Beavers are taking over the Alaskan tundra, completely transforming its waterways, and accelerating climate change in the Arctic.
The changes are so sudden and drastic that they’re clearly visible from space.
As the Arctic tundra warms, woody plants are growing along its rivers and streams, creating perfect habitats for beavers.
As the furry rodents move into these waterways, they make themselves at home by doing what they do best: chewing and carrying wood to build dams, and clogging rapid rivers and streams to make lush ponds.
What was once a thin line of water cutting across the tundra has become a train of bulbous beaver ponds:
“There’s not even a lot of other animals that leave a footprint you can see from space,” Ken Tape, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told Insider.
“There is one, and they’re called humans. The funny thing is that humans could not get a permit to do what beavers are now doing in this state.”
This swimming, furry rodent’s invasion of the North American tundra is a mixed bag. The beaver ponds create lush oases that could increase biodiversity, but they also play a role in accelerating the climate crisis.
11,000 new beaver ponds
Tape and his colleagues assessed aerial photos from the early 1950s and found no signs of beaver presence in Alaska’s Arctic tundra. The first signs of beavers appeared in 1980 imagery. In satellite imagery from the 2000s and 2010s, the beaver ponds doubled.
Arctic sea ice extent was 10.31 million km² on December 4, 2022. At this time of year, extent was smaller only in two years, i.e. in 2016 and 2020, both strong El Niño years. With the next El Niño, Arctic sea ice extent looks set to reach record lows.
The NOAA image on the right indicates that, while we’re still in the depths of a persistent La Niña, the next El Niño looks set to strike soon.
The image below shows high sea surface temperature anomalies near the Bering Strait on December 2, 2022, with a “hot blob” in the North Pacific Ocean where sea surface temperature anomalies are reaching as high as 7°C or 12.6°F from 1981-2011. The Jet Stream is stretched out vertically from pole to pole, enabling hot air to enter the Arctic from the Pacific Ocean and from the Atlantic Ocean.
The image below shows a forecast for December 5, 2022, of 2m temperature anomalies versus 1979-2000, with anomalies over parts of the Arctic Ocean near the top end of the scale.
On December 6, 2022, the Arctic was 6.63°C or 11.93°F warmer compared to 1979-2000, as illustrated by the image below.
The image below shows the daily average Arctic air temperature (2m) from 1979 up to December 6, 2022.
Given that we’re still in the depth of a persistent La Niña, these currently very high air temperature anomalies indicate that ocean temperatures are very high and that ocean heat is heating up the air over the Arctic.
Additionally, ocean heat is melting the sea ice from below.
Accordingly, Arctic sea ice has barely increased in thickness over the past 30 days, as illustrated by the navy.mil animation on the right.
This leaves only a very short time for Arctic sea ice to grow back in thickness before the melting season starts again, which means that there will be little or no latent heat buffer to consume heat when the melting season starts.
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“Changes will happen decades earlier than previously thought.”
Now where have we heard that before?
“More rain than snow will fall in the Arctic and this transition will occur decades earlier than previously predicted, a new study led by the University of Manitoba (UM) and co-authored by scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at CU Boulder reports.”
“There are huge ramifications of these changes,” said the lead researcher, “all of which have implications on wildlife populations and human livelihoods.”
“There are huge ramifications of these changes, which we note in the paper, such as a reduction of snow cover, increased permafrost melt, more rain-on-snow events, and greater flooding events from increased river discharge, all of which have implications on wildlife populations and human livelihoods,” says lead researcher Michelle McCrystall, a postdoctoral fellow in UM’s Centre for Earth Observation Science in the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources. Rainfall in Arctic Will Soon Be More Common Than Snowfall – Decades Earlier Than Thought
“The Arctic is iconic for maintaining year-round ice and snow, but in the last decade, it has begun to transition to wetlands and open ocean. Emblematic of this change, in July 2020, the last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic fell into the sea. Since first analyzed in 1902, the Milne ice sheet already lost 43 percent of its previous mass. Canada’s Ellesmere Island ice caps were also lost in the summer of 2020, as the ice deposited during the Little Ice Age (1600 to 1850) melted completely…
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“The Arctic is iconic for maintaining year-round ice and snow, but in the last decade, it has begun to transition to wetlands and open ocean. Emblematic of this change, in July 2020, the last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic fell into the sea. Since first analyzed in 1902, the Milne ice sheet already lost 43 percent of its previous mass. Canada’s Ellesmere Island ice caps were also lost in the summer of 2020, as the ice deposited during the Little Ice Age (1600 to 1850) melted completely. Glacier melt, thawing permafrost and wetland expansion create a new landscape, changing ecosystems as well as altering the global atmosphere and ocean circulation.”
