Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

Pressure pattern at around 18,000 feet (in colour bands) and at the surface (in black lines) for today. The the big high pressure ridge over the East is clearly visible.

For those of you in the Midwestern and Southern parts of America you are likely wondering what the heck happened to fall! Temperatures here in Huntsville in Alabama are running 15 degrees above normal in the afternoon!

This heat wave actually stretches from Oklahoma all the way into Illinois, into Virginia and deep into Old Dixie. It’s really the same heat wave that existed June through August and brought many cities the hottest summer on record.

Same Old Heat Wave

The only difference now is that the days are over an hour shorter and the sun is not as high in the sky. So instead of 106° we see 96°F. Instead of a dew point of 77° we are getting some drier air lingering behind the very weak cool fronts that have managed to break through the upper level ridge. The dew point her ein Huntsville  now is 59°F.

By early next week the pattern changes dramatically with a trough in the east. This means much cooler air and even some desperately needed rain. (Courtesy Unisys weather ECM Model.)

Good news is coming.

The long range numerical weather models are all signaling a pattern change to cooler weather starting this weekend. The strong upper level (heat) ridge will shift to the West and allow the Pacific NW to dry out and see some sun. The East will finally feel some real fall weather.

Right On cue

Click image to read the NRDC report on summer temp. records. Some amazing numbers here.

Meteorological Autumn began back on September first, but most people still use the equinox to denote fall. That occurs at 3:09 GMT Thursday morning. That’s 10:09 PM Wednesday evening (Central U.S. summer time.)

The NRDC has compiled some incredible statistics of the summer heat that are worth taking a look at. You cannot blame any one event or even a brutally hot summer on climate change, but this past summer had some very suspicious patterns to the heat. Patterns that are exactly what you would expect as a result of increasing greenhouse gases.

You can certainly rule out the sun. It has been unusually quiet (see the previous post). You can also rule out  El Nino, since the La Nina has been rapidly developing and this acts to cool the planet.

Red dots are areas with warmer than normal temps. Blue dots are colder than the average from 1971-2000.

August 2010 was the third warmest on record worldwide.

1998 and 2009 are at the top.

The January through August temperatures are still running at the hottest levels ever recorded. If it stays as warm as it ha sbeen, then 2010 will go down as the hottest year ever recorded. If it does, it will be espcially noteworthy because of the developing La Nina in the Pacific.

1998 is the hottest year on record. It was helped by a massive El Nino that year. El Nino’s warm the planet because there is so much warm water in the Pacific. La Nina’s are in some ways the opposite. Colder waters across the Tropical Pacific tend to make a record high year unlikely.

A moderate La Nina is now developing. IF 2010 does indeed turn out to be the warmest, it will be a stunning signal from Mother Nature that greenhouse gases are truly becoming the major player in our climate.

Me on the ice runway at NEEM in Northern Greenland.

I love ice and snow and I have had a lifetime’s dose of it this year. January saw me set foot at the South Pole and in late July, I found myself at the top of the world. Antarctica was thanks to the National Science Foundation. Greenland was thanks to Dave Jones at Storm Center Communications.

Some of the most critical and urgent science in the world right now is the connected with obtaining ancient cores of ice at the top and bottom of the world. Thanks to Dave (President of Storm Center), I was asked to be part of a three person team that spent 9 days at the NEEM ice core drill site.

We were the guests of lead U.S. scientist James White at the Univ. of Colorado and Danish Scientists J.P.  Steffensen and  Dorthe Dahl-Jensen.

J.P. and Dorthe are the amazing field leaders at NEEM. To Dave, Jim, J.P. and Dorthe, a sincere thank you from the heart for an amazing science adventure.

Now, let me share it with you! Here is part one. Music by Holst courtesy of incompetech.com.

Lee Hotz at the South Pole. Dan's photo

My trip to Antarctica last January was an amazing adventure but not just for what I saw and experienced. The people I met and those selected to go like I was made it unforgettable.

One of those people was Lee Hotz of the wall Street Journal. He has been a science journalist for many years. This was not his first trip to the ice, but it would be his first trip the ice core drilling site called WAIS Divide.

Lee is a fountain of knowledge and careful reasoned thought. I always looked for him at meal time, and enjoyed hearing his thoughts on everything from history to science. I am envious beyond any shade of green at his writing ability.

We were both scheduled to go to WAIS Divide after our trip to the Pole but the weather turned bad and it was cancelled. This is not only a common circumstance in Antarctica but an almost expected one. Lee had traveled all the way just for the trip to to WAIS and he stayed on a few days and finally got there.

We Both Lucked Out

I lucked out a few months later by getting to go o the other ice core drill site. This one at the top of the world in Northern Greenland. I spent 9 days there and am busy preparing presentations for TV and the web on what I saw at NEEM.

You can get a good idea of why it’s important from Lee in a recent TED talk at Oxford. I can assure you his deep voice and writing skills will far surpass mine.

Glaciologist Jim White at NEEM in Greenland. He's the director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the Univ. of Colorado.

Data from the Univ. of Illinois shows the NW Passage is now mainly clear of ice.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters has a lot more about it, but the NW Passage is now mainly free of ice and is navigable. You can see a cool 30 day animation of the melt here. It looks like the NE Passage from Europe to Alaska is almost free as well. Masters says this is the 4th consecutive year that the passage has opened. It’s also the 4th time in recorded history.

The sea ice will continue to melt for a couple of more weeks but the big freeze is already starting above 80 degrees. There were already signs of summer’s end when I was in Greenland three weeks ago.

The real story is not so much the amount of ice on the surface but the overall volume of the ice. This too is dropping very rapidly.  Look at the graphic below from the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington.

Dr. Masters has an excellent detailed writeup on this with a commentary that is spot on.

The surface sea ice melt will not reach a new record this year but it will be close.

The great melt off at the top of the World continues.

Predictions made 20 years ago by Hansen and others that climate change would show up first and most strongly in the Arctic have certainly been proven true…