So why are the poles still tending to remain
very warm even as the Equator warms? The first answer is that high greenhouse
gas concentrations from human fossil fuel emissions tend to preferentially warm
these regions. This is due to the fact that greenhouse gasses have their
greatest warming impact during times of darkness or when the sun is at a low
angle. Compounding this impact for the Arctic is the fact that a high
overburden of both CO2 and methane hangs over the region -- possibly due to
heightening emissions from thawing permafrost, increasing forest fires, and
increasing ocean-to-atmosphere carbon fluxes. A second answer is that the
overall atmospheric impacts of the current Monster El Nino may not have come
into full swing yet. We do still have a very warm pool of water in the
Northeastern Pacific and this warm pool has tended to somewhat resist the polar
wind field intensifying effects of a strong El Nino. This warm pool has also
given the current El Nino a springboard upon which to further intensify. So the
push and pull between these two hot water zones may not be over yet. All in
all, this pattern points to more and more weather weirding on tap for this winter.
Jet Streams and storm tracks may run further to the north as a result --
especially in the areas of the Pacific Northwest and in Northern Europe.
Troughs may also tend to dig a bit deeper along the Central and Eastern US and
on out into the North Atlantic. This is not exactly the forecast we would
expect with such a strongly positive Arctic Oscillation. But the related cool
air pool has retreated so far north as to, at least for now, not fully result
in a strong El Nino + strong Arctic Oscillation related weather pattern.
Instead, for now, what we are seeing is a weird kind of hybrid weather pattern
that appears to be incorporating the influences of a Monster El Nino, of
ongoing polar amplification, of the cool pool in the North Atlantic, of the
abnormally warm Barents Sea, and of the Hot Blob still firmly entrenched in the
Northeastern Pacific. (3)
Concurrent with this, the rise in ocean levels is now unstoppable. A U.C. Irvine led study has found that Jacobshavn Glacier in Greenland is now melting at an accelerating rate as it is being warmed from above by warm air, and below, by warm waters. This ONE glacier ALONE has the mass needed to raise global seal level by about 18 inches!(4) The same process has made the collapse and melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet unstoppable. (5) Sea levels will, consequentially, rise at an ever accelerating rate. A one foot sea level rise will render all of South Florida--including Miami--uninhabitable. This because the entire water table will become brackish to salty as ocean waters flood the low lying peninsula. This event is not very far off.
The big picture is one of accelerating climatic instability, rapidly rising seas, intensified droughts and flooding, agricultural and industrial collapse, and shrinking habitable environments for humans as heat and humidity exceed human tolerance. (6) Clearly this is a recipe for absolute disaster! Sustained and continuing methane releases will in time, render the Earth uninhabitable for humans!
Avoiding this fate entirely is no longer possible. However, the longer we wait to act decisively, the more it becomes locked in. We MUST act DECISIVELY NOW, or prepare for utter doom! In the US, the only viable national political option WITHIN the ever more oligarchic political system is Bernie Sanders. Absent Sanders, there are no options whatsoever. Any Republican, or neoliberal Democrat--Hillary Clinton--will follow policies which lead directly to doom. The Republicans by simply ignoring climate change entirely until it is far too late. Clinton will accomplish the same end by trying to deal with climate change without hurting the financial interests of the Wall Street billionaires who effectively own her, and the entire controlling "New Democrat" wing of the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately, Nature simply does not bargain. Human industrial civilization, powered primarily by fossil fuels is now completely discordant with reality. We can expect the collapse of civilization in the coming decades as a direct consequence, unless we change radically NOW. Given the extreme direness of our situation, if political means are exhausted, then survival means the speedy and remorseless overthrow of the existing order, and its instant replacement by an environmentally rational one. This present year, 2015 has been described as being, climatologically speaking: --unlike any other year in human history." (7)
Your future, your children's future, the very existence of ANY human future, of complex life itself, is now mortally imperiled! ACT! ACT DECISIVELY!
Notes:
1) http://robertscribbler.com/2015/11/13/11038/
(5) http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/west_antarctic_ice_cascades_toward_crisis_20151113
(6) http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/world/persian-gulf-heat-climate-change/index.html
7) http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/11/10/huge_el_nino_pushes_climate_toward_records.html
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