“The term “tipping point” is often applied to a moment of critical change in human history. In ecology, tipping points describe small changes that, over time, force an irreversible change. Yearly lows of sea ice and a startling increase in permafrost thaw in a warming climate signal that the tipping point has already been crossed. We have already lost the frozen Arctic.” Small tipping points expand through ecosystems
“As ice and snow are lost, the warming climate makes it difficult to recover. Sea ice that is only a few months old covers gaps in the Arctic Ocean, with yearly loss of old ice greater than the annual gain. In 2019, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that just 1 percent of the Arctic Ocean ice older than four years old remained. A warming atmosphere and sea prevent ice growth, leading to an ice-free Arctic Ocean.” Climate tipping points: The Arctic is a bellwether for irreversible change
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Russia’s FM called for military meetings between Arctic states
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced concern over the uptick in US and NATO military activity in the Arctic. The comments were made in a speech at a meeting of the Arctic Council in Reykjavik, Iceland.
“We are concerned about what is going on close to our border with Norway,” Lavrov said. The US has been putting more focus on military cooperation with Norway as part of its strategy to confront Russia in the Arctic. Earlier this year, the US deployed long-range bombers to Norway for the first time.
Next year, Norway will host US and NATO forces for military exercises that will involve about 40,000 troops, which the head of Norway’s military said will be “the largest military exercise inside the Arctic Circle in Norway since the 1980s.”
The Arctic Council currently does not deal with military issues, something Lavrov said should change. “It is important to extend the positive relations that we have within the Arctic Council to encompass the military sphere as well,” he said.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of making “unlawful” claims in the Arctic, something he said the US will “respond to.” Blinken also warned against increased military activity in the region, but it’s clear that the US and NATO are set on militarizing the Arctic.
On Wednesday, Blinken met with Lavrov on the sidelines of the Arctic Council meeting, marking the first high-level in-person meeting between US and Russian officials of the Biden administration. While tensions are high between the two countries due to Biden’s hostile policies, Lavrov was cautiously optimistic and described the talk with Blinken as “constructive.”
The U.S. is preparing for war in the Arctic, and the “boiling point” might not be far away, Brian Cloughley writes.
On April 8 the front pages of the main U.S. newspapers noted that President Biden was “open to compromise” and a quick glance prompted optimism that Uncle Joe might be seeing some sense about international developments. He said that “Debate is welcome. Compromise is inevitable. Changes are certain,” which is a deep and important statement that would be immensely heartening if it referred to U.S. relations with China and Russia.
Alas, his words referred to purely domestic affairs, in that the White House was preparing to compromise with the blinkered Republican Party which is intent on defending business interests — and especially those concerned with weapons’ production — at the expense of the average citizen. Joe declared that he is “sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced,” which is an understandable point of view. But the way he’s heading in foreign policy means that these ordinary people, and everyone else in the U.S. and all round the world, may well be conned, and possibly terminally. They are facing ever-increasing danger of being destroyed, because Joe is backing the sabre-brandishers in their encouragement of confrontation and provocation that could well lead to major war.
Make no mistake : there is going to be no such thing as “limited” war if the U.S.-Nato military alliance continues to goad and antagonise Russia and China. If there is a clash of military forces there will be escalation, and the ensuing conflict will inevitably heighten the risk of nuclear exchanges which would destroy the planet.
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Technology is keeping patches of Alaska permafrost frozen to preserve energy infrastructure even as indigenous residents’ world is transformed by the climate crisis
The oil company ConocoPhillips had a problem.
