Perhaps media appetite for the straight reporting of global warming is down a bit, what with the public’s recent ebb in interest in the dueling spittle-fest among partisans of various sorts, but it has hardly stopped. Today finds an arresting report in Science on flows of warming water into the Arctic, following a spate of report in the UK chiefly on a new expedition to check how the thermohaline conveyor belt that stops Europe from being so cold is doing.

1) Arctic warm water: The news is that a team from Germany’s Leibniz Inst. of Marine Sciences and from U. of Colorado’s Arctic and Alpine Research Institute say the flow of North Atlantic waters north through the Fram Strait into the Arctic is, say the foram’s in sediments, the warmest it’s been in 2,000 years. It is now 3.5 F warmer than a century ago. They tie that to a large system of amplifications, or positive feedback, that includes impacts of less sea ice.

STORIES:

• Reuters – Alistair Doyle :  Arctic current warmer than for 2,000 years: study ; The study, it says here, also reports that the flow is warmer than during Roman times, or the Medieval Warm Period (so beloved by contrarians, but Doyle doesn’t bother to say so). Main quote: things “are well outside the natural bounds.”
• PostMedia/Montreal Gazette – Margaret Munro: Water entering Arctic warmest in 2,000 years / Modern increase not a temperature swing: scientists ; Perhaps more stress ought have been put on what this account mentions: 2000 years is as far back as their proxy data go.
• Discovery News – John D. Cox: Warm North Atlantic Heating Arctic ;
• Nature.com – Nicola Jones: Arctic Ocean feels the heat / Inflow from the Atlantic is warmest in 2,000 years ; A good one, including a doubt from one expert who says the warm water it entering at depths well under the sea ice – so how it might contribute to its shrinking is not clear.
• IPS – Stephen Leahy: Arctic Defrost Dumping Snow on U.S. and Europe ; The hed and story are not a perfect match, as Leahy leads with the Science study and then gets into ways a warming Arctic could dump blizzards on lower latitudes. Also interesting is the report from Leahy, an experienced climate reporter, that the Arctic in some regions has been 21C warmer than usual for many weeks now. +21C! Is that a misprint? If not, it is astounding.
• Boulder Daily Camera – Laura Snider: CU: Warming water in the North Atlantic tied to heating Arctic ;
• BBC – Richard Black : Arctic canary looking sicker than ever ; A broader review, with a telling plot of Arctic sea ice now on course for the lowest winter peak ever measured. This story makes a good bridge for the next lot down below.

Grist for the Mill: CU Boulder Press Release ;

2) UK Expedition Sets Off to Arctic: The news is that a UK venture, the Catlin Arctic Survey, is about to send people on treks across several frozen landscapes (and seascapes) to study ice melt up close and personal, tracking where the melt water goes. They hope to learn whether accelerated melt will, as some suspect, change the salinity and hence  dynamics of the so-called global conveyor belt of interlinked surface and midwater currents that modulate much of global climate. IN the UK, many stories focussed on one scenario the study’s authors described – a possible slowing or shutdown of the Gulf Stream and subsequent chilling of Europe – rather than the data-gathering effort.

STORIES:

• Telegraph – Richard Alleyne: Climate change means we will be skiing in Yorkshire rather than sunbathing ; Would it kill Brit copy desks to put the occasional “may” or question mark or some other equivocation in headlines?
• Mirror – Mike Swain: Melting Arctic ice melt will bring freezing winters say scientists ; Aside from the excess of melt in the hed, this one IS nicely qualified ;
• BBC – Richard Black: Survey to probe Arctic ice melt ; Tersely done, good illus.
• Daily Mail – David Derbyshire: Chilly future for Britain with regular freezing winters if the Arctic continues to warm up, scientists warn;

Grist for the Mill: Catlin Arctic Survey Blog&News ;

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.