All Time High Heat for Alaska Arctic Coast & Cold Storms Coming

UPDATE: Deadhorse, AK just hit 85 F, at about 6:50 pm, July 13, 2016.

Elev 59 ft 70.19 °N, 148.47 °W | Updated 15 min ago

Source: https://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Deadhorse%2C+AK

Brian Brettschneider just posted an ERSI image of what he says is the warmest high temperature for the Alaska Arctic Coast - 84F at Deadhorse this afternoon. He says, "The new all-time record of 84°F at Deadhorse is also an AK record for any station within 50 miles of Arctic Ocean."

Source: https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/status/753395414175330305

However, this is not the only 80+F temp on the coast this afternoon, or even a high of 84F. Brian posted an earlier shot with 84F at Alpine, AK which reached that temp at 3:45 pm this afternoon, followed by Deadhorse at 4:53 pm. Source: https://www.wunderground.com/us/ak/alpine-airstrip and https://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:99734.12.99999

What's crazy is that it is warmer there than in some Florida locations this afternoon and 3F warmer than my mid-America location!

It's what is coming that shows how out of balance the Arctic is right now. A strong cold front is to cross the coast near Wainwright and Barrow by Friday. The Barrow, AK statement reads:

"NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK

1200 PM AKDT WED JUL 13 2016

AKZ201-202-152000-
WESTERN ARCTIC COAST-NORTHERN ARCTIC COAST-
INCLUDING...WAINWRIGHT...ATQASUK...POINT LAY...CAPE LISBURNE...
BARROW...ALAKTAK...PITT POINT...NULAVIK
1200 PM AKDT WED JUL 13 2016

...SEA ICE EXPECTED TO MOVE TOWARD THE NORTHWEST ALASKA COAST
FRIDAY MORNING...

A STRONG COLD FRONT WILL MOVE OVER THE NORTHWEST ALASKA COAST
FRIDAY MORNING. 20 TO 30 MPH SOUTHWEST WINDS EARLY FRIDAY MORNING
ARE EXPECTED TO SWITCH TO THE NORTHWEST AND CONTINUE THROUGH
FRIDAY AFTERNOON AT 20 TO 30 MPH BEFORE BECOMING WEST AND
DIMINISHING TO AROUND 15 MPH EARLY FRIDAY EVENING. THE STRONGEST
WINDS ARE EXPECTED MID MORNING FRIDAY.

AT THIS TIME MINOR COASTAL EROSION AND ELEVATED SURF IS EXPECTED
TO DEVELOP ALONG THE COAST ESPECIALLY TO THE EAST OF WAINWRIGHT TO
NEAR POINT BARROW BEGINNING FRIDAY MORNING AND CONTINUING THROUGH
EARLY FRIDAY EVENING. ANYONE OPERATING IN THE WATERS NEAR THE
COAST ESPECIALLY TO THE EAST OF WAINWRIGHT TO NEAR POINT BARROW
MAY FIND ICE CLOSING IN QUICKLY TOWARD THE SHORE FRIDAY MORNING
THROUGH EARLY FRIDAY EVENING.

THOSE WITH BOATS...EQUIPMENT OR OTHER PERSONAL ITEMS LOCATED NEAR
THE BEACH MAY CONSIDER MOVING THEM FURTHER INLAND AND AWAY FROM
THE WATERS EDGE. CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE APPROACHING WEATHER
SYSTEM FOR ANY CHANGES TO THE EXPECTED IMPACTS AND TIMING.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE STAY TUNED TO THE LATEST WEATHER
INFORMATION AT HTTP://WWW.WEATHER.GOV/AFG/ AND THE LATEST SEA ICE
INFORMATION AT THE NWS ALASKA SEA ICE PROGRAM WEB PAGE AT:
HTTP://WWW/WEATHER.GOV/AFC/ICE.

Source: https://www.wunderground.com/US/AK/202.html#SPE

Now think about the impact on the thinning Arctic sea ice. It is going to experience an area expansion due to 20-25 mph winds, with seas high enough to call for a small craft advisory, 
all with sea surface temperatures well above normal. 

