 per cent of that of black carbon,' said Professor Fu.
Their analysis also revealed that brown carbon from burning biomass – including from wildfires – was responsible for at least twice as much warming as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.
The researchers point out that in the last 50 years, the Arctic has been warming at a rate three times that of the rest of the planet – and say that it's likely that wildfires are one of the leading drivers.
© Provided by Daily Mail Their analysis revealed that brown carbon from burning biomass – including from wildfires – was responsible for at least twice as much warming as black carbon from fossil fuel burning
Wildfires in the US are increasing due to climate change
Recent fires have fueled concerns that regional and global warming trends are leading to more extreme burning.
Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder analyzed data on thousands of wildfires since 1984.
They found evidence that average fire events in regions of the US were four times the size, triple the frequency, and more widespread in the 2000s than in the previous two decades.
The most extreme fires were also larger, more common, and more likely to co-occur with other extreme fires.
'This documented shift in burning patterns across most of the country aligns with the palpable change in fire dynamics noted by the media, public, and fire-fighting officials,' they said.
Brown carbon is a major product of wildfires, and is created when grasses, wood, and other biological material burn.
It poses severe health hazards and can even block out the sun enough to cause measurable temperature differences at the surface - even after the flames have died down.
In contrast, black carbon, also known as soot, is released from high-temperature fossil fuel burning.
To understand how brown carbon affects the Arctic, the team travelled there in 2017 on board the Chinese icebreaker vessel Xue Long.
There, they completed observational analyses and numerical simulations to understand the contributing factors behind ice melt in the Arctic.
Their analysis revealed that brown carbon was contributing to warming in the Arctic more than previously thought.
'To our surprise, observational analyses and numerical simulations show that the warming effect of brown carbon aerosols over the Arctic is up to about 30 per cent of that of black carbon,' said Professor Fu.
Their analysis also revealed that brown carbon from burning biomass – including from wildfires – was responsible for at least twice as much warming as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.
The researchers point out that in the last 50 years, the Arctic has been warming at a rate three times that of the rest of the planet – and say that it's likely that wildfires are one of the leading drivers.
© Provided by Daily Mail Last year was a record year for wildfires, with devastating blazes wreaking havoc in California (pictured), Australia and Siberia
The team hopes the findings will draw more attention to the impacts of wildfires on the climate.
'Our findings highlight just how important it is to control wildfires,' Professor Fu added.
The study comes shortly after research revealed that wildfires in the US are becoming more extreme as a results of climate change.
According to work by the University of Colorado Boulder, on average, US wildfires have become four times larger and three times more frequent since 2000.
The team suggests that these large wildfires are also spreading into new areas, and impacting land that previously wasn't subjected to regular burning.
'Projected changes in climate, fuel and ignitions suggest that we'll see more and larger fires in the future. Our analyses show that those changes are already happening,' said Virginia Iglesias, the study's lead author from UC Boulder.
They found that the West and the Great Plains were most affected, but that there were more fires across all regions in the contiguous U.S. in the past two decades.
The findings come off the back of a report by the United Nations that found global wildfires could increase by up to 50 percent over the next 80 years due to global warming
The team hopes the findings will draw more attention to the impacts of wildfires on the climate.
'Our findings highlight just how important it is to control wildfires,' Professor Fu added.
The study comes shortly after research revealed that wildfires in the US are becoming more extreme as a results of climate change.
According to work by the University of Colorado Boulder, on average, US wildfires have become four times larger and three times more frequent since 2000.
The team suggests that these large wildfires are also spreading into new areas, and impacting land that previously wasn't subjected to regular burning.
'Projected changes in climate, fuel and ignitions suggest that we'll see more and larger fires in the future. Our analyses show that those changes are already happening,' said Virginia Iglesias, the study's lead author from UC Boulder.
They found that the West and the Great Plains were most affected, but that there were more fires across all regions in the contiguous U.S. in the past two decades.
The findings come off the back of a report by the United Nations that found global wildfires could increase by up to 50 percent over the next 80 years due to global warming
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