Arctic heatwave could break records

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38417198

Arctic heatwave could break records

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News


8 hours ago

From the section Science & Environment

Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve, in what scientists say is a record-breaking heatwave. Climate scientists say these unseasonably warm weather patterns in the Arctic region are directly linked to man-made climate change. Temperatures throughout November and December were 5C higher than average. It follows a summer during which Arctic sea ice reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded by satellites.

Dr Friederike Otto, a senior researcher at Oxford's Environmental Change Institute told BBC News that in pre-industrial times "a heatwave like this would have been extremely rare - we would expect it to occur about every 1,000 years". Dr Otto added that scientists are "very confident" that the weather patterns were linked to anthropogenic climate change.
(snip)

Temperatures are forecast to peak on Christmas Eve around the North Pole - at near-freezing. The warm air from the North Atlantic is forecast to flow all the way to the North Pole via Spitsbergen, giving rise to clouds that prevent heat from escaping.

And, as Dr Otto explained to BBC News, the reduction in sea ice is contributing to this "feedback loop". "If the globe is warming, then the sea ice and ice on land [shrinks] then the darker water and land is exposed," she said. "Then the sunlight is absorbed rather than reflected as it would be by the ice."
(snip)

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. If this development doesn't sound the alarm bells, nothing will.

[mountain grammy]

2. Disturbing!

4 degrees this am at 8500 feet, and that's normal. Yesterday we were up to 46, and predicted to be there again today, and that's NOT normal.
We've had more days this December with daytime (and even nighttime) temps above freezing than at any time since temperature records have been kept here. Wave goodbye to normal.