Areas in white represent sea ice presence, but with thin concentration.

Sea surface temperature anomalies: Coral Reef Watch, July 13 2016

Land surface temperature anomalies: Climate Reanalyzer, July 13 2016

 Arctic Sea Ice Concentration: 

Source: http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/Arctic_AMSR2_nic.png

While there will be a "cold front", the impact on the ice will likely be a higher melt rate in the weeks to come.

Iced Lightning - Lightning Strikes at 80 North

On July 8 and 9, 2016 the National Weather Service published special weather statements regarding the potential for thunderstorms in Barrow, Alaska and on the North Slope. There was not a thunderstorm reported in the media, although on July 10, 2016 there was a cloud to ground strike 15 miles from Barrow.

Curious, I decided to research the background of Arctic Coast or Arctic Ocean thunderstorms, starting with Barrow and Wainwright, Alaska.

Here's what I found, and what came at the end made my jaw drop in regard to lightning strikes and thunderstorms over the Arctic Sea Ice - and the massive changes in the last 16 years of increasing thunderstorm activity over the Arctic Ocean.

Historical Climatology

The NOAA Center for Environmental Information hosts the Alaska Climatological reports from 1915 to 2015. The following observations of thunder or thunderstorms come from those reports.
See: http://catalog.northslope.org/catalogs/4390-climatological-data-alaska


July 8, 1921, Thunder was heard at Barrow, Alaska for the first time in many years. The prior event was not dated.

July 3, 1931, Thunder was heard again in Barrow Alaska.

July 8 and 12, 1943: Thunderstorms occurred in Wainwright, Alaska, about 86 miles southwest of Barrow, on the Arctic Ocean, but no report from Barrow.
July 16, 1950: Wainwright, AK observed a thunderstorm south of the weather station and the report states this is "the farthest north thunderstorm ever reported in the Alaskan Territory."
July 4, 1952, Wainwright, AK again observed thunder.
July 22, 1989, Finally, after many years, Barrow experienced thundershowers.
July 18, 1995, Barrow, after six years, experienced thundershowers.
June 20, 2000, Barrow had a thunderstorm that received international attention and was misrepresented as the first thunderstorm at Barrow in the most of the media.

The actual NOAA report states:

Thundershowers moved through Barrow, AK on the Arctic coast on the 20th. A rare event- a thunderstorm moved through the Barrow area on the 20th and dropped 0.16 inches of rain in just a couple minutes. Many calls were received at the weather office from people who have just witnessed their first thunderstorm and lightning display ..and what a display it was. According to calls received, Barrow had one of the most exciting events they had ever seen since it was the first for most residents. Thunderstorms and lightning are extremely rare on the north coast of Alaska. This is only the third time a thunderstorm has occurred in Barrow since 1978. The other two events were on July 18, 1995 and July 22, 1989.  
See: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/extremes/2000/june/extremes0600.html


Note, the 2000 statement that thunderstorms and lightning were extremely rare on the north coast of Alaska, let alone having thunderstorms over Arctic Ocean sea ice! The Alaska Interagency Coordination Center did have a lightning detection network at the time, but without North Slope sensors. Who thought tundra would really burn?See: http://afsmaps.blm.gov/imf/imf.jsp?site=lightning

A 2012 article captured recollections of this event. It was recalled as "thunderclaps directly over Barrow in 2000 that sent dogs scurrying under beds and frightened children who had never seen a thunderstorm. On that day, rain poured heavily for a community that gets little of it, and phones lit up at the local National Weather Service office, with residents wanting to know what was going on.

"It was early, early in the morning," recalled Dave Anderson, head meteorologist in the city of 4,400. "Everyone was in bed, and people got a little concerned."

Source: http://www.adn.com/rural-alaska/article/freak-thunderstorm-rumbles-barrow-nations-northernmost-city/2012/07/17/

The Alaska Interagency Coordination Center strikes recorded during June and early July , 2000 are below, minus the Barrow storm strikes.