It wanted to pump 160,000 more barrels of oil each day from a new project on Alaska’s North Slope. But the fossil fuels it and others produce are leading to global heating, and the Arctic is melting. The firm’s drilling infrastructure could be at risk atop thawing and unstable permafrost.
The oil development that is fueling climate change continues to expand in the far north, with companies moving into new areas even as they are paying for special measures to protect equipment from the dangers of thawing permafrost and increasing rainfall – both expected outcomes as Arctic temperatures rise three times as fastas those elsewhere.
Countries from Norway to Russia are advancing new Arctic oil developments. But under Donald Trump’s administration, Alaska has emerged as a hotbed of Arctic oil extraction, with big projects moving forward and millions of acres proposed to be opened to leasing.
The administration recently finalized its plan to open a piece of the Arctic national wildlife refuge to the oil industry. And drilling is expanding at an Indiana-sized region next door: the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, which, despite its name, also contains treasured subsistence areas for locals.
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Image Source: Hunter Allen and Richard Rivera – Public Domain
Arctic temperatures are soaring to new records… and staying there, ever since May of this year. Truth be known, the Arctic’s been heating up for years. Siberia recently hit 105°F. That’s not normal. It’s 30°F hotter than normal.
Farther south, the Amazon rainforest is hit with a drought every 5 years like clockwork, not regular run of the mill droughts but massive excessive devastating droughts. NASA’s GRACE satellite, measuring water levels stored deep beneath Earth’s surface showed Deep Red Zones beneath the Amazon rainforest, not watery blue.
Climate activists have been warning about overheating of the planet for decades, ever since Dr. James Hansen’s testimony before the Senate in 1987: “The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.” (Hansen)
Fast forward to June 2020: Since Hansen’s testimony, thirty-three years of climate activists bitching, protesting, kicking and screaming and bellyaching about excessive human-generated CO2 has gone nowhere but backward as a relentless rise in CO2 emissions trudges ahead measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii.
Post-Hansen’s testimony the annual rate of CO2 increase has more than doubled, not gone down but doubled. Up, up and away, year-over-year, it never goes down. It’s the main culprit blanketing the atmosphere, retaining heat for hundreds of years and fast becoming the Big Oven in the Sky.
Clearly, too much heat has already overwhelmed the Arctic and Amazon rainforest ecosystems. Along the way, greenie frustration is finally coming to a head as environmentalists “catfight” in open public.
For example, Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs’ controversial film Planet of the Humans (Rumble Media) serves as an opening salvo, exposing a green movement that has turned a light shade of brown. The film paints a painful picture of a movement that, in certain instances, has gone off the rails.
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When I first met Michael Klare in the late Neolithic age (it was actually the early 1970s), he was already researching the U.S. military in a way no one else was doing. His first book on the subject, War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams, had just been published. The title remains eerily apt, given Washington’s twenty-first-century “forever wars.” Almost 50 years later, he’s still ahead of the curve and his newest book on that military, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, has only recently come out.
And he hasn’t stopped yet, as you’ll see in today’s piece on a new nuclear flashpoint for the U.S. and Russia: the melting Arctic. It’s the sort of thing that, in another world, would be headline news. Still, his latest piece saddens me for personal reasons. When Klare and I first met, the Cold War with the other superpower of that moment, the Soviet Union, was still in high gear; the Vietnam War had yet to end; and the Cuban Missile Crisis (the one time in my life when I truly felt like “ducking and covering”) was only a decade past. In other words, the possibility of a global conflagration that might end life as we know it on this planet still seemed all too possible. As late as the early 1980s, in the age of Ronald Reagan, I would find myself on the streets of New York City with my family, marching in the company of Hibakusha — survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing — and perhaps a million other protestors, part of a global antinuclear movement calling for disarmament and protesting the possibility of an annihilating war. That seemed a moment of fear but also of hope when it came to the nuclear issue.
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Despite climate concerns and environmentalist backlash against exploration for oil and gas in pristine sensitive regions of the Arctic, companies continue to explore for hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic Circle, in Russia and Norway in particular.
The largest Russian energy companies are looking to explore more Arctic oil and gas resources on and offshore Russia, while Norwegian and other Western oil firms are digging exploration wells in Norway’s Barents Sea.
