Public Release: 19-Jan-2019
New study reveals local drivers of amplified Arctic warming
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology(UNIST)
IMAGE: An international team of researchers, including Professor Sarah Kang (left) and DoYeon Kim (right) in the School of Urban and Environmental Engineering at UNIST, has unveiled that local greenhouse gas… view more
Credit: UNIST
The Artic experienced an extreme heat wave during the February 2018. The temperature at the North Pole has soared to the melting point of ice, which is about 30-35 degrees (17-19 Celsius) above normal. There have also been recent studies, indicating the mass of Arctic glaciers has declined significantly since the 1980’s by more than 70%. These sudden climate changes affected not just the Arctic regions, but also the water, food, and energy security nexus throughout the globe. This is why climate scientists from around the world are paying increasing attention to this accelerated warming pattern, commonly referred to as ‘Arctic Amplification’.
An international team of researchers, including Professor Sarah Kang and DoYeon Kim in the School of Urban and Environmental Engineering at UNIST, has unveiled that local greenhouse gas concentrations appear to be attributable to Arctic Amplification.
Published in the November 2018 issue of Nature Climate Change, their study on the cause of Arctic Amplification shows that local greenhouse gas concentrations, and Arctic climate feedbacks outweigh other processes. This study has been led by Assistant Project Leader Malte F. Stuecker from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) in Busan, South Korea and participated by researchers around the globe, including United States, Austrailia, and China.
Long-term observations of surface temperatures show an intensified surface warming in Canada, Siberia, Alaska and in the Arctic Ocean relative to global mean temperature rise. Arctic Amplification is consistent with computer models, simulating the response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. However, the underlying physical processes for the intensified warming still remain elusive.
Using complex computer simulations, the scientists were able to disprove previously suggested hypotheses, that emphasized the role of transport of heat from the tropics to the poles as one of the key contributors to the amplified warming in the Arctic.
“Our study clearly shows that local carbon dioxide forcing and polar feedbacks are most effective in Arctic amplification compared to other processes”, says Assistant Project Leader Malte F. Stuecker, the corresponding author of the study.
Increasing anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations trap heat in the atmosphere, which leads to surface warming. Regional processes can then further amplify or dampen this effect, thereby creating the typical pattern of global warming. In the Arctic region, surface warming reduces snow and sea-ice extent, which in turn decreases the reflectivity of the surface. As a result, more sunlight can reach the top of layers of the soil and ocean, leading to accelerated warming. Furthermore, changes in Arctic clouds and of the vertical atmospheric temperature profile can enhance warming in the polar regions.
In addition to these factors, heat can be transported into the Arctic by winds. “We see this process for instance during El Niño events. Tropical warming, caused either by El Niño or anthropogenic greenhouse emissions, can cause global shifts in atmospheric weather patterns, which may lead to changes in surface temperatures in remote regions, such as the Arctic”, said Kyle Armour, co-author of the study and professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Oceanography at the University of Washington.
Moreover, global warming outside the Arctic region will also lead to an increase in Atlantic Ocean temperatures. Ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic drift can then transport the warmer waters to the Arctic ocean, where they could melt sea ice and experience further amplification due to local processes.
To determine whether tropical warming, atmospheric wind and ocean current changes contribute to future Arctic Amplification, the team designed a series of computer model simulations. “By comparing simulations with only Arctic CO2 changes with simulations that apply CO2 globally, we find similar Arctic warming patterns. These findings demonstrate that remote physical processes from outside the polar regions do not play a major role, in contrast to previous suggestions”, says co-author Cecilia Bitz, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington.
In the tropics – fueled by high temperature and moisture – air can easily move up to high altitudes, meaning the atmosphere is unstable. In contrast, the Arctic atmosphere is much more stable with respect to vertical air movement. This condition enhances the CO2-induced warming in the Arctic near the surface. In the tropics – due to the unstable atmosphere – CO2 mostly warms the upper atmosphere and energy is easily lost to space. This is opposite to what happens in the Arctic: Less outgoing infrared radiation escapes the atmosphere, which further amplifies the surface-trapped warming.
