Study: Siberian Heat Human Caused
July 16, 2020
In a stark new finding, a study shows that six straight months of anomalously mild conditions in large parts of northern Siberia so far this year, along with an Arctic temperature record of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) that occurred in June, would have been virtually impossible without human-induced global warming.
The study, released Wednesday by the World Weather Attribution project, was produced through a collaboration between climate researchers from multiple institutions in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The researchers found that the prolonged January-to-June heat, which has led to a record spike in wildfires across the Siberian Arctic, was made at least 600 times as likely by human-caused climate change. This led them to conclude such an event would be nearly impossible in the absence of global warming.
The analysis shows that the six months of much above-average temperatures in the region would only occur less than about once in 80,000 years without human-caused climate change.
The scientists used an increasingly well-established technique known as climate detection and attribution, which is analogous to climate change detective work, to determine whether and by how much global warming influenced the odds of an extreme climate or weather event.
In this case, the researchers used statistical methods and dozens of computer models to examine six months of above-average temperatures seen during the January through June period in much of Siberia, as well as the tentative Arctic temperature record of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) that occurred in Verkhoyansk, north of the Arctic Circle on June 20.
July 17, 2020 at 5:01 am
Scientists Attribute Record-Shattering Siberian Heat and Wildfires to Climate Change
A decade of brutal Arctic heat waves increased emissions from fires and permafrost, melted heat-reflecting sea ice and pushed the High North climate toward collapse.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15072020/siberia
A Vicious Circle of Melting Permafrost and Global Warming
For climatologists, one of the biggest concerns about persistent Arctic warming is the threat to permafrost, a deep layer of frozen ground that releases vast amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide when it thaws.
The melting has already advanced to the point that, even during colder winters, such as the last one in Alaska, the permafrost won’t refreeze, said Vladimir Romanovsky, a permafrost expert at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Every year, a little more thaws.
“It’s a very tedious process, thawing about 5-10 centimeters (2 to 4 inches) per year, but it’s a completely new situation compared to 15 years ago,” he said.
July 17, 2020 at 7:19 am
Nitrogen in permafrost soils may exert great feedbacks on climate change
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-nitrogen-permafrost-soils-exert-great.amp
What nitrogen is getting up to in permafrost soils may be much more interesting than researchers have long believed—with potentially significant consequences for our management of climate change.
Nitrogen is a constituent part of nitrous oxide (N2O)—an often overlooked greenhouse gas, and there is a vast amount of nitrogen stored in permafrost soils.
July 17, 2020 at 8:05 am
Siberia’s 2020 heatwave made ‘600 times more likely’ by climate change
https://www.carbonbrief.org/siberia-s-2020-heatwave-made-600-times-more-likely-by-climate-change
Siberia’s prolonged heat from January to June this year – which broke temperature records and drove polluting megafires – would have been “almost impossible” without human-caused climate change, according to new analysis.
July 17, 2020 at 12:40 pm
Sigh—three “look-at me” messages from Chucky to clutter the thread—DUH!
And they’re incomplete and confusing as well—-he doesn’t even mention CO2 and methane as GHG, and doesn’t specify that it’s nitrous OXIDE in the permafrost that is of concern, not the “nitrogen” our bodies are bathed in.
July 18, 2020 at 11:53 am
Well, we do speak in terms of “carbon” capture and “carbon” footprint, when it’s CO2 and CH4 that are the problem.