June 14-28, 2000

June 28-July 12, 2000

Source: Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, Historical Lightning

A November 15, 2000 article by ABC titled  Arctic Thunderstorms: New Signs of Warming,  captured how unusual and concerning this new development was to Canadian Arctic communities.  

"Electric storms in the upper Arctic are among the evidence of climate change being reported in a new study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba..... 

The study focused on knowledge among Inuits of changes in the Arctic environment. Researchers spent a year visiting Sachs Harbour on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories, accompanying Inuit people on their hunting and fishing trips and recording their observations.

“When I was a child, I never heard thunder or saw lightning, but in the last few years we’ve had thunder and lightning,” Rosemarie Kuptana of Sachs Harbour, 1,440 miles north of Vancouver, said Tuesday. “The animals really don’t know what to do because they’ve never experienced this kind of phenomenon.”
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119796&page=1

By 2001, Alaska installed lightning detectors on the Arctic Ocean at Barrow, giving us a more complete historical lightning record for the North Slope. 

What follows are the recorded cloud to ground lightning strikes in the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center Historical Lightning database. We are going to mostly compare the June 28-July 12 maps from 2001-2016 - to visualise what climate change has done through sea ice melt, early snow melt, and increasing Arctic temperatures in the Alaskan and Canadian far North. See: http://afsmaps.blm.gov/imf/imf.jsp?site=lightning

June 28 to July 12, 2001, depicts more North Slope lightning and one single strike east-northeast of Barrow, over the ice - a premonition of what was to come. Each blue line is a lightning strike.

June 28 to July 12, 2002, reveals almost no strikes north of the Brooks Range, and none in the Arctic Ocean.

June 28 to July 12, 2003, depicts dramatic change with thunderstorms producing hundreds of lightning strikes within a hundred miles of shore off the Alaskan coast.

June 28 to July 12, 2004, brings the next reports of a thunderstorm on July 3rd at Barrow, with strikes across the Alaskan North Slope and into the coastal Arctic Ocean.

June 28 to July 12, 2005, reveals a return to minimal North Slope lightning or thunderstorm activity.

June 28 to July 12, 2006, returned to the "old" normal of the past, of few lightning strikes or thunderstorms north of the Brooks Range.

June 28 to July 12, 2007, saw a continuation of the "old" normal, with few strikes or convection activity on the North Slope, and none in the Arctic Ocean.

June 28 to July 12, 2008, revealed the first resurgence of lightning in the Arctic Ocean, and more thunderstorm activity on the North Slope, perhaps an initial link to heating and sea ice loss.

June 28 to July 12, 2009, is a return to the historical pattern, with no lightning activity in Arctic Ocean for these dates.

June 28 to July 12, 2010, preserves the past, except for a few strikes off the eastern Alaska coast.

June 28 to July 12, 2011, is quieter than the prior year, except for two strikes in the Arctic Ocean, not far from the Alaskan coast.

The first sign of the future of lightning storm convection over Arctic sea ice is apparent in the June 16 to 30, 2012 image. The path of lightning strikes goes heavy and deep over open Arctic Ocean, then the ice pack.

June 28 to July 12, 2012, saw a muted repeat of the 2000 and 2004 events. The expansion and replacement of the Alaska lightning detection network in July, 2012, brought in the capacity to measure more lightning strikes, and included Arctic Canada for the first time.

July 15, 2012 brought another thunderstorm near Barrow. The NWS reported, 

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK
556 PM AKDT SUN JUL 15 2012

…FIRST THUNDERSTORM IN BARROW SINCE 2004…

A LINE OF THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOPED JUST EAST OF BARROW LATE THIS AFTERNOON. A FEW RUMBLES OF THUNDER WERE HEARD AT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE IN BARROW BETWEEN 515PM AND 535PM. THE ALASKA FIRE SERVICES LIGHTNING DETECTION NETWORK RECORDED FEW STRIKES JUST SOUTHEAST OF DEASE INLET.

THIS IS THE FIRST THUNDERSTORM AT BARROW SINCE JULY 3RD 2004.