“Our computer simulations show that these changes in the vertical atmospheric temperature profile in the Arctic region outweigh other regional feedback factors, such as the often-cited ice-albedo feedback” says Malte Stuecker.
The findings of this study highlights the importance of Arctic processes in controlling the pace at which sea-ice will retreat in the Arctic Ocean. The results are also important to understand how sensitive polar ecosystems, Arctic permafrost and the Greenland ice-sheet will respond to Global Warming.
###
Notes for Editors The above material has been provided by Institute of Basic Science.
Journal Reference
Stuecker, M. F., C. M. Bitz, K. C. Armour, C. Proistosescu, S. M. Kang, S.-P. Xie, D. Kim, S. McGregor, W. Zhang, S. Zhao, W. Cai, Y. Dong, and F.-F. Jin, “Polar amplification dominated by local forcing and feedbacks”, Nature Climate Change (2018), doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0339-y
About the Institute for Basic Science (IBS)
IBS was founded in 2011 by the government of the Republic of Korea with the sole purpose of driving forward the development of basic science in South Korea. IBS has launched 28 research centers as of August 2018. There are nine physics, one mathematics, six chemistry, eight life science, one earth science, and three interdisciplinary research centers.
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Arctic and Antarctic about to make recoveries.
Tropics perhaps cooling down [the oceans, on topic].
The Arctic swings have been incredible this last 3 months, staggering, worth an article or 3 as totally at odds with all standard deviation changes.
If one had all 3 coalesce at the same time what a wonderful world it would be.
Come on folks, EurekAlert!
I guess the purpose of posting their propaganda is for us to show how wrong it is.
I wonder if the usual trolls will pop up to complain about the lack of science on this site?
As always, perfectly normal temperature swings are being portrayed as unprecedented and catastrophic.
Beyond that, there has been no arctic ice lost since around 2012. 6 years with stable ice is hardly catastrophic.
Aye MarkW!
Synthetic through and through.
They’ve learned nothing.
They’ve proven nothing.
They’ve disproven nothing.
They have shown themselves to be gullible manipulative fools who expect the world to appreciate sleight of hand and tortured numbers.
This is getting boring.
Fake data, fake scientists, fake news.
Above 0 temperatures in the Arctic in February?
LMAO, either total fake, not near surface (i.e. within metres of the actual surface) or measurement error, or not anywhere near actual Arctic. Or a combination of these…
The DMI agree with you on that. This chart of 2018 has the highest Feb temps of all years charts linked through the Sea Ice Page in the right sidebar.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2018.png
The last spike after day 50 is at the end of Feb and is still 9+C below freezing
And the DMI records show absolutely that there has been ZERO change in summertime temperatures at 80 north (on top of the ice pack) – the ONLY time of the year when the sun is shining up north. Winter temperatures have increased. Most likely due to the increased heat loss from the newly-exposed Arctic Ocean to the -31 degree Arctic air, then to the infinite black cold of outer space.
But summer temperatures since 1959? Zero change.
Now, what the climastrologists do plot and promote are their “AVERAGE” yearly Arctic temperatures. Which, obviously, increase when the winter temepratures increase due to greater heat loss from the ocean, and the summer temperatures remain the same.
Yes Bryan, that’s a very important graph. Further, although early 2018 was unusual, in fact it is common to have large (10-15C) positive temperature anomaly spikes in the early party of the year, and each and every time the likes of the BBC and the Guardian go into hysterical climageddon overdrive. Each and every time, however, the spikes are reversed the the temperature reverts to the long-term average by mid-year. Funny how the likes of the BBC never report that reversion. You get the same spiking in the autumn of each year but it tends to be less pronounced and isn’t, apparently, as newsworthy.
“early party of the year”
I’m trying not to picture polar bears wearing party hats, with drinks with little umbrellas, while grilling seal on a stick.
