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[ click on image to enlarge ] On April 22nd, 2018, Arctic sea ice extent was only 13.552 million km², a record low for the time of year. In 1987, by comparison, sea ice extent wasn't below 13.574 million km² even on May 22nd. Meanwhile, CO₂ (carbon dioxide) levels are rising. The image on the right shows that Mauna Loa's CO₂ hourly average level was above 413 ppm recently. The daily average CO₂ level reached 412.37 ppm on April 23, 2018. Fires are raging near the Amur River in East Siberia, with associated high emissions, as illustrated by the images below. Above image shows CO₂ levels reaching as high as 973 ppm on April 18, 2018. As the image below shows, carbon monoxide levels at that spot were as high as 43,240 ppb on April 18, 2018. The NASA satellite image below shows smoke plumes of the fires and burn scars on April 19, 2018. Stuart Scott has produced two new videos in which he interviews Professor Peter Wadhams, A Conversation with Dr. Peter Wadhams - Part 1 and the v...

Parallels between methane explosions in the Yamal and on Mars – by Dr. David Page The Author in the field Hello, I'm Dr. David Page, a terrestrial geologist researching the rocky planets of the inner Solar System. My area of interest for 15 out of the last 25 years has been twofold – specifically, the geological history of the low-lying plains of the martian equator, and methodologically, how study of the stratigraphical architecture of planetary surfaces allows robust, three-dimensional inferences to be drawn from two-dimensional image data. That is, how to do real geology beyond Earth in a field ordinarily characterised by the geomorphic interpretations of the physical scientists who dominate planetary geology. My terrestrial interest has long been palaeoenvironmental – what the rock record can tell us about past environments and climates. The Lyellian notion of Uniformity, that 'the Present is the key to the Past', is needlessly contrasted with catastrophism in planetary...

[ click on images to enlarge ] On April 11, 2018, Arctic sea ice extent was only 13.9 million km². Arctic sea ice extent has been at a record low for the time of year for most of 2018, as illustrated by above image. In 2012, extent went below 3.4 million km². The question is what minimum 2018 extent will be. Arctic sea ice could disappear altogether in 2018. Have a look at the progressive loss of sea ice volume depicted in the image on the right, from an earlier post . Zero sea ice volume by 2018 is within the margins of the trend line contained in the data going back to 1979. What drives volume decline is the combination of extent loss and especially thickness loss. Sea ice thickness has declined particularly where the ice once was at its thickest, i.e. north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The combination image below shows the decline of the thicker sea ice, by comparing sea ice thickness on April 15 (run April 14) for the years 2015 through to 2018, showing tha...

The IPCC appears to be strongly downplaying the amount of global warming that has already occurred and that looks set to eventuate over the next decade or so, according to a leaked draft of the IPCC 'Special Report on 1.5°C above pre-industrial'. The 'First Order Draft of the Summary for Policy Makers' estimates that the global mean temperature reached approximately 1°C above pre-industrial levels around 2017/2018 . Let's go over the numbers step by step, by following the image below line by line (click on the image to enlarge it). NASA's data for the two most recent years for which data are available (2016/2017) show a warming of 0.95°C when using a baseline of 1951-1980 and a warming of 1.23°C when using a baseline of 1890-1910 (left map on image below). In other words, using this earlier baseline results in an additional 0.28°C rise. When using an even earlier baseline, i.e. 1750 or preindustrial, it could be 1.53°C warmer, as discussed in an earlier post . I...