A Negative Feed Back in the Arctic

We have all being focusing on positive feed backs  which enhance  climate change in general and arctic ice melting in particular.  The most commonly quoted positive feed back is the fact that as more of the Arctic ocean is open water, it can absorb much more heat from the sun than when it was ice and snow covered and this will melt more ice.  Give the system a push and it goes further in the direction of the push than you expected.  Now we see a negative feed back.

If you have been following the NSIDC web site with it's graph of sea ice extent, you see that as of today (June 28, 2013) the rate of decrease in Arctic Ice Extent is going down parallel to the average line from 1979 to 2000.  It is about one standard deviation below the line but running parallel to it.  This time last year, the ice extent graph had already dipped sharply downward and was diverging from the average line.  So what is happening.

For the last few weeks there has been a strong low pressure, counter clockwise weather system bouncing back and forth between the shores of the Arctic ocean. Low pressure is, of course, an area of rising air; a storm.  As air rises it reaches the dew point and clouds form.  Clouds, of course reflect heat back into space and keep the land below cool.  Earlier in the year, a great deal of fracturing occured north of Alaska and this may well be the source of the added heat that is powering the  low pressure area.  In addition, the ice is thinner which would allow more heat into the air.  Remember what happened last summer.

The ice extent was falling rapidly when on Aug6, 2012, a hurricane moved into the Arctic.  This sent the graph plummeting even faster.  Why the difference between these two storms.

The present storm is happening with the Arctic ocean almost completely covered with ice.  The wind can not act on lots of open water and build up large waves which break up the remaining ice.  It can't stir the water, bringing up the deep, salty, warmer water from below.  The August storm, with much less ice covering the sea,  did all this. plus flinging ice outwards into the trans-polar drift to be sent out through the Fram Straight.  We may have a mechanism here that will cause some stalling of the rapid year to year decrease in the extent of the ice.

One wonders what is powering this low pressure system.  Classically, the power comes from sensible heat from  the ocean below and latent heat as water vapour condenses.  With the Arctic ocean covered with ice, where would the water vapour be coming from.  Perhaps the ocean is not as covered as the NSIDC web site indicates.  Apparently the satelite that measures ice extent reads any area with more than 15% ice as completely covered.  There could be a lot of open water between the ice flows and still appear to the satellite to be completely covered.

Did you see earlier this spring a time lapse of the ice North of Alaska.  The clockwise weater system was apparently in effect and you see pictures of the ice splitting up leaving lots of water between the flows.  Water, is, of course, around zero degrees while the ice can be much colder.  Cosiderable water vapour could be contributed from a significant area of openings between the ice flows.

Whatever the mechanisms of this phenomenon, we have a low pressure area over the Arctic shading the area from the sun.  This year is going to be fascinating.  Apparently a storm early in the melt season is not equivalent to a storm later on.

Of course, to at least some extent, the effect could be an artifact.  Since any area with more than 15% ice cover is seen by the satellite as being completely covered.  In another blog, I described how a counter clockwise air circulation pattern tends to spread ice out.  It could be that there is much more clear water than the satellite indicates but in small leads between the ice flows rather than in one area as is the case with a clockwise air circulation system that tends to pull the ice together leaving open water outside the location of the ice.  In fact clear water has been observed by the North pole.  The existence of a low pressure, counter clockwise system over the Arctic tends to support this possibility as it is a sign of energy being transferred to the air from the water. 

Pulsating climate

This is a pure bit of speculation.  If true, climate change will result, at least for the transition period, in very cold winters in America, Canada and Eurasia and very hot summers.  First a few facts (or at least accepted theories).

The Gulf Stream which brings warm water along the surface of the ocean from Florida towards the North Atlantic is powered primarily by the freezing out of fresh water ice from sea water in the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.  Left behind is cold, saltier water which sinks and flows south along the bottom of the ocean.  Water is pulled north to replace this water.

The water which is being pulled northward is saltier than deeper water because of evaporation in the tropics but doesn't sink because it is warmer.  As it flows north, it cools and at some point is heavy enough to sink.  This positive feedback adds more power to the Gulf Stream.

As sea ice (and land ice for that matter) melts, it freshens the surface water in Northern latitudes and so when freezing starts, it will take longer before the resulting water is salty enough to sink. A big influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic should weaken the push that powers the Gulf Stream.