And the graph for 2019 for Jan 20 shows the Arctic temperature exactly the same as the 1958-2002 average. Praise be to the Danes. The only government agency in the world that doesnt fake the data. It is too bad that they hide this data in an archive. The graph should be on the polar portal’s main page.
Aye 🙂
Quote from the above article (see also here https://news.unist.ac.kr/new-study-reveals-local-drivers-of-amplified-arctic-warming/):
The Artic experienced an extreme heat wave during the February 2018. The temperature at the North Pole has soared to the melting point of ice, which is about 30-35 degrees (17-19 Celsius) above normal.
The melting point of ice is 0 degree Celsius, by definition. Such temperatures have not been observed in February 2018.
Highest (very temporary) spike anywhere in the Artic in February 2018 was reported to be as ‘high’ as -9 degree Celsius. Clearly well below zero.
And as this happened during very quick & massive switches in pressure systems (related to the formation of the polar vortex), this misrepresents the actual sustained (near) surface temperatures in the Arctic (and much of the Northern Hemisphere at that time), even during the day that this happened.
The claim is false.
Note that the above false claim doesn’t say anything about ‘models’, the claim clearly implies observations.
Actually temperatures on northern Greenland did soar over freezing for a few hours in February 2018 due to Föhn effect:
http://www.dmi.dk/nyheder/arkiv/nyheder-2018/marts/varm-februar-trak-vinterens-middeltemperatur-op-i-nordoestgroenland/
Could be, but is not what that page shows. All I see is still subzero temperatures …
Could you quote the actual sentence where you saw that?
And no worries, I do not speak Danish, but I have Google Translate 🙂
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dmi.dk%2Fnyheder%2Farkiv%2Fnyheder-2018%2Ffebruar%2Fplusgrader-i-nordgroenland%2F&edit-text=
@tty: Left column is measured temperatures (Februar 2018 (°C)), all below zero.
Middle column is normal average (Normal 1981-2010 ), right-side column is Afvigelse=Deviation (Feb2018 minus normal average ), not measured temperature.
Ah I see in your second link. Indeed above, if briefly.
It is always briefly since it can only happen when there is a strong Föhn effect. Notice the precipitous rise in temperature before the second short thaw.
That’s the mean temperature over a large area, some areas (inc. the N.Pole I recall) did get to 0C briefly and were hyped in the MSM as the usual unprecedented Arctic heatwave nonsense.
It has happened loads of times in the past and will always happen – it’s called weather, a powerful weather system drags a warm air segment over the pole – so what! It didn’t make any significant difference to the final max/min ice levels did it.
Highly unlikely. The only areas where temperatures above -10 C have been reported (on that spike day) were in areas at the outer rim of the Arctic, far outside of the circle where there is ice in summer.
Inside the circle 75 degree North, and certainly near the center a temperature of 0C in February is a pipe-dream (IMHO and as per all data sets that I’m aware of).
Look at this map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Political_Map_of_the_Arctic.pdf
You can clearly see lowest extent of Summer Ice in 2012 inside the circle 75 dg N.
The MSM were speculating about temperatures based on measurements which where actually measured near the outer rim of the Arctic, and even those were still below zero.
Aputiteeq on Greenland -4.4 C in Feb 2018, normal is -10.6 C, yet that place is almost on the outer rim of the Arctic circle.
Or take Barrow, Alaska. This was one of the areas with what you could describe as a kind of Fohn. Normal temperatures are like -10 C / -30 C in Jan/Feb, yet on Feb 20th, 2018 temperatures as high as -1 C have been measured. That’s the highest I have found.
Tiksi in Russie ‘spiked’ to -11 C, but that was it (it was not near the actual Fohn area).
Murmansk got as high as -3 C.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/russia/murmansk/historic?month=2&year=2018
It actually happened, briefly:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dmi.dk%2Fnyheder%2Farkiv%2Fnyheder-2018%2Ffebruar%2Fplusgrader-i-nordgroenland%2F&edit-text=
There are so few thermometers above the 80th parallel that making any claim based on temperature is a big reach. NOAA, GISS and Hadley have been exaggerating the warming at the poles for years. Always showing the Arctic and Antarctic much hotter than the surrounding lattitudes. All based on their belief that an accelerated warming has to be taking place at the poles yet these claims have always been debunked. The melting in the Arctic has not confirmed this. The climate scientists who put out this paper are over their skis.