Source: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/10857

Dave Anderson, the Barrow meterologist, said, "rain cloaked the lightning so flashes couldn't be seen very well, Anderson said. But lightning strikes were recorded about 30 miles southeast of Barrow over Dease Inlet, according to the Alaska Fire Services Lightning Detection Network. The noise was faint. "My wife and I were at home," said Anderson. "We could barely hear the thunder."

Another local resident, Jana Harcharek, said that she'd only seen lightning twice from Barrow, where she's lived her entire life. "It's rather bizarre," said Harcharek, who refused to share her age. "Rather than running in, we're running outside to see it."

One sobering note. The high temperature that day. It was 65 F in Barrow, warmer than Anchorage!

Source: http://www.adn.com/rural-alaska/article/freak-thunderstorm-rumbles-barrow-nations-northernmost-city/2012/07/17/

June 28 to July 12, 2013, brings more activity over the Arctic Ocean, with strikes as far out as 73N over 150 miles from shore.

June 28 to July 12, 2014, continues the pattern of increasing North Slope and Arctic Ocean strikes with further concentration over areas with low ice ocean. Much of the lightning activity was over open water as the sea ice melted.

The EOSDIS, Worldview July 9, 2014 image helps visualize the Arctic melt and storm relationship.

June 28 to July 12, 2015, represents the first major shift in the Arctic Ocean paradigm, with lightning strikes ending up in places unimaginable in 2000. A whole cluster of thunderstorms penetrated deep into the ice pack, all the way to 80N. It can be surmised that the storms contributed to ice pack movement and fracture.

EOSDIS Worldview July 5, 2015, the clouds over the Central Arctic Basin were the lightning producing storm.

2016's Arctic heating and ice pack state has contributed to increased storms over the region. Here is how the lightning and thunderstorm season has unfolded.

2016's lightning season started on the North Slope - in May. In Atqasuk, an Inupiaq village 60 miles south of Barrow, they experienced a hail storm followed by thunder (cloud to cloud lightning - no ground strike), and a double rainbow. (Note the hail on the road). This was on May 25th!

Source: http://www.ktuu.com/content/news/In-Atqasuk-hail-then-rainbows-380857161.htm

June 1-14, 2016 reflected the waves of heat and thunderstorms that penetrated the Canadian Arctic, setting off the Ft. McMurray and other fires.

June 15-29, 2016 reveals an explosion of lightning activity across Alaskan North Slope, unmatched by prior years data, and the falreup of storm activity over the Russian Arctic and Canadian Arctic.

The map of June 28 to July 12, 2016 brings this to a somber conclusion - the Arctic lightning detection maps begin to reveal thunderstorms penetrating where lightning has never been seen - thunder never heard, with the ice pack being pelted with rain in ever heavier amounts. We are seeing lightning strikes at 80N, 625 miles into the Arctic Ocean icepack from Barrow. Part of our changing climate that humanity has not seen previously -and cannot change.

The July 10, 2016 EOSDIS View gives a glimpse of warmth streaming into the Arctic Ocean, bringing thunderstorm impacts not yet modeled.

What the impacts will be more tundra lightning, perhaps faster melt - time will tell.

One last comparison: 
June 28-July 12, 2006: The "Old" Normal

June 28-July 12, 2012: The "Transition" 

June 28-July 12 2016: The "New" Normal

El Nino Creates Amazon Drought and Extreme Fire Danger

In a recent Environmental Research Letter article, Yang Chen, et al, demonstrated how by use of sea surface temperatures, predictions of oncoming seasonal drought could be used to determine fire season severity. The research shows correlations between sea surface temperatures in 14 ocean indices areas could predict fire in 12 "hotspot" regions, using the GFED data for the fire and emissions correlation. 

See: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/045001

In a current example of their process, through 2015, drought in the Amazon basin deepened as El Nino strengthened in the Pacific, and the Atlantic remained anomalously warm.

Source: http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleaching5km/images_archive_composite/b05kmnn_ssta_mean_annual_2015_large.gif

The SST anomaly affecting the Amazon has continued through July 2016, despite El Nino's official end.