Those companies lead the development efforts to tap more Arctic oil and gas resources as legacy oil and gas fields both offshore Norway and onshore Russia mature.
Russia’s biggest energy firms Gazprom, Rosneft, Novatek, and Lukoil, and Norway’s oil and gas giant Equinor, as well as Aker BP and ConocoPhillips, are the top oil and gas producers in the Artic region, data and analytics company GlobalData said in a new report. Gazprom is the undisputed leader in Arctic oil and gas production, followed, at a long distance, by two other Russian firms, Rosneft and Novatek, GlobalData’s estimates show.
Russian firms are ramping up exploration in Russia’s Arctic, while Equinor and other Western companies drill exploration wells in Norway’s Barents Sea, hoping for a significant discovery that could add to the Johan Castberg oilfield—a massive discovery which was made in 2011, but which hasn’t been replicated in the Barents Sea so far.
Yet, both Russia and Norway face specific challenges in getting the most out of their respective Arctic oil and gas resources.
In Russia, the government has made Arctic oil and gas development a key priority and offers tax breaks for firms exploring in the area.
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On September 14, we reported that the world’s first ever floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, reached the port city of Pevek in Russia’s Chukotka after covering a distance of more than 4,700km from Murmansk.
Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant has two KLT-40S reactor units that collectively generate 70 MW of energy.
A year ago we noted video of the beginning of the ships’ voyage (from St.Petersburg to Murmansk)
A floating nuclear power plant made by Russia headed out for its first sea voyage on Saturday. The floating plant, the academic lomonosov will provide power for a port town and for oil rigs.
And now, as The Barents Observer reports that at 11 am Moscow Times on December 19th, the “Akademik Lomonosov” delivered its first electricity to the grid in Pevek, Arctic Russia.
As Thomas Nilsen reports, symbolically, given the season, the town’s Christmas tree was first to be lighted with electricity produced by the two reactors on board the plant that is moored in the port.
Additional to the town of Pevek, the grid includes the Chaun-Bilibino junction in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Rosatom informs.
“Today a historic event occurred, the first connection of the “generators of “Akademik Lomonosov” floating nuclear heat- and electricity nuclear power plant were connected to the grid,” Rosenergoatom Director General Andrey Petrov said.
He said Pevek is now the new energy capital of the region, “a stronghold for the development of western Chukotka and a key link for the Northern Sea Route.”
As we concluded previously, the launch of the first ever floating nuclear power plant has become an important engineering breakthrough that will impact the energy sphere on a global scale. This technology, which could potentially provide safe and clean energy to a large part of the planet, could also be provided at an attractive price.
The US Navy and Marine Corps are conducting a month-long war exercise in Alaska against the rising threats of Russia and China in the Arctic region.
A massive threat to the US is that Russia and China are trying to establish the Belt and Road Initiative in the Arctic, by developing new shipping lanes that are now more accessible thanks to global warming.
The US must continue to show force in the Arctic and not allow Russia and China from establishing the “Polar Silk Road.”
More than 3,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel will participate in the exercise, along with dozens of vessels, helicopters, planes, and land-based vehicles.
AECE will allow both services to jointly participate in the “logistical transfer capabilities in the Arctic environment, including wet logistics over the shore, expeditionary mine countermeasures, mobile diving and salvage, and an offshore petroleum discharge system,” said a press release from the US 3rd Fleet Public Affairs.
Navy and Marine Corps participants will conduct Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) to stimulate an emerging threat near the Aleutian Islands and Southern California. The exercise places emphasis on fighting for and gaining sea control around a heavily contested area in the Arctic.
The exercise will include surveillance, mine-clearing, and support for landing operations.
According to the press release, participating units include “U.S. Pacific Fleet, Marine Corps Forces Pacific, U.S. 3rd Fleet, Expeditionary Strike Group Three (ESG-3), and I Marine Expeditionary Force. Afloat units include USS Somerset (LPD 25) and USS Comstock (LSD 45). Ashore units include Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group One, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Expeditionary Support Unit One, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit One, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Three, and Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One.”
Navy and Marine Corps participants will conduct Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) to stimulate an emerging threat near the Aleutian Islands and Southern California. The exercise places emphasis on fighting for and gaining sea control around a heavily contested area in the Arctic.