Prior to satellites that were able to measure polar temperatures, making any claims regarding the temperature of the entire arctic or antarctic regions was simply impossible.
Even now, the satellites aren’t able to measure temperatures all the way to the poles, they just get pretty close.
I doubt it. Most of these so-called scientisis have never been out in the field to experiene skis first hand, like Micahael Mann has likely never been seen sawing trees.
“Above 0 temperatures in the Arctic in February?”
It actually happens occasionally in the Atlantic sector when a high pressure area over Europe diverts low pressures northwards. It has always happened. Caribou populations crash dramatically when it happens since grazing becomes covered by an ice crust. This is a well-documented phenomenon:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00040851.1982.12004312
https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/187093/nedberg_master2012.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y
You question their results because actual measurements seem to disagree with the article. A measurement is never precise, it has an inevitable error. Their computer simulation, on the other hand, produces undisputable data.
Institute of Basic Science? How about an Institute of Baser Science?
Computer simulations are also able to create temperature estimates out to 10 or 12 digits of accuracy. So they must be correct.
/sarc for the humor impaired
How much insolation is there at the north pole in February? (Zero)
Probability that the Magik Molekule (TM) can retain heat that doesn’t exist? (Zero)
Credibility of anything ever posted by EurekAlert! ?
As long as the temperature is above absolute zero, there is heat to be retained.
Yes of course, but there is no heat being added by the sun, so there can be no warming, only slowed cooling. The reality is that heat enters the arctic via winds. The heat is carried in by mass transfer as latent and sensible heat.
I meant that there is no heat being added by the sun and heat that is not added cannot be retained.
It’s ridiculous to claim warming due to localized increases of GHG. It might be technically not a lie, if they mean that there are localized changes in water vapor, but it’s obvious that the heat is being carried into the arctic via winds, and it is not the greenhouse effect causing warming.
We had rain in February 2018 on one of our remote Arctic projects. Not good for overland tundra travel.
What happened back then was that a strong blast of warm surface winds moved into and across the Arctic over a period of 3 days. The winds started from a point around 30N and went straight up the middle of the Atlantic, and into the Arctic region. It was all over with in 5 days. I have the daily screenshots of the entire series of days.
Of course if the same amplification is absent in Antarctica then the theory collapses.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/07/greenhouse-gases-are-warming-world-chilling-antarctica-here-s-why
Computer modeled outputs are not data.
Using complex computer simulations
the team designed a series of computer model simulations.
“By comparing simulations with only Arctic CO2 changes with simulations that apply CO2 globally, we find similar Arctic warming patterns.
I should have stopped reading at the first mention of simulations.
We have the answer, lets do complex computer simulations to verify our conclusion.
The use of the terms “trap heat” and “computer simulations” tells you there is no need to read any further.
Recently there was an article at WUWT that showed that the Arctic temperature anomalies were transient large changes in temperature of the -60 C to -30 C kind due to wobbles in the polar vortex. These changes occurred during the winter. It is difficult to see how CO2 could act in such an intermittent fashion or how CO2 could increase the trapping of negligible sunlight. How could a change in albedo explain these changes when the Arctic ice is at its greatest extent and there is little sunlight to absorb?
Darn those physicists and mathematicians who think that a computer model has a greater reality that the actual world.
Physicists and mathematicians would be the last people to think that.
I got as far as “local greenhouse gas” and decided the only thing worth considering in this press release was which researcher was better looking.
The one on the left.
I prefer the one on the right. I have no comment about the one in the middle who the photo caption doesn’t even name.
yes two pretty neat models!
so the “not well mixed” ones ?
This is what the stratosphere intrusion looks like in the east of North America.
Complex computer modelling. That says it all. But if its for real then we will see by the satilite pictures of the North Pole. Anyway is this a local thing, such as the Poplar votex ?
