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Scientists link frozen spring to dramatic Arctic sea ice loss

Melting sea ice, exposing huge parts of the ocean to the atmosphere, explains extreme weather both hot and cold
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John Vidal, environment editor

guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 March 2013 17.03 GMT

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Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere which shifts the position of the jet stream, which affects weather in the northern hemisphere. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Climate scientists have linked the massive snowstorms and bitter spring weather now being experienced across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice.

Both the extent and the volume of the sea ice that forms and melts each year in the Arctic Ocean fell to an historic low last autumn, and satellite records published on Monday by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, show the ice extent is close to the minimum recorded for this time of year.

“The sea ice is going rapidly. It’s 80% less than it was just 30 years ago. There has been a dramatic loss. This is a symptom of global warming and it contributes to enhanced warming of the Arctic,” said Jennifer Francis, research professor with the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science.

According to Francis and a growing body of other researchers, the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere which shifts the position of the jet stream – the high-altitude river of air that steers storm systems and governs most weather in northern hemisphere.

“This is what is affecting the jet stream and leading to the extreme weather we are seeing in mid-latitudes,” she said. “It allows the cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. The pattern can be slow to change because the [southern] wave of the jet stream is getting bigger. It’s now at a near record position, so whatever weather you have now is going to stick around,” she said.

Francis linked the Arctic temperature rises to extreme weather in mid latitudes last year and warned in September that 2012’s record sea ice melt could lead to a cold winter in the UK and northern Europe.

She was backed by Vladimir Petoukhov, professor of Earth system analysis at Potsdam Institute in Germany, whose research suggests the loss of ice this year could be changing the direction of the jet stream.

“The ice was at a record low last year and is now exceptionally low in some parts of the Arctic like the Labrador and Greenland seas. This could be one reason why anticyclones are developing,” he said.

The heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures which have marked March 2013 across the northern hemisphere are in stark contrast to March 2012 when many countries experienced their warmest ever springs. The hypothesis that wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere would explain both the extremes of heat and cold, say the scientists.

A recent paper by the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also found that enhanced warming of the Arctic influenced weather across the northern hemisphere.

“With more solar energy going into the Arctic Ocean because of lost ice, there is reason to expect more extreme weather events, such as heavy snowfall, heat waves, and flooding in North America and Europe,” said the researchers.

The Met Office’s chief scientist has previously said the melting Arctic ice is in part responsible for the UK’s recent colder winters.

The possible links between Arctic sea ice loss and extreme weather were made as the UK’s government’s outgoing chief scientific adviser Sir John Beddington warned that the world could expect more extremes of weather.

“The [current] variation we are seeing in temperature or rainfall is double the rate of the average. That suggests that we are going to have more droughts, we are going to have more floods, we are going to have more sea surges and we are going to have more storms.” He said that said there was a “need for urgency” in tackling climate change.

“These are the sort of changes that are going to affect us in quite a short timescale,” he warned. Last year saw record heat, rainfall, drought and floods in the northern hemisphere.

Scientists Image Deep Magma Beneath Pacific Seafloor Volcano

Mar. 27, 2013 — Since the plate tectonics revolution of the 1960s, scientists have known that new seafloor is created throughout the major ocean basins at linear chains of volcanoes known as mid-ocean ridges. But where exactly does the erupted magma come from?

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Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego now have a better idea after capturing a unique image of a site deep in the Earth where magma is generated.

Using electromagnetic technology developed and advanced at Scripps, the researchers mapped a large area beneath the seafloor off Central America at the northern East Pacific Rise, a seafloor volcano located on a section of the global mid-ocean ridges that together form the largest and most active chain of volcanoes in the solar system. By comparison, the researchers say the cross-section area of the melting region they mapped would rival the size of San Diego County.

Details of the image and the methods used to capture it are published in the March 28 issue of the journal Nature.

“Our data show that mantle upwelling beneath the mid-ocean ridge creates a deeper and broader melting region than previously thought,” said Kerry Key, lead author of the study and an associate research geophysicist at Scripps. “This was the largest project of its kind, enabling us to image the mantle with a level of detail not possible with previous studies.”