Source: http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleaching5km/images_archive_composite_y2d/b05kmnn_ssta_mean_20160101to20160706_large.gif

This SST anomaly impact is apparent rainfall anomaly results from TRMM for South America from for 180 days prior to January 23, 2016. the first shows the actual rainfall anomaly in millimeters, the second as percentage of normal.

Source: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/international/samerica/samerica.shtml

This effect continued into 2016 as drought continued to grip the Amazon and northern South America as shown in the TRMM 180 day rainfall anomaly imagery from July 7, 2016. The first image below depicts the anomaly in millimeters, the second as percent of normal.

The result is that the Amazon basin has minimal ground moisture and rain forest stressed by severe drought.

GRACE imagery compares the last few drought years for groundwater and soil moisture as terrestrial water storage to the current drought - with 2016 being the most dire conditions to begin the Amazon fire season since 2002.

Source: http://phys.org/news/2016-06-el-nino-intense-season-amazon.html

The fire counts for these prior years are available in the GFED monthly data for 2001-2015, likely to be exceeded by 2016's upcoming fire season.

Source: http://www.ess.uci.edu/~amazonfirerisk/ForecastWeb/SAMFSS2016.html

The Amazon has been divided into 10 regions for drought, fire and emissions studies by NASA and UC Irvine scientists. They are the following:

In 2015, the predictions of fire severity for these regions were low to moderate, depending on the region.

Source: http://www.ess.uci.edu/~amazonfirerisk/ForecastWeb/SAMFSS2015.html

While the initial 2015 fire severity prediction was low to moderate, El Nino drove fires and emissions to high levels. 2015 saw 240,492 fires counted by MODIS as depicted by the light blue line below, the highest fire count since 2003.

Source: http://www.globalfiredata.org/updates.html#2016_totals

It resulted in the highest CO2/GHG fire derived emissions from the Amazon since 2003.

Source: http://www.globalfiredata.org/updates.html#2016_totals

Given the drought of the last year, driven by El Nino and Atlantic sea surface warming, the 2016 Amazon fire season begins with severe dryness. 

As noted in the UC Irvine fire risk website, "Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical Pacific Ocean during October-April were at record high levels relative to the 2001-2015 period of satellite fire observations because of the strong 2015-2016 El Niño. Concurrently, SSTs in the tropical Atlantic during January-April of 2016 were above average. Combined, the elevated SSTs in both oceans provide evidence for extremely high fire risk for the Amazon during the 2016 dry season. Pará, Mato Grosso and Amazonas have the highest risk according to our forecast."

Source: http://www.ess.uci.edu/~amazonfirerisk/ForecastWeb/SAMFSS2016.html

As noted by the red line in the cumulative monthly fire count above, 2016 has 36,994 fires through July 5, 2016. This is exceeded only by 2004, with 41,518 fires, and is 52% more than 2015's 24,321.

Given that we know that high temperature anomalies cause Amazon forests to dry, it's trees to slow CO2 intake, and increased fire levels - fire emissions are likely to be very high through 2016. The following depicts the last 30 day rainfall anomaly and fires burning in South America in the last 48 hours as detected by MODIS. It is a glimpse of the extreme Amazon fire season to come.

The consequence of this climate interaction of warming seas and drought results in a continued weakening of the Amazon as a CO2 sink, and its slow creep to becoming a CO2 source. 

As Philip Duffy, et al, warned in a 2015 PNAS paper, "The models also predicted that the area of the Amazon affected by mild and severe drought will double in the eastern part of Amazonia and triple in the west by 2100. Meanwhile, a wetter wet season and more rainfall could lead to more floods, as well."

“In most of the Amazon, we find that climate models project great increases in the frequency and area of drought,” Duffy said. “The models also project that the rainy season will get wetter, and the dry season drier. They also project increases in extreme precipitation. So, all in all, climate models project an intensification of hydrological extremes in the region.”

The study did not, however, account for the effects of global warming, which tend to make drought more intense by drying out the soil. “That is to say, in our study we measured drought in terms of precipitation deficits,” Duffy explained. “Warming on top of this — which is virtually certain to occur — will make droughts more severe.”