Ice is and insulator.  If you have open water in contact with cooler air, the water gives up its heat to the air, sinks and warmer deeper water replaces it.  The heat exchange between open water and the air is large and heat is being replaced on the surface by convection.  Once you have a cover of ice this convective process is greatly slowed.  Heat has to pass through the ice into the air in order to cool the water in contact with the bottom of the ice.  The thicker the ice the greater the "R" value of the ice.  ie, the slower the flow of heat between water and air.

As climate change continues, the time of net melting becomes earlier* and the time at which freezing exceeds melting is later.    The freezing period shortens, the melting period lengthens.  Here is where the speculation starts.

*Oddly enough over the past few years, the date at which melting starts has been getting later.

I wonder how long the delay is between the start of freezing and hence the sinking of salty water and the increase in flow of the Gulf Stream.  There should be a couple of factors in play here.  First it is a huge body of water to get moving with huge inertia so there should be a delay between push and move.  Think of a huge weight on one of those frictionless pads when you start to push it.  At first the motion is barely perceptible but builds up as you continue pushing.  Similarly, stop pushing and it takes the weight a long time to stop moving.

Secondly, it takes time for the warm salty water from the Florida region to move far enough north on the weakened Gulf Stream where it can cool enough to sink and add it's power to the Gulf Stream.

What strikes me as possible, is as the period of freezing shortens and the period of melting lengthens, we could reach a point where the push (cold salty water sinking) and the result (the Gulf Stream getting up to speed) could be 6 months out of sinkronicity.  We would end up with  a fast flowing Gulf Stream in the summer bringing warm water to the North Atlantic along with warm temperatures and, probably, heavy rain followed by a stalled Gulf Stream in Winter giving us really harsh winters.  Harsh winters would result in lots of freezing of fresh water ice from sea water, giving a push to the Gulf Stream.  It's effect would be felt next summer.

For those who suggest that this will lead to another ice age, remember, it doesn't matter how much snow falls in the winter or how cold it is.  An ice age can only start if the snow last through the summer.  In the above scenario, no snow would last through the summer.  In fact, the remaining glaciers should melt away with all the bad consequences this would bring.

Does anyone know if the flow of the Gulf Stream pulsates in any sort of annual cycle at present.

Post script:   A thought just occurred to me.  During this period of transition to a warmer climate in which the Arctic becomes largely ice free in the fall but freezes during the winter, the push to the Gulf stream should be shorter but sharper.  Clearly the ice starts to freeze later than previously but without a thick cover of ice, the transfer of heat to the atmosphere and the radiation of heat into space is more rapid.  It is possible that the rate of freezing and hence the rate of production of cold, heavy, salty water would be greater than when there is already a thick layer of insulating ice covering the ocean.  The length of the push is shorter but more intense.  How would this effect the whole system??

Forget Climate Change

Do I think the climate is changing?  
Yup.

Do I think humans are responsible?  
Pretty much. The basic physics is pretty simple*.
 

*So is a computer;  just a bunch of switches that are either on or off or if you like a bunch of one's and zero's but look at how complex it gets when you combine them together in various ways.  At the core, climate change is pretty simple but then it gets really really complicated. I can quite sympathize with the doubters.

 
And could the climate change rather quickly?  
Very possibly. It's done so before without the help of humans.  The ice-core-record shows that under natural, persistent but slower pushes, the climate sometimes flips.

Would this be so bad?  
Sure would!! If climatic zones change and with them the wheat, rice and corn growing zones, we will have epic scale starvation**. Even more fun, when the Arctic ocean becomes ice free, it becomes a massive solar collector. Just watch Greenland melt as  the Arctic becomes more and more ice free each year . Watch the subways of New York and London flood*.  More fun still, if enough melting occurs in Greenland in a given year, it could shut down the Gulf Stream and lead to temperatures on the European coast equivalent to the temperatures at the same latitude on the American coast.  That's an irony for you.  Global warming causing severe freezing in Europe.

**Once we had mountains of wheat, butter, eggs etc stored up - a year or two of food for the world.  Now it is down to less than two months.
*  A serious aspect of climate change is not so much that the climate is warming but that is is changing from what we have experienced over the past 5000 years or so.  A good example is that rising sea levels will cause severe chaos.  