The exercise will include surveillance, mine-clearing, and support for landing operations.
According to the press release, participating units include “U.S. Pacific Fleet, Marine Corps Forces Pacific, U.S. 3rd Fleet, Expeditionary Strike Group Three (ESG-3), and I Marine Expeditionary Force. Afloat units include USS Somerset (LPD 25) and USS Comstock (LSD 45). Ashore units include Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group One, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Expeditionary Support Unit One, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit One, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Three, and Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One.”
At the moment, the Arctic will not become a platform for cooperation between the US and Russia and China, but rather a region of hostility and militarization.
A new study has revealed that high levels of microplastics have been detected in some of the most remote regions of the world.
The discovery, published in the journal Science Advances, is the first international study on microplastics in snow, conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
Melanie Bergmann, the lead scientist, and her team of researchers found microplastics from the Alps to the Arctic contained high levels of the plastic fragment, raises questions about the environmental and health implications of potential exposure to airborne plastics.
Watch: Farmers create natural straw intend to break plastic’s back
“I was really astonished concerning the high concentrations,” said co-author Gunnar Gerdts, a marine microbiologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute.
Bergmann explains that microplastics come from industrial economies where rubber and paints are used. The tiny fragments end up in the sea, where they’re broken down by waves and ultraviolet radiation, before absorbing into the atmosphere. From there, the plastic particles are captured from the air during cloud development, can drift across the Earth via jet streams. At some point, the particles act as a nucleus around supercooled droplets can condense, and travel to Earth as snow.
“Although there is a huge surge of research into the environmental impact of plastics, there is still so much that we do not know,” said Bergmann.
Bergmann noted how the scientific community was only in its infancy of examining the process of how microplastics get sucked up into the atmosphere then scattered around the world in some form of precipitation. She said, there’s an “urgent need for research on human and animal health effects focusing on airborne microplastics.”
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Numerous wildfires have been ravaging the Arctic for weeks following the hottest June ever recorded on Earth. Now, the fires are so huge and intense, the smoke can literally be seen from space.
As RT reports, satellite images show more than 100 long-lived wildfires with huge plumes of swirling black smoke covering most of the Arctic Circle including parts of Russia, Siberia, Greenland and Alaska.
#TheNewNormal? Smoke vortex caused by the #Siberia#wildfires A rough order of magnitude estimate puts the smoke-covered area at a mind boggling 2 million (yes million) square kilometres#Sentinel3 acquired today 24 July
The wildfires have now reached “unprecedented levels,”according to Mark Parrington of the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service, who said the smoke vortex is covering a “mind boggling” two million square kilometers.
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In what seemed like an episode of the Norwegian television drama Occupied, Norway’s largest political party joined smaller ones in the nation’s parliament to prevent oil exploration in the scenic Lofoten archipelago. The Labor Party’s environmental wing made climate change and scenic beauty big issues.
Unlike another contentious oil resource, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, these islands get around 1 million visitors each year. That implies that many Norwegians have actually seen the islands.
In the history of oil-rich nations, Norwegians have followed an unorthodox path. While most such nations have chosen to subsidize domestic prices of petroleum products or at least keep them cheap by policy, Norway has taxed consumption of oil and oil products as if the country were an importer trying to economize on petroleum use.
A recent Bloomberg survey showed that the average price of a gallon of gas worldwide was $3.48. The range was 1 cent in Venezuela to $7.61 in Hong Kong. Norway ranked second highest at $6.89.
Even more strange is that Norway has become a leading market for all-electric cars. About one-third of all new cars sold in the country last year were all-electric. Of course, Norway has very large hydroelectric resources, resources which produced 93.6 percent of the country’s electricity in February 2019, the most recent month for which data is available. But these copious hydropower resources have long been available and didn’t prevent the country from becoming dependent on petroleum-fueled transportation just like the rest of the world.
Norway also made a fateful and propitious decision shortly after the discovery of its oil and natural gas riches in the North Sea. The country decided to invest much of the tax revenue derived from oil and gas in a sovereign wealth fund to be managed on behalf of the Norwegian people for use by future generations.
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