What about Greenland, or is that not to be considered.
MJE
Our models got different answers than their models which proves that their’s are wrong.
I was wondering if I could model my bank account and show my model to the bank to prove that I have way more money than they say I do. Pfffft. Turns out banks don’t use models they use facts. What an archaic system.
Well, if you say a brief moment of breeze that’s cold enough to kill people not protected from it, can be considered a ‘heat wave’.
Traditionally, we called this stuff ‘yellow press’. Now it is called science.
How is it that the very small anthropogenic component of the overall CO2 increase has extra magical properties?
Colin that is my question. How can CO2 produce normal rainfall in the Midwest, but collect itself, and attack the Southwest, specifically CA, with unprecedented drought and the worst evah wildfires 🤔
Crazy CO2 some might say
“disprove previously suggested hypotheses, that emphasized the role of transport of heat from the tropics to the poles”
“heat can be transported into the Arctic by winds”
Are these people actually stupid?
The person who wrote the press release and the editor are certainly ignorant of science. But their jobs are to hype climate fear as much as possible.
I can make a computer model that pseudo-proves that the Earth is flat. Is the Flat Earth Society willing to fund the research?
Adrian: Depends. If your model shows the problem is CO2 burned by capitalists, then funding will follow.
“to be attributable to…” cause and effect? I do not know if anything meaningful can be found in the study but the press release is a drama because obviously a heat wave disproves the thesis as this cannot possibly be caused by increased greenhouse gas concentrations. Moreover, the increased temperatures in the arctic only occur during the winter (DMI). In the winter hardly any incoming visible light warms the arctic,that is why it gets so cold. The arctic warming, especially during the last ten or so years is a highly fascinating phenomenon which merits proper investigation. Increased atmospheric CO2 appears to be only a minor part of the explanation.
When the winter stratospheric polar vortex is broken, more water vapor reaches the polar circle.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2019/01/21/0600Z/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-333.84,90.92,340
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2019/01/21/0600Z/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-333.84,90.92,340
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2019/01/21/0600Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-333.84,90.92,340
Currently, the temperature above the 80th parallel is close to the average of 1958-2002.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2019.png
If heat is not transported in to the Arctic where did the extra CO2 come from?
Looking on the positive side.
This does expose the wildly erratic nature of computer models. It leaves the School of Urban and Environmental Engineering at UNIST with an awful lot of egg on it’s face. It exposes peer review, once again as badly flawed, and it discredits the journal Nature Climate Change, once again.
It also might persuade the School of Urban and Environmental Engineering at UNIST to send someone up to the Arctic with a thermometer, just for a little reality check.
It also gave most of us on here a good laugh. Which makes me wonder if it isn’t one of those spoof papers sent for publication just to expose peer review and journals. Or perhaps November 1st is the South Koreans equivalent of April Fools day.
“local greenhouse gas concentrations appear to be attributable to Arctic Amplification”
Or maybe other local sources of heat
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/04/does-global-warming-drive-changes-in-arctic-sea-ice/
Interesting page, Chaamjamal! I think it is probably yours?
If so, would you mind please sending me an email? My contact info is here:
http://sealevel.info/contact.html
The current temperature in the east of the US.
“Using complex computer simulations, the scientists were able to disprove previously suggested hypotheses, that emphasized the role of transport of heat from the tropics to the poles as one of the key contributors to the amplified warming in the Arctic.”
How can anyone DISPROVE a hypothesis using computer models? A hypothesis can only be disproved by OBSERVATIONS.
Particularly as the sentence before your quote was “However, the underlying physical processes for the intensified warming still remain elusive.” So how do they know how to program the computer games?
These days, all one has to do is watch the progression of Winter storms across North America to see how these system carry moist air into the Arctic.
Depending on the shape of the Polar Jet stream, storms take any number of different tracks across the continent, with the central low weaving more or less up or down with the jet. If the jet is fairly south when it reaches Texas, the low meets the usual winter high over the Gulf of Mexico, which pumps significant moisture northward to meet the oncoming cold low.