The northern East Pacific Rise is an area where two of the planet’s tectonic plates are spreading apart from each another. Mantle rising between the plates melts to generate the magma that forms fresh seafloor when it erupts or freezes in the crust.

Data for the study was obtained during a 2004 field study conducted aboard the research vessel Roger Revelle, a ship operated by Scripps and owned by the U.S. Navy.

The marine electromagnetic technology behind the study was originally developed in the 1960s by Charles “Chip” Cox, an emeritus professor of oceanography at Scripps, and his student Jean Filloux. In recent years the technology was further advanced by Steven Constable and Key. Since 1995 Scripps researchers have been working with the energy industry to apply this technology to map offshore geology as an aid to exploring for oil and gas reservoirs.

“We have been working on developing our instruments and interpretation software for decades, and it is really exciting to see it all come together to provide insights into the fundamental processes of plate tectonics,” said Constable, a coauthor of the paper and a professor in the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Scripps. “It was really a surprise to discover that melting started so deep in the mantle — much deeper than was expected.”

Key believes the insights that electromagnetics provides will continue to grow as the technology matures and data analysis techniques improve (last week Key and his colleagues announced the use of electromagnetics in discovering a magma lubricant for the planet’s tectonic plates).

“Electromagnetics is really coming of age as a tool for imaging the earth,” said Key. “Much of what we know about the crust and mantle is a result of using seismic techniques. Now electromagnetic technology is offering promise for further discoveries.”

Key also has future plans to apply electromagnetic technology to map subglacial lakes and groundwater in the polar regions.

In addition to Key and Constable, coauthors of the paper include Lijun Liu of the University of Illinois and Anne Pommier of Arizona State University.

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Seafloor Electromagnetic Methods Consortium at Scripps.

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Fears of sea level rises

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Map: Bega 2550
A Eurobodalla Shire Councillor says there is confusion surrounding predicted sea level rises due to global warming.

Professor Alan Stokes from the National Sea Change Taskforce this week described sea level as a serious risk to the community.

He has called for councils to deal with the problem even though there’s no national benchmark on a minimum rise.

But Councillor Fergus Thompson says despite conflicting predictions, the shire has to factor tidal inundation into its development planning.

“We know there is a level that we have been talking around the Australian coastline whether it is 0.8 of a metre or 0.9 of a metre,” he said.

“It is really not that relevant; it is about the fact that we have known since 1990 about this information.

“Legally we will not be able to walk away from that and we will be held accountable,” Cr Thompson said.

Topics:environmental-impact, environmental-management, bega-2550, batemans-bay-2536

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New Study Confirms Water Injection Caused Oklahoma Earthquake
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The linkage between wastewater injection and earthquakes seems to have been covered ad nauseum over the past few years, especially in relation to the Oklahoma earthquakes on November 6, 2011, when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake near Prague (in Oklahoma, not in Europe) was preceded by a 5.0 shock and followed by literally thousands of aftershocks.
More Evidence Points to Water Injection Induced Oklahoma Earthquake

A 2011 magnitude 5.7 quake near Prague, Okla., apparently triggered by wastewater injection, buckled U.S. Highway 62.
Image Credit: John Leeman via The Earth Institute Columbia University

Earthquakes in Spain have been linked to groundwater pumping from an aquifer, and reports from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the University of Texas, and our very own Editor in Chief Zachary Shahan also made a compelling case for the links between wastewater injection and earthquakes.

Now, a new study in the journal Geology has added its weight to the debate as to whether the Prague earthquake was wastewater induced.

For those a little on the edge of the story, wastewater injection is simply the removal of water from fossil-fuel energy production into the ground — whether for hydrofracking, which uses the pressure of the water to crack open rocks to release natural gasses, or using the water to force petroleum out of conventional oil wells. In both cases the water has to be disposed of somewhere away from drinkable and habitable water supplies, so it is often pumped underground somewhere.

