Monthly Archives: September 2010

Shall We Just Agree to Call It Climate De-stabilization?

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By Anthony Ricigliano: With the term “global warming” being such a hot button issue, maybe we should just start calling the wild summer weather across the northern hemisphere this summer more evidence of climate de-stabilization. Record heat waves and drought across Russia have taken lives and resulted in the loss of one-fifth of its wheat harvest to raging wildfires which are burning out of control southeast of Moscow. Crops in the neighboring countries of Ukraine and Kazakhstan are also being damaged by the drought, as the wildfires continue their westward march.

Pakistan’s weather problems are exactly the opposite of Russia’s as monsoon rains have fallen in volumes that had never before been seen.  Peshawar, located in northern Pakistan, saw six times the monthly average rainfall in only 24 hours. The monsoonal downpours have continued since then, with flooding affecting an estimated 14 million people and killing over 1,300 people. Flood waters now cover about one-fifth of the country.

Despite being approximately 2,500 miles apart, both of these disasters are linked to a single meteorological cause. A huge area of high pressure, which has stayed in place for weeks over western Russia, has blocked the jet stream, altering its path while baking the western region of the country. These high pressure areas form on a regular basis but normally move eastward after a few days in the northern hemisphere. The high pressure area causing the problems for Pakistan and Russia is called a “blocking high” and acts as an obstacle for the jet stream which has changed its path around it. This altered path has forced part of the jet stream to divert south to Pakistan, where it normally would not be found during mid-summer.

With the jet stream delivering storm after storm to the same areas flooding occurs, as seen in Poland and Germany recently. In Pakistan, the southern diversion of the jet stream brought storms which would normally track much further north. These storms combined with normal summer monsoons to deliver record volumes of rainfall. The storms passing through Pakistan via the jet stream would typically be delivering rainfall and relief from the heat in the areas of western Russia were it not for the stationary high pressure zone.

The debate rages on about whether these extreme conditions are the result of global warming or of naturally occurring cycles such as El Nino and La Nina. Scientists do agree that global temperatures this year have been the warmest on record but cannot link the high temperatures to these events. Many believe that these types of events and other extreme weather conditions will become more common should global temperatures continue to go higher. In the case of Russia and Pakistan, the cause has been a blocking high. Other extreme conditions can be triggered by completely different weather conditions. The trend seems to be that increasing extremes are following warmer temperatures. For now maybe we should all agree that the global climate is being de-stabilized and as a result people are dying. Maybe then we start from the same page and find out if there is something we can do about it before weather disasters start claiming millions of victims per event on a regular basis.

Author Anthony Ricigliano

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The Earth’s Newest Island

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By Anthony Ricigliano:
The Earth has a brand new island in the form of a chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan after it broke off from the Petermann Glacier in Greenland. The ice island is slowly drifting across the Arctic Ocean with the potential to make its way toward oil platforms and busy shipping lanes off of Newfoundland.

The ice island is approximately one hundred square miles in size and is the largest northern hemisphere ice island since 1962. "It's so big that you can't prevent it from drifting. You can't stop it," said Jon-Ove Methlie Hagen, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo. The challenge now is to track the likely trajectory of the island to determine the potential danger which could be wreaked in the shipping lanes and Canada's offshore platforms in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
The island is drifting toward the Nares Strait which could feed the island into southbound ocean currents. These currents would carry the island down Canada’s east coast and directly into the busy shipping lanes and oil drilling operations unless the usual winter freeze arrives on time and locks down the Strait. If it gets into the Nares Strait earlier than expected or the winter freeze is late, the floating ice shelf would become problematic.

Besides the obvious problems presented to ships, another complex problem is the threat to the offshore oil platforms in its path. Smaller icebergs can be redirected using water cannons or by towing but this ice shelf is so big that changing its direction would be difficult, if not impossible. If the platforms are threatened, they will probably have to shut down operations and be moved. The logistics of this type of action take time, money, and are very complicated, especially when the rigs are fixed to the ocean floor. The complexities would increase considerably if multiple rigs are threatened at the same time.

At its current size, the island contains the equivalent of the fresh water flowing through the Hudson River for two years. While it's likely to break into smaller icebergs as it bumps into other icebergs and jagged islands, the bergs will still be huge in comparison to what normally floats out of the Nares Strait. The bergs would also be affected by wind, waves and higher temperatures as they head south.

The ice sheet is already a topic in the global warming discussion and should remain so during its journey. At this point, however, experts are reluctant to attribute the giant ice island to climate change due to all the variables that affect glaciers in the area. The ongoing retreat of Greenland's glaciers has accelerated in recent years, and is one of the least understood pieces of the climate puzzle.

Despite the variables beyond those directly tied to global warming, the event coincides with worrisome signs of warming in the Arctic. Over the last forty years, Arctic temperatures have risen by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit and Arctic sea ice measured in June was at its lowest level for the month since records started being kept in 1979.

Whether it’s a result of global warming or other factors, this ice island is likely to be the center of attention for environmentalists as well as the area’s shipping and oil industries.

Author Anthony Ricigliano