We have seen this several times this winter already, where a storm arrived in California, dropped snow there and in the desert Southwest, and then weakened until it got to Texas, where it re-intensified.
These storms do not just ‘shut down’ when they reach the Atlantic, they get transported across the ocean with the winds, taking various tracks. For example, if the moist low settles in off the SE coast of Greenland, or passes through the gap beween Iceland and Greenland, then Greenland gets a bump of SMB. In some of those cases, the storms travel right up the east coast of Greenland, and into the Arctic Core, including 85 north. Alternatively, if the storm travels over to Norway, and then is shunted north, it can circle the Arctic Ocean, snowing as it goes.
Of course, storms can take other pathways, for example, through the gap between Alaska and Russia. Once they do, the motion of low pressure through the arctic will hold the moisture there, snowing as it goes, until its has been squeezed out of the atmosphere.
Some hypotheses can be refuted using formulae only. It does not require models or observations to conclusively demonstrate some are unviable.
Giving hypotheses legs requires making correct guesses or projections about some future measurable value. Demonstrating repeatable skill elevates the hypothesis to that of a model. Validated models make predictions.
These simple rules explain why the IPCC makes model projections in their reports, not predictions, because they have not been validated.
The press release author wrote:
Criminy, the drek that passes for “science,” these days! Who needs actual observations or experiments, any more, when you have “complex computer simulations?” That’s not science: computer climate simulations are representations of hypotheses, only. They are not observations, and they cannot “disprove” anything. Feynman must be spinning in his grave.
https://youtu.be/LIxvQMhttq4?t=6
The main reason the near-surface air temperature sometimes spikes to near °C in the Arctic, even in winter, is that and storms and wind-driven ice movement open polynyas (open water), allowing heat to escape from the relatively warm water into the air, through convection and evaporation.
That’s a cooling process, which chills the ocean. But it warms the air above the the ocean.
To the extent that global warming warms the ocean and increases the amount of open water in the Arctic, it is a negative feedback mechanism, which helps to cool the Earth. Decreased sea ice coverage increases water evaporation, accelerating the transport of heat away from the surface, and cooling the ocean by convective and evaporative heat loss:
warmer water temp → less sea ice coverage → more evaporation → cooler water temp
Based on Nimbus-5 observations, Zwally, et al. 1983 reported that:
It’s an important effect, as the NSIDC explains:
…and in another article:
The Earth’s polar regions have net-negative radiation budgets. That is, they radiate much more energy than they absorb from sunlight. That is always the case in Antarctica, even in summer. It is nearly always the case in the Arctic, as well, except for a brief period near the summer solstice, when the Sun is at its zenith, and solar radiation absorbed just barely exceeds the amount of emitted radiation. You can see that in Figures 7 & 8, from L’Ecuyer, T. et al, 2015. The observed state of the energy budget in the early twenty-first century. J. Climate, 28, 8319-8346:
Here’s a zoomed-in portion of Fig. 8, showing the graph for just the Arctic:
The authors of this press release wrote that, “In the Arctic region, surface warming reduces snow and sea-ice extent, which in turn decreases the reflectivity of the surface. As a result, more sunlight can reach the top of layers of the soil and ocean, leading to accelerated warming.” They’re describing “ice-albedo feedback,” but it does not warm anything in the Arctic in February, because in February it’s nighttime there, 24/7. “More sunlight” can’t reach the ocean when there’s no sunlight at all.
I do like the acronym their Institute, however. I wonder if they have any idea what “IBS” stands for, in the English-speaking world? It seems wonderfully apropos for this crock of you-know-what.
This seems to be an unusually idiotic paper where they model a number of physically impossible atmospheric states in order to “understand” climate. The increase the amount of CO2 in some areas, but not in others and see what happens. However since this can never occur in nature the result is completely unreal and irrelevant.
Even normal GCM are better than that. They at least try to simulate reality.
I think the polar-guy on the right knows more about the Arctic climate than the girls on the left and their wishful-thinking computer models.