For the Prague case specifically, the watery culprit was once used to extract oil from a nearby oil well and then pumped into an abandoned oil well close by.

Normally geologically sedate areas of Arkansas, Texas, Ohio, and Colorado have recently become relatively earthquake-prone, with quakes in the middle of the US jumping 11-fold over the past four years when compared to the previous three decades. The risk is such that the National Academy of Sciences in a report last year called for further research to “understand, limit and respond” to induced seismic events.

The study looked at the evidence for the Prague quake and found that as wastewater refilled now-empty oil wells the pressure to continue filling the holes with water had to be increased which caused the Wilzetta fault to jump.

When you overpressure the fault, you reduce the stress that’s pinning the fault into place and that’s when earthquakes happen,” said study coauthor Heather Savage, a geophysicist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

The amount of wastewater injected into the well was relatively small, yet it triggered a cascading series of tremors that led to the main shock, said study co-author Geoffrey Abers, also a seismologist at Lamont-Doherty. “There’s something important about getting unexpectedly large earthquakes out of small systems that we have discovered here,” he said. The observations mean that “the risk of humans inducing large earthquakes from even small injection activities is probably higher” than previously thought.

Recordings taken by lead author, University of Oklahoma seismologist Katie Keranen, showed that the fault rupture was no more than 650 feet from the active injection wells, and maybe even closer.

The Oklahoma Geological Survey is still continuing their own account of the events, and survey seismologist Austin Holland said the study showed the earthquake sequence could have been triggered by the injections. But, he said, “it is still the opinion of those at the Oklahoma Geological Survey that these earthquakes could be naturally occurring. There remain many open questions, and more scientific investigations are underway on this sequence of earthquakes and many others within the state of Oklahoma.”

Distressingly, the Wilzetta fault remains under stress and regulator’s have yet to suspect injection of water despite the cloud hanging over the recent earthquake. The study’s authors believe that water injection should be kept away from known fault locations, and that companies involved in wastewater injection should be compelled to provide accurate measurements of the amount of water that is being pumped into the ground and at what pressure. They also recommend that sub-surface monitoring of fluid pressure for earthquake warning signs. Further research is needed but at a minimum, “there should be careful monitoring in regions where you have injection wells and protocols for stopping pumping even when small earthquakes are detected,” said Abers.

Read more at http://planetsave.com/2013/03/27/new-study-confirms-water-injection-caused-oklahoma-earthquake/#eAfrgrLUzqt0my4s.99

A new script needed for Labor and the nation

Date
March 28, 2013
Category
Opinion

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Comments 200

Bill Kelty

The ALP must forgo the politics of division and seize the chance to inspire pride in its achievements.

Zoom in on this story. Explore all there is to know.

Martin Ferguson
Labor Party
Hawke
Keating

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Opinion: When unity is king, Labor can’t stop bickering

The politics of the next few months is no longer about the result of the next election. It is about the future of the ALP. Political parties are resilient, can defy the odds and rebuild quickly. However, the essence of that rebuilding begins with a clarity of purpose as to what the party stands for and its point of difference with its competitor.

When the last two warriors of the Hawke/Keating era are sacked or resign you know the situation is serious, very serious. Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson have given their entire lives to the labour movement, have mentored the Prime Minister and have been the banner carriers for loyalty.

The polls tell us that the party is headed for a devastating defeat, the divisions are on show and the accumulated wisdom of John Faulkner, Crean, Kim Carr and Ferguson has been sidelined.
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Politics can be made more difficult than it really is. There are three essential tenets. First, take responsibility; second, reject the ideas that distract, divide and discount the nation; and third, argue to the last breath for the ideas and ideals that make the nation a better place. Honesty will, nearly always, win over duplicity.

The starting point is responsibility. It is too easy to blame the opposition, the media or Kevin Rudd. The latter may have been an irritant, but in the big picture of recent politics he was a mosquito. The government’s problems do not stem from Rudd’s removal but the means and justification for doing it.

