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The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows Arctic sea ice in a poor condition on June 16, 2023, all the way up to the North Pole (on the bottom left of the image below). There is open water near the Franz Josef Archipelago, some 1000 km from the North Pole (on the right side of the image below). Clouds prevent a clearer view of the sea ice. The Uni of Bremen image below shows Arctic sea ice thickness on June 15, 2023. The danger is that, as El Niño strengthens, there will be massive loss of Arctic sea ice over the coming months, with water in the Arctic Ocean heating up strongly due to loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo , while huge amounts of ocean heat keep entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, the Jet Stream is strongly deformed, threatening to result in heatwaves that extend over the Arctic Ocean and that cause hot water from rivers to enter the Arctic Ocean, while storms accelerate the flow of ocean heat in...

Sea Ice Extent Arctic sea ice extent has fallen strongly in June 2022. On June 22, 2022, Arctic sea ice extent was among the lowest on record for the time of year, as illustrated by the above image, adapted from the National Snow and Ice Data Center ( NSIDC Chartic ).  The image below, from an animation by Zachary Labe, shows Arctic sea ice extent up to June 20, 2022, based on Vishop data . The yellow line is the year 2022. The white line shows extent for the year 2012, when it reached a record minimum in September. The blue line shows extent the year 2020, when the minimum in September was second lowest.   The image below, adapted from Vishop , shows that on June 23, 2022, global sea ice extent was at a record low for the time of year. La Niña [ adapted from NOAA - click on images to enlarge ] The fact that sea ice is so low for the time of the year is the more striking as we are currently in the depths of a persistent La Niña, which suppresses the temperature rise. El ...

As above image shows, Antarctic sea ice extent was only 1.973 million km² on February 23, 2022, the lowest on record since satellite measurements began in 1979. Earlier, on February 20, 2022, Antarctic sea ice extent was only 1.983 million km². On February 20, 2008, it was 3.783 million km². That's a difference of 1.8 million km², or some 0.36% of the total surface of Earth  (which is 510,072,000 km²). As illustrated by above image,  adapted from IPCC AR5 , incoming solar radiation at Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) is 340.4 W/m². This 340.4 W/m² is an average. The value varies depending on the seasons, i.e. the more the surface of Earth is facing the Sun, the higher this value will be (see image below, from the insolation page ).                        The June Solstice in 2021 occurred on June 21, 2021. Another variable is how many clouds and aerosols are in the sky. Much of this radiation can be reflected or ab...

As climate change strikes with ever greater ferocity, five henchmen dominate the news: Storm, Flood, Heat, Smoke and Fire. During the first 6 months of 2021, there have been 8 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events across the United States. The U.S. has sustained 298 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2020). The total cost of these 298 events exceeds $1.975 trillion. The total cost over the last 5 complete years (2016-2020) exceeds $630.0 billion — averaging more than $125.0 billion/year — both new records. The image on the right shows very high temperatures over North America end July 2021, with fire radiative power as high as 247.3 MW. The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows large smoke plumes on July 7, 2021, reaching Hudson Bay. Furthermore, large smoke plumes are also visible over British Columbia. The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows smoke traveling ...

The IPCC has issued another special report: The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. How much carbon is there in the Arctic? [ click on images to enlarge ] How much carbon is present in the northern circumpolar permafrost region (map)? According to the report, there is 1460 to 1600 billions of tons of carbon (GtC¹) present in the soil on land. The report also mentions that there is additional carbon present on shallow Arctic sea shelves, but the report doesn't add figures. Natalia Shakhova et al. once estimated the accumulated methane potential for the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf alone to be about 500 Gt of organic carbon, with an additional amount in hydrates of about 1000 Gt and a further amount of methane in free gas of about 700 Gt. Back in 2008, Natalia Shakhova et al. considered release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time. Note ¹: 1 billion ton of carbon = 1 GtC = 1.33 Gt of CH₄ (methane) and 1 GtC =...