{"id":22360,"date":"2016-12-27T17:07:32","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T22:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22360"},"modified":"2016-12-27T17:07:32","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T22:07:32","slug":"yes-the-arctics-freakishly-warm-winter-is-due-to-humans-climate-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22360","title":{"rendered":"Yes, the Arctic&#8217;s Freakishly Warm Winter is Due to Humans&#8217; Climate Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2016\/12\/21\/yes-arctic-s-freakishly-warm-winter-due-humans-climate-influence\">Yes, the Arctic&#8217;s Freakishly Warm Winter is Due to Humans&#8217; Climate Influence<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-11312 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<header>\n<p class=\"submitted desktop-only\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/Iceberg_in_the_Arctic_with_its_underside_exposed.jpg?itok=w9zHnUil\" alt=\"Iceberg\" width=\"826\" height=\"465\" \/><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"horizontal-social-bar horizontal-social-bar-top clearfix\">\n<div class=\"horizontal-share-left\">For the Arctic,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/2016-is-likely-to-be-the-worlds-hottest-year-heres-why-59378\" target=\"_blank\">like the globe as a whole<\/a>, 2016 has been exceptionally warm. For much of the year, Arctic temperatures have been much higher than normal, and sea ice concentrations have been at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/climate-shenanigans-at-the-ends-of-the-earth-why-has-sea-ice-gone-haywire-69485\" target=\"_blank\">record low levels<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>The Arctic\u2019s seasonal cycle means that the lowest sea ice concentrations occur in September each year. But while September 2012 had less ice than September 2016, this year the ice coverage has not increased as expected as we moved into the northern winter. As a result, since late October, Arctic sea ice extent has been at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nsidc.org\/arcticseaicenews\/2016\/12\/arctic-and-antarctic-at-record-low-levels\/\" target=\"_blank\">record low levels for the time of year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-center zoomable\"><a href=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/151155\/area14mp\/image-20161221-13147-yynqko.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/151155\/width754\/image-20161221-13147-yynqko.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><figcaption><em><span class=\"caption\">Late 2016 has produced new record lows for Arctic ice.<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\"><span class=\"caps\">NSIDC<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<span class=\"license\">Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>These record low sea ice levels have been associated with exceptionally high temperatures for the Arctic region. November and December (so far) have seen record warm temperatures. At the same time Siberia, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/2016\/12\/16\/bitter-cold-grips-us-plains-new-england\/95511250\/\" target=\"_blank\">very recently North America<\/a>, have experienced conditions that are slightly cooler than\u00a0normal.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-center zoomable\"><a href=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/151158\/area14mp\/image-20161221-14216-p6zlsy.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/151158\/width754\/image-20161221-14216-p6zlsy.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><figcaption><em><span class=\"caption\">Temperatures have been far above normal over vast areas of the Arctic this November and December.<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">Geert Jan van Oldenborgh\/<span class=\"caps\">KNMI<\/span>\/<span class=\"caps\">ERA<\/span>-Interim<\/span>,\u00a0<span class=\"license\">Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Extreme Arctic warmth and low ice coverage affect the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/12\/8\/20160198\" target=\"_blank\">migration patterns of marine mammals<\/a>\u00a0and have been linked with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2112958-80000-reindeer-have-starved-to-death-as-arctic-sea-ice-retreats\/\" target=\"_blank\">mass starvation and deaths among reindeer<\/a>, as well as affecting\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/polar-bears-and-climate-change-what-does-the-science-say\" target=\"_blank\">polar bear habitats<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Given these severe ecological impacts and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2015\/jun\/01\/rapid-arctic-ice-loss-linked-to-extreme-weather-changes-in-europe-and-us\" target=\"_blank\">potential influence of the Arctic on the climates of North America and Europe<\/a>, it is important that we try to understand whether and how human-induced climate change has played a role in this\u00a0event.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arctic\u00a0attribution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wwa.climatecentral.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">World Weather Attribution group<\/a>, led by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.climatecentral.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Climate Central<\/a>\u00a0and including researchers at the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/earthsci.unimelb.edu.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">University of Melbourne<\/a>, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eci.ox.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">University of Oxford<\/a>\u00a0and the Dutch Meteorological Service (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.knmi.nl\/over-het-knmi\/about\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"caps\">KNMI<\/span><\/a>), used three different methods to assess the role of the human climate influence on record Arctic warmth over November and\u00a0December.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, the Arctic&#8217;s Freakishly Warm Winter is Due to Humans&#8217; Climate Influence For the Arctic,\u00a0like the globe as a whole, 2016 has been exceptionally warm. For much of the year, Arctic temperatures have been much higher than normal, and sea ice concentrations have been at\u00a0record low levels. The Arctic\u2019s seasonal cycle means that the lowest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14627,1018,141,5317,369,14628,1219],"class_list":["post-22360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-andrew-king","tag-arctic","tag-climate-change","tag-desmog-blog","tag-global-warming","tag-season-weather-cycle","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22361,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22360\/revisions\/22361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}