 
Of course, then, the heat that used to be transferred northward, remains in the south, killing corals and other heat-vulnerable organisms. 

 

So what's all this about forgetting climate change?
The fact is that there are a whole raft of other reasons to take the very measure that would also address climate change. You don't believe in climate change?? You don't believe that we are causing it??  Perhaps you think we are causing it but it would be a good thing.   Fine!  Lets look at some other reasons to stop using fossil fuels.  Many of these are the very reasons that would appeal to your isolationist, mid west, religious fundamentalist, evangelical, right wing, American politician.

1/  Selling off Our Countries for Fuel
In order to keep our cars and trucks running, we, in the 'west', buy huge amounts of crude oil from other countries. Oil flows towards us, money the other way. What do these countries do with this money. They buy up the infrastructure of our countries. They buy up our sea ports and air ports, our businesses, our real estate, wall street and main street. All over the so called 'developed world' and especially in America we are becoming tenants in our own land. All so that we can run our cars when we should be taking public transport. All so we can drive a huge car with boasting rights rather than a smaller car that does everything a car needs to do. All so we can run gas guzzlers instead of electric cars charged from renewable energy.

And what else do they do with the money.  They finance radical groups who we call terrorists from our side of the fence .  These folks give us 9/11 and other similar media events.   It is a moot point whether OPEC countries finance the terrs from belief or simply to buy off these groups so that they won't themselves be attacked  but the result is the same.

It's time we stopped being grashoppers and become ants (Aesops Fables).  It's time we got serious about installing wind turbines and solar panels.  It's time we backed down the Car companies and oil companies and insisted on decent reasonably priced electric cars.  What's ironic is that if we do this, the demand for oil will drop, it's price will come down and the incentive to switch to electric cars will be reduced. In fact, just recently I read an article by one of the Saudi Princes stating that they must keep the price of Crude down so that the world will have no incentive to change to renewables.  At least he understands how the system works. Sorry mate, it is already too late, the transformation to EV's, wind turbines, solar panels and mega batteries has reached the point where it is unstoppable. 

  Anyway, with a typically human lack of foresight some of us will be flick flacking back and forth from 'buy the electric car' - to - 'buy the petrol car'. It reminds me of the prince in Shreck hopping from one foot to the other, trying to decide which princess to pursue.

2/  Strategic vulnerability
Needing huge quantities of oil to keep our society going, we are very vulnerable to the suppliers or another major power shutting us off. If we are shut off, the west will precipitate yet another war to ensure supply which will guarantee the creation of the next generation of terrorists. If all our domestic fleet changed to electric cars running on renewable electricity, we would probably have enough oil internally to power the remaining vehicles which are harder to power with electricity such as earth moving machinery and large trucks*. For that matter, we could ship most things by electric rail in containers and deliver them locally by electric trucks*. Just think for a moment which countries control our oil supplies. Not the countries we want to hand over our sovereignty to**.

 * Tesla has apparently now come up with an electric truck (end 2019) which is a game changer.  Looks like we could power our mega, long range trucks with electricity.

On the flip side, our lust for oil is causing the bully of the world, the USA, to foment war and depose democratically elected leaders in country after country to keep control of the oil rich areas.  The USA supports egregious dictators so that they can control 'said dictator' with a mix of the carrot and the stick.  This pushes the people of those countries into the arms of radical terrorist groups, often of a religious fundamentalist persuasion,  and makes it necessary to impose all sorts of measures within our countries that reduce our democratic freedoms.  

Note: Read The Untold History of the United States by Stone and Kuznic

3/  Acidifying the Oceans
Much (~50%+) of the carbon dioxide which is being produced is being taken up by the oceans and the sea is not yet in equilibrium with the air.  If we stopped releasing carbon dioxide today, the oceans would still absorb more. The Carbon dioxide is acidifying the oceans. Sea water is buffered system which means it can absorb acid without much change in pH (measure of acidity). However, when the first buffer is used up, a little more Carbon dioxide will rapidly drop the pH. At some point in this rapid drop in pH, aragonite and calcite (two forms of calcium carbonate) will become the buffer "of choice" and the shells of corals, oysters, clams, pteropods and so forth will start to dissolve.  In a couple of areas of the ocean this process is already under way, caused by natural processes exacerbated by man made Carbon dioxide.