Source: Duffy, P. B., Brando, P., Asner, G. P., Field, C. B. (2015). Projections of future meteorological drought and wet periods in the Amazon. PNAS, 10.1073/pnas.1421010112.

http://news.mongabay.com/2015/10/more-drought-floods-predicted-for-the-amazon/

Given the droughts of 2005, 2010, and now 2016, we may see an acceleration of the consequences above as more abrupt unanticipated change to come.

Monthly Global CO2 Spikes Above 404 ppm - Another Record High

On July 5th, NOAA ESRL released its initial May, 2016 global CO2 averages - a new record of 404.21 ppm and likely the peak monthly average for 2016.

Source: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html

While March 2015, was the first global month above 400 ppm, all of 2016 has been above that average. We are on track for our first year above 400 ppm in human history.

For the NOAA March, 2015 announcement, see: http://research.noaa.gov/News/NewsArchive/LatestNews/TabId/684/ArtMID/1768/ArticleID/11153/Greenhouse-gas-benchmark-reached-.aspx

While NOAA ESRL's graph above portrays the recent monthly trend, it helps to visualize the whole increase since 1980.

Data: NOAA ESRL, Graphic: Apocalypse4Real

Trends: 

Since May, 1980's 340.30 ppm, we have added 64 ppm of CO2 to the global atmosphere - an increase of 18.8% in 36 years. If a pre-industrial CO2 level of 270 ppm is assumed, then since the 1880's we now have almost 50% more CO2 in our atmosphere - pushing global warming.

But what about the trends - are the increases slowing down since, since it has been argued that human emissions peaked in 2014, and were tentatively expected to have a slight decline in 2015, as reported in Inside Climate News and Nature Climate Change in December, 2015? 

See: Global CO2 Emissions Decline in 2015 After Soaring for a Decade, Study Says, http://insideclimatenews.org/news/07122015/global-carbon-emissions-rising-decades-decline-2015-study-climate-change-paris

According to the NOAA ESRL data, that is not apparent. Usually we discuss increases or declines in atmospheric CO2 ppm compared to the prior year. For example, this month's 404.21 is 3.55 ppm higher than May, 2015. It is the 3rd highest difference compared to prior years in the NOAA ESRL global data. The two months with higher change are July, 2013, and September, 1998, which were both 3.59 ppm higher than their prior year.

The problem is that comparing only year to year change misses the overall acceleration of atmospheric CO2 increases. To depict that acceleration, the graphic below includes the 5 year and 10 year change in CO2. The longer time frames depict the cumulative effects of CO2 increases.

Data: NOAA ESRL, Graphic: Apocalypse4Real

Comparisons:

1 Year: A small trend increase is detectable in the 1 year monthly comparison, from 1981 to present, (blue line above). Peaks have occurred in association with oceanic warming or El Ninos plus reflect increases in human emissions.

5 Years: The five year monthly comparison trend (red line) shows that we have experienced a spike of 12.34 ppm compared to May, 2011. We have now experienced 6 months of 5 year trend comparison above 11 ppm, a new record, and we had never experienced increases of more than 12 ppm in the 5 year trend increases until this year.

10 years: The decadal comparisons reveal the monthly change trends that have occurred since 2000 in sobering clarity. Prior to 2000, most decadal differences were around 15 ppm. But beginning in August 2002, we experienced 21 consecutive months of decadal differences above 2 ppm. That, in combination with higher CO2 increases during the 1998 El Nino, set the base for the jump to decadal changes of 20 ppm, first achieved in September, 2007. 

Since October, 2012, we have not experienced a decadal monthly CO2 difference under 20 ppm. In December, 2015, we broke through 21 ppm of change. Since then, we have not had a decadal monthly difference under 21 ppm. This month's 21.80 ppm difference compared to May, 2006, reflects the impacts of El Nino, fires, drought, and perhaps climate feedbacks unleashed by the current heating. 

Will it hit 22 ppm decadal difference this year? Not likely, but only time will tell.