Thank you for the post, Rick. My understanding is that the Arctic is warming 4x faster than the global average. Is this correct? Seems like the 13th warmest spring since 1950, is cold comfort. Sorry for the pun. Permafrost melt has been happening for a number of years now. Is the Arctic still a net absorber of GHGs, or now an emitter?
The 2022 paper by Mika Rantanen and company demonstrated that the rate of warming in the Arctic is sensitive to how you define the Arctic and over what time window the rate is calculated. By varying the southern latitude and time window you get changes of 3 to 5 times the global average. One of my first Substack posts in 2022 was about this: https://alaskaclimate.substack.com/p/how-much-has-the-arctic-warmed
The deep cold permafrost on North America and at least part of Arctic Russian has been warming since the 1980s (near the start of systematic measurements), and it seems clear in the Alaska mainland south of the Brooks Range more and more areas of permafrost are thawing completely, with significant environmental and human impacts. Along the southern edge it's also clear that this has been going on for a long time, e.g. Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska, where only remnant permafrost remains but the landscape shows tell-tale signs (e.g. old, now filling in with vegetation thaw ponds) of more widespread permafrost, say, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Whether the Arctic has transitioned to a net emitter of GHG is important but highly uncertain due to very large uncertainties in most of the parameters. The April 2024 by Justine Ramage and company ("The Net GHG Balance and Budget of the Permafrost Region (2000–2020) From Ecosystem Flux Upscaling") suggests to me that it's likely but by no means certain that Arctic has transitioned. But realistically, if it's not now it will be soon.
Thank you, Rick. That aligns with my understanding. As a lay person trying to communicate our predicament for the last three years, I feel a great responsibility to get the facts right. I feel, as a writer, I have value in bridging the gap between science and the public, informing in a way that hopefully resonates and educates. I depend on people like you with the training and expertise who are monitoring our world and appreciate your knowledge.
Thank you for the post, Rick. My understanding is that the Arctic is warming 4x faster than the global average. Is this correct? Seems like the 13th warmest spring since 1950, is cold comfort. Sorry for the pun. Permafrost melt has been happening for a number of years now. Is the Arctic still a net absorber of GHGs, or now an emitter?
The 2022 paper by Mika Rantanen and company demonstrated that the rate of warming in the Arctic is sensitive to how you define the Arctic and over what time window the rate is calculated. By varying the southern latitude and time window you get changes of 3 to 5 times the global average. One of my first Substack posts in 2022 was about this: https://alaskaclimate.substack.com/p/how-much-has-the-arctic-warmed
The deep cold permafrost on North America and at least part of Arctic Russian has been warming since the 1980s (near the start of systematic measurements), and it seems clear in the Alaska mainland south of the Brooks Range more and more areas of permafrost are thawing completely, with significant environmental and human impacts. Along the southern edge it's also clear that this has been going on for a long time, e.g. Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska, where only remnant permafrost remains but the landscape shows tell-tale signs (e.g. old, now filling in with vegetation thaw ponds) of more widespread permafrost, say, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Whether the Arctic has transitioned to a net emitter of GHG is important but highly uncertain due to very large uncertainties in most of the parameters. The April 2024 by Justine Ramage and company ("The Net GHG Balance and Budget of the Permafrost Region (2000–2020) From Ecosystem Flux Upscaling") suggests to me that it's likely but by no means certain that Arctic has transitioned. But realistically, if it's not now it will be soon.
Thank you, Rick. That aligns with my understanding. As a lay person trying to communicate our predicament for the last three years, I feel a great responsibility to get the facts right. I feel, as a writer, I have value in bridging the gap between science and the public, informing in a way that hopefully resonates and educates. I depend on people like you with the training and expertise who are monitoring our world and appreciate your knowledge.