Arctic Circle sees 'hottest-ever' recorded temperatures

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Temperatures in the Arctic Circle are likely to have hit an all-time record on Saturday, reaching a scorching 38C (100F) in Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town.

The record still needs to be verified, but it appears to have been 18C higher than the average maximum daily temperature in June.

Hot summer weather is not uncommon in the Arctic Circle, but recent months have seen abnormally high temperatures.

The Arctic is believed to be warming twice as fast as the global average.

Verkhoyansk, home to about 1,300 people, sits just inside the Arctic Circle, in remote Siberia. It has an extreme climate with temperatures plunging in January to an average maximum of -42C and then surging in June to 20C.

But a persistent heatwave this year in the Arctic Circle has worried meteorologists. In March, April and May, the Copernicus Climate Change service reported that the average temperature was around 10C above normal.

 
Jesus Christ that's hot!
 
Yes, we don't even reach 38C here every summer.
 
We've only ever reached it twice.
 
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New reports suggest some places in Siberia deep within the Arctic circle reached 45° C on June 19.
 
Number of wildfires in the Arctic part of Yakutia continues to rise, with towns as high north as Chersky and Srednekolymsk reporting fires getting really close and threatening power lines.

 
Global temperature anomalies for Spring 2020.

 
Global temperature anomalies for Spring 2020.


Especially worrying that the +5C anomaly (dark red) seems to extend across the whole High Arctic.
 
Two new articles - the second one is really scary.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/11/arctic-tundra-paris-climate-agreement

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/climate-crisis-arctic-could-be-free-of-sea-ice-by-2035-latest-climate-model-predicts/ar-BB17PzLQ?ocid=msedgdhp

Climate crisis: Arctic could be free of sea ice by 2035, latest climate model predicts

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Around 127,000 years ago, during the last interglacial period, temperatures in the Arctic rose to around 2 - 6C above what they are today, eventually melting all the sea ice at the planet’s North Pole.
At the time, hardwood trees like oak and hazel grew well into what we now call the Arctic Circle, and hippopotamus roamed as far north as Leeds.
The high temperatures in the Arctic during this period have baffled scientists for decades - in particular the processes through which the warming led to the loss of the sea ice.
But a new study by an international team using the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre climate model has allowed scientists to compare Arctic sea ice conditions during the last interglacial period with the present day.
The team said the evidence they have uncovered indicates the Arctic could see the complete loss of sea ice within 15 years.
This is because the model reveals that intense spring sunshine resulted in the creation of large numbers of “melt ponds”.
These melt ponds are important because they dictate how much sunlight is absorbed by the ice sheets and how much is reflected back into space.
Ice has a higher albedo (reflectivity) than water, and as the number and size of melt ponds grow, consequently the amount of energy absorbed from the sun rises - warming the planet further and causing further melting.
The research team said the findings are significant in improving predictions of future sea ice change.
Using the model to look at Arctic sea ice during the last interglacial epoch, the team concluded the impact of intense springtime sunshine created many melt ponds, which played a crucial role in sea ice melt. A simulation of the future using the same model indicates the Arctic may become sea ice-free by 2035, the team said.
Dr Maria Vittoria Guarino, Earth system modeller at the British Antarctic Survey, and joint lead author of the study said: “High temperatures in the Arctic have puzzled scientists for decades.
“Unravelling this mystery was technically and scientifically challenging. For the first time, we can begin to see how the Arctic became sea ice-free during the last interglacial.
“The advances made in climate modelling means that we can create a more accurate simulation of the Earth’s past climate, which, in turn gives us greater confidence in model predictions for the future.”
Dr Louise Sime, a palaeoclimate modeller at the British Antarctic Survey and joint lead author said: “We know the Arctic is undergoing significant changes as our planet warms. By understanding what happened during Earth’s last warm period we are in a better position to understand what will happen in the future.
“The prospect of loss of sea ice by 2035 should really be focussing all our minds on achieving a low-carbon world as soon as humanly feasible.”
Dr David Schroeder from University of Reading, who co-led the implementation of the melt pond scheme in the climate model, added: “This shows just how important sea ice processes like melt ponds are in the Arctic, and why it is crucial that they are incorporated into climate models.”
The research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
 
Ferdinand and Isabella would be glad to know that there really will be a northwest passage.

There already is - for the last few years it has been passable in late summer, I think.
 
And the last Canadian ice shelf has collapsed:


Oh, and two smaller ones collapsed earlier this summer:

 
Arctic wildfires emit 35% more CO2 so far in 2020 than for whole of 2019
About 205 megatonnes emitted in June and July alone as Siberia hit by heatwave

The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Arctic wildfires this year is already 35% higher than the figure for the whole of 2019.

The latest data, provided by the EU’s Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service, shows that up to 24 August 245 megatonnes of CO2 had been released from wildfires this year. The figure for the whole of last year was 181 megatonnes.
The peak number of active fire observations was about 600 in late July, compared with 400 in 2019. The average equivalent number between 2003 and 2018 was about 100. Copernicus estimated that 205 megatonnes of CO2 was emitted between 1 June and 31 July alone. The wildfires coincided with a heatwave in Siberia, where temperatures soared to more than 30C (86F) in some areas.
Dr Mark Parrington, senior scientist at Copernicus, said the Arctic wildfires this summer may be setting a new precedent. Emissions increased significantly in July and early August compared with 2019. “In some respects [the data] has been similar to 2019 in terms of the dry and warm conditions in the Siberian Arctic. This year, the difference was a large cluster of fires that burned through July for many days leading to higher estimated emissions.”
Dr Thomas Smith, assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, said 2019 had already been an anomalous year in the Arctic circle. “We have seen two years of anomalously high activity, according to the satellite record that goes back to 2003,” he said.
Smith also warned that some fires were destroying ancient peat bogs containing carbon that has accumulated over thousands of years, a process similar to fossil fuel burning.
Analysis performed by Smith, covering May and June of this year, suggested that about 50% of the fires in the Arctic Circle were burning on peat soils, with the vast majority of the fire activity occurring in eastern Siberia.
Arctic wildfires have become a cause for concern in recent years, with fires becoming more widespread and persistent in 2019 and 2020.
In June, Russia’s aerial forest protection service reported that 3.4m acres of Siberian forest were burning in areas unreachable to firefighters. Last summer, the Arctic fires were so intense that they created a cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the EU landmass.

 
That's all we need - zombie fires!

Zombie fires spark record Arctic CO2 emissions
 
Still major fires in Siberia - major BBC report here
(I hope this is available from outside the UK)
 
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