Weather and Climate Summit - Day 5, Jennifer Francis

SESSION 9: Jennifer Francis, Rutgers University
Topic: The Arctic Paradox

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[Jim Bishop]

You spend much time in the Arctic. What you have written is nonsense, and dangerous because it might be believed by others. The Arctic is warming much more rapidly than the lower latitudes. All one need do is consult this resource for documentation; The National Snow And Ice Data Center. Having spent many years, and thousands of hours, flying the Arctic I can tell from personal experience that the Arctic is melting very quickly. During the summer, the sun is very high and hot in the Arctic.

[asflis]

First go take a look if the temperature is actually rising or not, and then come back.

[AGWUK]

Yes, I've seen this argument elsewhere. What it doesn't address is the fact that the ice is melting - the trend is clear and unarguable. The second point is that there may be more heat leaving the open water but that heat has come from somewhere. If it's 'balancing the climate' then why is the planet still warming? We've been through a period of quieter solar activity and we're into the cooler phase of the PDO yet global temperatures are still heading up.

So, where's this mythical balance?

[Jan Galkowski]

@Kärkkäinen: Albedo is not as simple as you suggest, since it depends upon the kind of illumination as well as angle. Low angle illumination has a bigger diffuse component, and diffuse light albedo is much lower than direct rays. Details are available in Gogley, 1979, American Meteorological Society, 775-781.

The large scale energy budget of Arctic has been worked out. See Serreze, et al, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, D11122, doi:10.1029/2006JD008230, 2007

[Chris Taylor]

Great work Jennifer. Keep it up.

[Lasse Kärkkäinen]

The albedo effect also might not be as great as is often claimed because the angle of inclination of the sunlight that reaches the poles is very low so that much of the light is reflected off the ocean rather than absorbed.

When the ice cover gets smaller, exposing more open sea water, the thermal radiation into space is also increased, cooling the Earth and thus balancing the climate. Contrary to the absorption of sunlight, this outgoing radiation occurs around the year 24 hours a day.

[eddiequest4]

It seems QuantCoder will never understand that if WE don't do SOMETHING about it, nature WILL.

[Jan Galkowski]

Geoengineering is itself dangerous, with our ignorance of details of the climate system, and of some of the life cycle C budgets of building new technologies, esp. if incentized by things like tax credits. Carbon sequestration is tricky, since carbon needs to be stored for 2000 yrs, & b/c chain of production needs to produce far less CO2 than being sequestered. Also judging by proposals for geoeng made thusfar (aerosols, SST reduction to prevent hurricanes, iron seeding) show physical naivete.

[eddiequest4]

How likely would you suppose it is that we will stop burning FF NOW? Personally, I would not mind destroying every coal fired plant in this country. But I'm old enough to know that big business rules the world. And the quickest way to get a handle on the damage they caused, is geoengineering. It will be for the young to do the tougher task of getting rid of the dirty air makers.

[Jan Galkowski]

Yes, sure: Get sustainable. Stop greenhouse gases NOW. And if the repercussions of what we've done already are unacceptable, THEN we'll talk. If you propose this, all that will happen is the illusion that a technological solution can fix it, and we can continue business as usual.