Note: Pteropods serve the same function in many waters as  Krill serves in the Antarctic.

This will be the beginning of the end of the oceans as we know them. Gone will be whole food chains and shelter for a huge number of animals and their young. Something will take over. There will still the same amount of plankton available - the same amount of sun energy. Who knows. Maybe we will have a sea dominated by jelly fish. The jelly-fish-eating turtles should be happy.  Incidentally, it has already been observed that jelly fish are increasing and this has a double effect.  Jelly fish hoover up large numbers of larvae of other species including of many commercial species.  It's a hugely negative, positive-feed-back system.


4/  Polluting the atmosphere
Our burning of fossil fuels is producing acid rain from the oxides of sulfur and nitrogen.  It produces p10's, and smaller particles, (small particles of carbon which penetrate deep into the lungs) and  carbon monoxide. Oxides of nitrogen  are another health hazards produced by burning fossil fuel.  Burning coal releases mercury and releases far more radioactivity than a similar electrical capacity nuclear power station. All this causes suffering and medical costs. Phasing out the combustion of fossil fuels would remove much of this pollution. We would still be left with pollution from burning wood and animal dung, mainly in third world countries,  but, in time, perhaps we can replace these with electricity.

Here is another irony for you.

Scientists refer to all the particulate material, solid and liquid,  as aerosols and some estimate are that if all the aerosols disappeared, we would have a jump in temperature of up to 2 degrees C.   Aerosols have a life time of weeks in the atmosphere so this effect could happen rather rapidly if we clean up our act. An interesting effect was seen when planes stopped flying for a few days after 9/11. It is ironic that one type of pollution (aerosols) is keeping us from feeling the full effect of the other form of pollution (carbon dioxide).  Now we are talking about engineering a solution!!!!

The idea has been floated of putting a bunch of mini mirrors between us and the sun at one of  the Legrange points*.  These would need constant renewal.  Just imagine the impact at the next economic crisis when maintaining the Legrange mirrors is cut from the budget and we are at, say, 500ppm Carbon dioxide.

 

* The one located between us and the sun.

Some ning nong has proposed that we pump sea water on to Arctic ice in the winter to thicken the ice.  Another disastrous proposal and, even if it worked (it wouldn't) what happens at the next economic crisis.

At present Asia is contributing massive amounts of pollution to the atmosphere.  Her crops are failing because of the pollution.  It will be interesting what will happen when she finally cleans up her act.  Her people are beginning to demand action just as westerners did as their air pollution reached toxic levels.  In addition, while China has been building massive numbers of coal fired power stations to power her economy, she is also the leader in the world in installing solar and wind generation.  She doesn't want to be dependent on fossil fuel, much of it from the western world, so over the next few decades, her pollution could rapidly decrease.

The technology to remove pollutants from smoke stacks has been around since about the 1950's so China only has to decide to clean up their air and it could happen extremely quickly.

5/  Trashing Nature
No need to bring up the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. It is fresh in every one's mind but how about mountain top removal. In parts of the States, this is the preferred method of getting to seams of coal. You strip off the top of the mountain and dump it into a near by river valley until you come to the coal. When you finish the first seam, you strip off the next layer of gangue (waste rock) and dump it into the valley to get to the next seam and so forth.

You could have put wind turbines on the top of the mountain and over time produced more energy than is contained in the coal. The  river valley would have been left in its pristine condition for future generations.

While you are mining this way, you often expose  iron pyrites (FeS) to the air and water. It oxidizes and produces sulphuric acid (H2SO4) which trashes the streams below where you dump the fill.

6/  Using a resource which is far to valuable to burn
Coal and oil as a source of reduced (chemically) carbon are extremely valuable feed stocks for a whole raft of industries. If they were used as feed stocks rather than as fuel, they would last for Millennia instead of decades. The rate of Carbon dioxide production would sharply decrease. With less demand, the price of fossil fuel would come down and along with it, all the products produced from coal and oil.   It is just plain silly to burn such a valuable resource when renewables are available and economic*.

Besides, a low level of Carbon dioxide emissions will likely stave off the next glacial period.  We should be sliding into one of these right now# but our emissions have pushed it further out into the future.  We don't want to waste this valuable defense in one great splurge and then have to sit by while our cities are bulldozed by the next continental glaciers.

