Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

The Eemian was the warm period before the last ice age. Scientists had never recovered ice that old from Greenland until this past July. I was there to witness some real history. (This trace is from an ice core at Vostok, Antarctica. NOAA)

Back in July I spent 9 days and (at that latitude) no nights at the top of the world.

Scientists from over a dozen nations made history by recovering the oldest ice ever obtained from Greenland. Year after year the snow piles up in Greenland, and as it gets buried and compressed it eventually forms a hard clear ice.

That ice is 2 km thick across most of Greenland. It’s one of three icecaps on Earth. The other two are in Antarctica.

Scientists are drilling cores of ice in all of them and are getting a look at out past climate in a resolution thought impossible a few decades ago. They can see year by year for thousands of years into the past!

NEEM folks take 1 night a week off and open the "ice bar".

The North Greenland Eemian Ice Core project (NEEM) was the first to scan the ice core as it came up for a host of scientific measurements. By counting the oxygen atoms in the ice they can derive the temperature of the planet, when that ice was snow falling from the sky. Most oxygen atoms have 16 neutrons but some have  18 neutrons. The ratio of one to the other is a natural thermometer.

This amazing fact was discovered by Willi Dansgaard from Denmark and the Danes have been leaders in climate research ever since.

I was lucky enough to be the guest of Dr. Jim White. He is the Lead U.S. Scientist at NEEM.  In spite of the difficulties in dealing with one of the harshest environments on Earth, it was an amazing adventure.

Now I can share it with you.

A big thank you to Dave Jones at Storm Center Comm. for arranging it and to David Wood the best photojournalist in Alabama for turning my shaky camera work into TV.

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Here are some out takes you may enjoy

Some more from the scientists at NEEM in the next post.

Dan

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.

From the National Snow and Ice Data Center

The melt season is just about over North of 60 and the NSIDC announced today that the surface ice  coverage is now the second lowest on record.

Keep in mind that the more important figure to watch is the overall volume of sea ice. Those numbers continue to show a precipitous decline…

Welcome to the new normal…

UPDATE:

The ice drop has accelerated over the past two days. Mark Serreze of the Snow Ice Data Center in Colorado has a quote in the Vancouver Sun that is worth an update to this post:

later,

Dan