The result was that the electorate did not give the ALP the right to govern alone. In the process of forming government, concessions were made that had lasting significance. When a sensible policy of pricing carbon at international levels became a tax, it subverted trust in a government that promised it would not introduce such a tax. When the umbilical cord of trust between the governed and those who govern is broken, it cannot be easily restored.

When the mining tax was touted as a negotiating coup, somebody forgot to tell us about state royalties. These are errors of judgment and explanation.

All that was necessary was for the government to argue that the policies are natural extensions of pre-existing policies – the international pricing of crude oil and the petroleum resources tax. The tax will prove effective, but will have left behind a reputation for incompetence.

The two most recent prime ministers have sought from caucus a special right to select their own ministers, but in both cases, the cabinet process has been allowed to be frittered away. The media reform was moderate, but the process was flawed. A jackboot approach to discussions and timing would not have been permitted if the proper process of cabinet had been followed.

Once responsibility is accepted, the ALP must reject the ideas and processes that have no home in the party. A Labor Party that cultivates division, or taxes superannuation retrospectively, or cannot justify deficits, or makes regional tours presidential visitations, or reinvents class warfare, or steals the rhetoric of Pauline Hanson on migrants, or embraces the Pacific refugee solution of John Howard, or attacks single mothers and narrows its base to a mythical group of blue-collar workers, cannot win an election.

On the other hand, an ALP that demonstrates its commitment to future generations through education, health care, fair wages, superannuation, the environment and protection of the most vulnerable is capable of winning.

We need a new script for the ALP about this nation that begins with the premise that the nation should not be written down or diminished. A country proud of itself, comfortable that it has plotted a different course over past generations and the opportunities it has created.

The government should start with the benefit of strong economic credentials, measured by low unemployment, inflation and interest rates. Living standards have improved in difficult times and the rest of the world sometimes marvels at the model for success created in this country. The debt level by comparison with most other nations is small. We are in this position partly because of collective government and Reserve Bank management that opened the economy and because of the decisive action of the Rudd government on the global financial crisis. We need to win the debate that economic success is not measured by the size of the surplus.

But running a deficit does not imply that governments can in some magical ways find the capacity for free goods. The essential truth of what Crean and Ferguson were arguing is that a society must create wealth before it can be distributed. A productive and adaptive nation knows the vital role of businesses, both large and small, who invest in the country.

It knows that businesses often risk their home and life savings to make those investments. Business is vital, but people are not just economic units. It also knows that there is an essential role of unions in protecting the interests of workers and acting as agents for constructive change. If real wages and superannuation and conditions of work are to be improved, increases in productive capacity will be many times more important than fights over shares of the cake.

From these twin principles – a country writ large and consensus about our capacity to fund improvement in living standards – the ALP has an opportunity to define its priorities and commitments.

A simplified tax system for small business, investments in education, improvements in superannuation and healthcare, the development of an effective infrastructure, investment market, the adoption of the Crean blueprint for regional development (which institutionalises the role of local governments and regional leaders), and the generation of its own environmental credentials will give the party a policy base for the future.

There will be imposts and changes to tax necessary to produce these outcomes. The employees must know that their negotiated wage outcomes will contain superannuation, the minimum wage will contain a component in recognition of superannuation improvement. The Medicare levy may be required to help fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The government should not underestimate the common sense and compassion of the Australian people.

Politics is ultimately a choice between parties. The points of difference based on personality are peripheral and the real differences need to be based on principles.

The Labor Party will need to demonstrate it is the culture and philosophy that counts. In that regard Whitlam, Hawke and Keating have provided the party with a solid foundation. Crean and Ferguson have helped build those foundations.

The task for Julia Gillard is to build on them, not put them at risk.

Bill Kelty was secretary of the ACTU from 1983 until 2000 and a key influence during the Hawke and Keating governments.

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200 comments so far

“The starting point is taking responsibility. It is too easy to blame the opposition, the media or Kevin Rudd”… Exactly! The current Labor government have comprehensively shown what not to do in politics.

Commenter
Jimc
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 6:57AM

Political joke, 2025: What do John Howard and Julia Gillard have in common ? They both kept Labor out of office for 12 years.