*Wind generated electricity is (2010 prices) coming in at around 8.3 cents per kWh at present.  Domestic consumers pay around 20c per kWh.  Lots of profit at those prices. It will only get better year after year. Note: as of 2023 I have seen one report of wind generated electricity coming in below 3cUS per kWh.  One wonders why electricity prices continue to climb.

* An item in the news 23Nov, 2016.  Mexico is putting in a solar electric system that they estimate will bring the price of electricity down to 2.4c per kWh

# Read Richard Alley's book, Earth - The Operators Manual 
    Also Ruddiman's book, Plows, Plagues and Petroleum
 

7/  Destroying the societies in other countries
Great wealth has a totally disruptive effect on countries. This is sometimes referred to as the resource curse. Nigeria is a case in point. The wealth is fed into these developing countries to the top brass (the mafia) in order to corrupt them and keep them on the side of the exploiting country*. The Mafia uses this wealth to suppress their own people. For instance, despite having no oil, the people in the countries surrounding Nigeria are far better off than the citizens of Nigeria.

*Read Hoodwinked by John Perkins . Also Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

8/  Propping up the Corporatocracy Which is Trashing our Economies, our Ecology and our chance of survival
Again read Hoodwinked by John Perkins. He says it far better than I could.

9/  Oil is getting more expensive
The price of crude and hence petrol and diesel is going one way. I bet the next peak hits well above the previous $140 per barrel and the next trough is higher than the previous $75 a barrel. At the same time, as we mount the technological curve, renewable are getting cheaper*. Its a no brainer.

*Boy, I got this one wrong - at least in the short term (2015).  OPEC realized that her high oil prices were creating a push toward renewables and has upped the supply of oil to keep prices down.  Just now we have had an announcement of Sanctions being removed from Iran (July 2015) so more oil may enter the market.  Oil is pricing at about $55 per barrel and has been for a number of years. As electric cars take over, the price of oil will be under even more pressure.

10/  Jobs
The coal industry is highly automated.  There are not many jobs there.  There are far more in the installation and maintenance of solar and wind facilities.  Best of all, the money is going into the hands of the workers, not into the pockets of the fat cats.  If you were a coal worker and exposed to all the carcinogens that you and your family, living near the coal works, are exposed to, wouldn't you rather be retrained to work in a clean outdoor environment.

 

11/  Wars

To secure her energy supplies, The 'West' goes to war.  Not needing hardly any fossil fuels would eliminate these wars.  The results would be: 

*Not sending young men and women into harms way

*Not killing soldiers and civilians of other countries

*Not creating a new tranche of  terrorists

*Not creating a new tranche of refugees

*Not propping up dictatorships in other countries

*Not wasting the wealth of the west on the military when there is a crying need for repairing infrastructure, educating the young, providing good health care and so forth.

12/  Economic Stimulus

It is often ignored by economists (who are likely in thrall to the fat cats) that the best way to stimulate the economy is to get money into the hands of the lowest economic strata of society.  They spend it all just to keep their heads above water. People who are better off, squirrel away extra money so it doesn't enter the economy. Vastly more jobs (and healthy jobs) are created by the installation and maintenance of renewable energy than working in a coal mine.  Money flows one way, goods and services the other way.

 

13/ The selfish argument

Some 15 years ago, I installed some solar panels.  I put them on top of a purpose built open garage type structure in the thought that eventually I would buy an EV.  The panels have long since paid off their cost despite costing three to five times as much as they would cost today and a couple of years ago, I bought a Leaf.  Wow.  Even when one of my sons is charging his EV and I have to charge from the grid, it costs me a fifth as much to drive a km as it does with my ICE car (I still keep it to haul trailer loads of manure, which my Leaf isn't capable of doing).  I don't know how much it costs to drive a km when I charge from my solar panels but it is probably just the amortization of my tires.  

 

14 Using a resource which may be needed to save off the next plunge into a glacial period

At some point in the future, the Milankovitch cycles will head us back into the next glacial period.  It will set going a bull dosser that starts from the high lands of Baffin Island and pushes south until there is a km or so of ice where New York sits at present.  If we have lots of fossil fuel left, we could conceivably use fossil fuels to stave off the coming disaster 


Even if you don't think Global warming is happening or that if it is happening, we are not doing it, or that we are doing it but it is a good thing, it is still worthwhile to slash our use of fossil fuels.