Vocal Voices

There is an Arctic heatwave going on and this Christmas eve temperatures could reach just below freezing, that is 20 degrees higher than the average.

Now I know that Suff and I bore you all to tears with our climate comments, but this really quite something. It is a 1:1,000 year event and it comes only one year after the disastrous figures for the whole of 2015.

OK, 2015 was not helped by one of the strongest El Nino events on record, but since then we are slipping back into a La Nina cycle and still the chaos goes on.

Last year we were battered by storm after storm from mid November to the New Year - seven of them, with 11 in total for the season. That was caused by the heal halo from the El Nino fixing the jetsteam on a west to east path just to the south of the UK. This year it is the heat from the North Atlantic drifting up to the pole and once again the jetstream is stuck, this time right over the UK, hence why Scotland is taking the brunt so far.

The average for these events was at 1%, new figures and models now put them at 2% for one every year.

Yes, even to this Ostrich, the Arctic melt is looking rather disturbing .....

It hit -1 at the pole WM. Arctic 80n (80deg north and above), mean temperatures for spring, autumn and winter have been at least 3 standard deviations (6 sigma as sigma is counted +-), above normal.

It's going to make for an incredible display of melting next year and, possibly, some serious storms pulled out of the Atlantic and up to the Pole.

It only takes 26c water to sustain a Cat1 hurricane. Temps off the UK have been hitting 23C for quite a while now and sudden change in the Arctic will increase that a lot.

Suff wrote:It hit -1 at the pole WM.

Yes, I saw that.

Weatherman Liam Dutton gave a good explanation of the storm phenomenon.

The storms we are getting are, in meteorological terms, described as 'storms' with mean wind speeds within them of ~60 mph, but because of the speeds at which they are being driven in the mean becomes ~70 mph as they travel through. Hurricane force gusts are now 90+ mph as opposed to the more usual 75-80 mph gusts.

If the trend continues some of our storms will become Cat1 or 2 hurricanes in the not too distant future. Many of us remember the storm of 1987 which in some places, the channel coast, had elements of a full blown hurricane with persistent winds of over 90 mph and gusts of 120 mph. More of these are on our way.

The ice extent retreated for a day then lifted again but still lower than the previous peak. So Ice extent in the Arctic is about to set a new low record for exiting the year.

Worse it's taken so long and the sea is so warm (+3c north of Svalbard), that we're going to see weak and defenceless ice in the coming melt season.

All this leads to impact to the jet stream, which could mean a pretty violent and cold winter in 2018/19 for us.

It was 11c last night on Christmas day. The weather is so warm here the flies have decided it's spring. I'm looking forward to the next melting season. Because one of the posters on Nevens blog and I, are theorising a 5 year cycle now for arctic ice loss. If this is correct and we go into a third cycle, then the ice is going to be totally decimated this year as it meets a season like 2007 or 2012. It will cool and grow, a bit, again, in 2018/19 before dropping back into the loss cycle.

If that cycle is true, we're going to see blue ocean in summer up there in 2022.....

All good clean fun even if it does portend a few billion dead people...

Well Vanuatu is taking it seriously.

Then think of the implications for the US states on the Gulf of Mexico, the Netherlands, Maldives, Bangladesh and so many others...

We will see climate refugees in my lifetime, millions of them.

Personally I like to think of London and the Thames barrier. It's come pretty near over the last decade. Also we came within the max number of openings per year (projected), before failure.

I love to tell Londoners who think that Climate Change is "a matter of opinion", about sea level rise and the impact it has on the projected 1,000 year storm hitting the barrier.

The Thames Barrier was designed in the 50's, on sea levels present at the 53 disaster. Interestingly global sea levels have risen nearly 4 inches since then. Strange that people simply don't see it.