Pretty sad that a Labor stalward feels the need to write an article like this.

Commenter
Hacka
Location
Canberra
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 8:19AM

@”Jimc”

There’s nothing to blame the “Slick” Abbott opposition for.

“Stop the boats”, “Stop the carbon tax”, “Stop the fair wages” …. nothing there.

“Slick” Abbott’s policies …. nothing there.

So “Slick’ Abbott and his godlike opposition are blameless and will one day be turning water into wine.

Commenter
J. Fraser
Location
Queensland
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 8:39AM

In fairness guys, Fairfax needs a new script too,

Endlessly telling Labor what to do.

Is it because she’s a woman that she has to be told by men?

Commenter
sarajane
Location
melbourne
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 8:44AM

Political Joke 2013: Julia Gillard….

but seriously folks, as far as the ALP is concerned, the Mayans weren’t too far off.

Commenter
Jimc
Location
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 8:45AM

But she does need a new script.

She has to stop saying the same thing at every turn and at every question.

“My job is to secure Australian jobs for the Australian people and for our great country….”

But please, be honest with yourselves, everyone here needs a new script

(except me …. woo-hoo go GREENS!!)

Commenter
sarajane
Location
melbourne
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 8:54AM

And the boats keep washing up on our shores. Love it or hate it, it’s a stake thru the heart of Labor at our house and september just can’t come soon enough.

Commenter
cape kev
Location
penrith
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 8:57AM

Agreed Jim, and the first agenda item should be acknowledging that the cynical machinations involved in obtaining power in 2010 are not the actions of a party workinjg for the greatest good for the greatest number.
To wilfully defy the electorate and introduce a Carbon Tax to catch the votes of the lunatic fringe was Labor’s 1975 moment, and the fact that so many in the party airily try to wave this away by citing John Howard’s GST turn around as justification suggests that there is no longer any sort instinctive moral compass at play.
As a Labor supporter I’m tired of hearing about “renewal”, and the “grassroots”, to be dished up more of the same,and written off as being a stooge or troll for not slavishly falling into line.
Last week I received a form email of dubious veracity from Labor’s marketing director, trying to whip up support for Julia by citing a story involving an alledged “regular guy”, who rang up head office to reaffirm that Labor is our last and best hope. Not an average bloke – “a regular guy”. And this cringeworthy Americanism from Labor’s Marketing Director!
The only recourse now appears to make myself physically sick by voting for the appalling leader of the opposition, and contribute to an electoral catastrophe that at least offers the chance of obliterating the current leadership and structure, and inaugurating genuine renewal.

Commenter
Bulgaris
Location
Sydney
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 8:59AM

I think Keltys words are wise and represent the beginnings of a blueprint for Labor’ future. He rightly asserts that Labor has had some real achievements-poorly explained, justified defended though they were.
Ignore the LNP boosters: they will always try to downplay and mis-represent Labor’s achievements.

As Kelty asserts, the next election is probably lost already but Labor needs to look to the future and come up with improved internal processes that allow the rank and file member much more say in policy development and pre-selection processes (and not be over-ridden by leaders seeking to “parachute” in some high profile candidate.
Disunity is death: if you cannot present a united front how much confidence will voters have in your ability to govern without distraction?

Commenter
Harry
Location
Churchill
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 9:02AM

Maybe they both think the public are a bit stupid and will fall for Nationalistic slogans.

But guys…. Abbott’s script is even worse.

“I blame this incompetent government…. I blame this incompetent government …”

over and over.

We desperately need a debate about environmental policies. They’re always the hidden ones. And they lead to damage that can never be undone.

Please, as journos, step up to the plate and take on the responsibility of reporting environmental policies/promises.

“oil slick” Abbott says climate change is crap, now where is that going to take us?

He doesn’t just need a new script, he needs a new understanding of reality.

Commenter
sarajane
Location
melbourne
Date and time
March 28, 2013, 9:02AM

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Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/a-new-script-needed-for-labor-and-the-nation-20130327-2gufy.html#ixzz2On9Kmq8s