Something is happening here, Mr. Jones
Posted: January 11, 2012 Filed under: Climate Change | Tags: Alaska, Arctic, sea ice 23 CommentsFirst you read about Nome, Alaska. It’s had such tough weather, a Russian tanker and a US Coast Guard icebreaker are painstakingly trying to deliver emergency fuel supplies. 
The icebreaker is facing backward because [T]he ice is under so much pressure, it closes up almost as soon as it’s broken. So the ship has to double back and re-break it. [Update: The view is from the icebreaker toward the tanker, which is facing forward. The icebreaker does double back, but that’s not what the picture shows. Sorry for the brain fart.]
You get the picture. Very severe winter in Alaska. They’ve declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard. That’s in Alaska, where they are anything but pansies about winter.
Now, a year or two back, Siberia and China had super-deep winters. Last year, Europe was in a deep freeze and showing up all white on satellite photos.
And then I remembered that the Europeans had connected their deep freeze with climate change. It works like this. As the Arctic sea ice melts, there’s more dark ocean to absorb the sun’s heat and less white ice to reflect it back. The overlying polar winter air is then much colder than the surface. Warm air rises, but the displaced cold polar air has to come down somewhere. And that place is south (and also north, I would guess) of the unnaturally warm zone. (It’s all horribly cold by our standards, but our standards don’t count.) So places like Siberia and Scotland get more snow and cold and the sea freezes thicker and harder. Maybe Alaska is just joining the club.
Isn’t messing with Nature fun? You never know what to expect.
Cross-posted from Acid Test
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Thanks for connecting the dots between these deep freezes and climate change. I’m really tired of hearing climate change deniers scream it’s all a conspiracy when it gets cold. They don’t get that extreme weather means cold as well as hot. They focus on global warming and then smile every time it snows and “proves’ them right. I notice they’re not shoveling any snow this year in the low 48. It was nearly 80 here this week and we had tornado warnings. That’s not January weather even for us here in the tropical zone.
Midland TX has had record snowfall so far this year. More than ever before. Weird patterns for this snow storms.
Well, people may start paying attention if we don’t get adequate snow before the winter is over because we’ll end up with water shortages and drought this summer as a result. Over the holiday, it was weirdly mild in Philadelphia. I spoke to one of my kids Sunday and he told me it had been 65 degrees the week before. He had to open the windows in his place.
There are reports that the Jet Stream is having the strangest configuration they’ve ever recorded.
Something is definitely going on. 2012 may live up to expectations :0).
There’s been record snowfall in parts of New Mexico and West Texas so far. Probably due to the weird Jet Stream configuration.
In northern Michigan, the lakes have not frozen over and temperatures average often 45 degrees during the day.
Been mild here in NJ – we’ve just come off the wettest year ever since records have been kept. No real snow to speak of other than that freak storm over Hallowe’en. I’m loving it in all its unnaturalness as I really don’t like the wet, cold (or hot) weather.
“One of the greatest hoaxes in modern history” says HIs Stupidity, Sen. James Imhofe of OK regarding climate change/global warming.
Last winter I bitched and moaned over the excess amount of snow that fell in NE from December 26th into March. You could barely see around the heights of snow, over 5 feet, at the end the streets going onto the main drag without taking your life into your hands.
June 1st brought the tornados, mid July the earthquake, August the hurricane, and October 29th the freak snowstorm that brought down trees and left us here in Western MA without power for over a week.
Today, January 11th, it is 42 degrees, my front door is open to get in some fresh air, and the next 7 days,though predicted to be colder, forecast one day of possible snow accumulation in the Berkshires with my area projected to get under 1 inch.
I hated last winter but we need the snow for balance up here. My DIL in Reading says she feels kind of “scared” about the weather changes the world is undergoing and I find myself in agreement.
“Freak storms” across the nation are becoming too frequent to ignore.
It’s 64 now, going to the mid 70s, today and the 10 day forecast calls for high 60s to low 70s. We usually have warm days in January but not this many all at once.
43 degrees here outside of Toronto, and not one snowfall yet. Christmas was green and balmy at 55 degrees. That is totally abnormal for this area, yet lower BC has had many snow storms – also not normal. Weird all around.
Interesting, reading about everybody’s winter so far. What do you call freak weather when it’s the new normal?
The BC, TX, Toronto patterns are all probably due to the unhelpful jet stream path. The Louisiana weather sounds like fun too. Weather from farther down in the latitudes pushing north, and hence also the tornados when it meets the rest of the Midwest air mass.
Forget Bin Laden. The weather is what terrifies me.
There was also an interesting article (abstract) about simulations showing that anthropogenic warming is likely to delay the next Ice Age.
The usual dolts are already saying, “Well, hah. So there. That’s good. Who wants an Ice Age?” If we had control over the climate and if we knew what we were doing, then, yes, it’d be nice to have my house always at 75F with a light ocean breeze and rain only at night.
That’s not what’s happening. What that simulation shows is that we’re having a big enough effect to alter geological cycles! You might as well take a sledge hammer to a Fabergé egg and claim you fixed it. As one of the researchers said, “..it’s missing the point, because where we’re going is not maintaining our currently warm climate but heating it much further…. The rate of change with CO2 is basically unprecedented, and there are huge consequences if we can’t cope with that.”
Yep but try explaining that, hell just try explaining geologic time, to the deniers. It’s really hard to get that across when someone’s paycheck depends on them not knowing.
We are having a strange winter too. In fact, bad weather is moving in right now…hope we don’t lose electricity.
Something often not realized is that most of populated Ontario is south of the 49th parallel. The southernmost part of Ontario is south of the northernmost part of California.
Still, as you suggest, HT, the weather in your area is unusual. And you probably know the factoid I mentioned above.
was reply to HT above
I need to find a weather article from last week. Some tornadoes are related to human activity. Heavy commutes in the beginning of the week mean more tornadoes mid week.
As I said I’ll find and link the article.
http://www.grist.org/list/2012-01-03-your-car-commute-helps-cause-tornadoes
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111229-tornadoes-storms-hail-science-summer-pollution-environment
Why tornadoes take the weekend off.
Particulates are another huge mass of complicating factors to the whole global warming-or-cooling equation. So complicated, people are only starting to have a clue how to model them. For instance, Aerosols altered Asian monsoons. I hadn’t seen the tornado connection before. Thanks for making me even more terrified!
OT but I like it. Elizabeth Warren announced raising $5.7M in the 4th quarter, beating Scott Brown’s total by $2.5M. And to think just a day or so ago a CNN reporter was gushing about Brown’s fantastic numbers for the 4th quarter 🙂
Go Warren!!!!
Go Liz!
Interesting stuff about tornadoes. That outbreak last spring scared me plenty – I live near Atlanta but was sitting there watching the radar and several tornado paths heading right for Georgia. All at once! I felt like a pin in a bowling alley. I’m scared it will happen again this year.
My sister in SFO says they haven’t had any rain for weeks and it’s really getting bad there, too.
quixote, I’d like offer one of my favorites from the good doctor…
“UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.” –Dr. Seuss
Thanks for blogging about this…please keep at it.
Just as anecdotal two cents to throw into the conversation. The weather here in Houston has been extreme this year–even by wacky Houston weather standards. We had droughts, followed by a Mosquito Plague… We had torrential downpour just this Monday–and we’re in for freezing temps the rest of this week. Never know what the weather will be like by the end of the day anymore so I’ve been wearing layers a lot.