IPY Researchers Stunned By Canadian Arctic Heatwave As Landscape Literally Melts Before Their Eyes

[hatrack]

Unprecedented warm temperatures in the High Arctic this past summer were so extreme that researchers with a Queen's University-led climate change project have begun revising their forecasts. "Everything has changed dramatically in the watershed we observed," reports Geography professor Scott Lamoureux, the leader of an International Polar Year project announced yesterday in Nunavut by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl. "It's something we'd envisioned for the future - but to see it happening now is quite remarkable."

EDIT

From their camp on Melville Island last July, where they recorded air temperatures over 20C (in an area with July temperatures that average 5C), the team watched in amazement as water from melting permafrost a metre below ground lubricated the topsoil, causing it to slide down slopes, clearing everything in its path and thrusting up ridges at the valley bottom "that piled up like a rug," says Dr. Lamoureux, an expert in hydro-climatic variability and landscape processes. "The landscape was being torn to pieces, literally before our eyes. A major river was dammed by a slide along a 200-metre length of the channel. River flow will be changed for years, if not decades to come."

Comparing this summer's observations against aerial photos dating back to the 1950s, and the team's monitoring of the area for the past five years, the research leader calls the present conditions "unprecedented" in scope and activity. What's most interesting, he says, is that their findings represent the impact of just one exceptional summer.

"A considerable amount of vegetation has been disturbed and we observed a sharp rise in erosion and a change in sediment load in the river," Dr. Lamoureux notes. "With warmer conditions and greater thaw depth predicted, the cumulative effect of this happening year after year could create huge problems for both the aquatic and land populations. This kind of disturbance also has important consequences for existing and future infrastructure in the region, like roads, pipelines and air strips." If this were to occur in more inhabited parts of Canada, it would be "catastrophic" in terms of land use and resources, he continues. "It would be like taking an area the size of Kingston and having 15 per cent of it disappear into Lake Ontario."

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Arctic_Heat_Wave_Stuns_Climate_Change_Researchers_999.html

[XemaSab]

1. Nevre really considered the effects of melt on mass wasting before...

If the Arctic Ocean starts seeing more turbidity, Katie bar the door... :(

[Gregorian]

3. Different modes of heat transfer.

If you put an ice cube in a bucket of water it melts much slower than if you put it under a flow of water of the same temperature. Conduction versus convection.

People are not going to stop doing what they're doing, either. So we can expect this to continue. In fact, we can expect it to get much much worse as the billions begin to buy and drive their cars. That would be India and China.

[XemaSab]

4. I was thinking of albedo

and wondering whether the ability of the water to absorb heat would change if the water was turbid.

[Gregorian]

2. 1000 barrels of oil per second are being burned on this planet.

Per second. Per SECOND.

This planet is only 8000 miles in diameter.

So everyone get in your v8-mobile and shuttle your kids to the next soccer game.