A rather depressing and apocalypse-themed photo exhibition has hit the art circuit recently - called the “Last Days of The Arctic”.  This Youtube video showing some of the great photography is put to haunting music which makes it seem even more like the end of the world. And, it definitely is a serious challenge for the people and animals that live around the arctic. Less sea ice, if the trend continues in the future, will require more adaptation and some hardship will result. But remember the earth does change – on its own for the most part. Sometimes when discussing anthropogenic global warming (AGW), I get the sense that some people expect the climate and the biosphere to remain exactly like it was earlier in their lifetime – that the global temperature will always remain “around average”, whatever that temperature is deemed to be.

Even outside the theoretical effects that human beings might be having on the atmosphere, the earth and atmosphere is in a constant state of change. The Sahara desert was once covered by large lakes. The arctic has had much more ice as recent as a few hundred years ago during the Little Ice Age. Before that, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the arctic was mostly ice free a few times during interglacial periods. During these wide swings in ice cover and temperature, no doubt there was some angst about the changing climate. There was most likely some hardship before people and animals were able to adapt to the changing conditions. This is not to say that possible future AGW is OK (we should try to reduce our negative environmental impacts as much as feasible), just that we should remember that things change.  Spending too much time reminiscing about what was, leaves less time to prepare for what will be.

Speaking of what was, I mentioned the Little Ice Age a bit earlier and there is some new research suggesting that increased volcanism during the 1275 to 1300 period might have triggered it, or at least helped it along. If you are familiar with the Little Ice Age, you know that a leading theory is that reduced solar energy (known as the Maunder Minimum). This solar theory is not conclusive but one cannot help but notice the trend in temps and solar activity seemed to go hand-in-hand, especially during the coldest point of the Little Ice Age. However, one must not rule out volcanic activity. It is well known that large volcanic eruptions (like Pinatubo and Krakatoa) can cool the planet by a degree or two for a couple of years after the eruption. What is theorized in this latest study is that successive large volcanic eruptions cooled the planet for a couple of decades and this created a positive feedback loop of colder temps leading to more sea ice formation. The increased sea ice then reflected more of the sun’s energy into space leading to cooler temps. This is an interesting theory, and no doubt there was some cooling due to volcanic eruptions, however, I would expect that the volcanism would show up a bit more dramatically in the re-constructed temperature graphs from around the late 1200s into the early 1300s. Perhaps the granularity of the data obscures the temperature changes a bit, but if volcanism was the main trigger for the Little Ice Age, then there should be some evidence in the temperature record during that time.

On the subject of ice ages, there is a recent theory that the periodic ice ages beginning around 450 million years ago were caused by the arrival of plants on the earth’s surface. The theory is that early plants (resembling mosses) covered land masses and led to chemical weathering of the rocks. The minerals released from this process ended up turning into carbonate materials, with the carbon coming from the atmosphere. The minerals might have also fertilized the oceans as well, leading to more growth of plant life. Once free carbon dioxide was now being bound up in the process of life and this could have led to a decrease in the global temperature seen around that period. I say could have, because there are a lot of assumptions built into the theory. The atmosphere and climate are so complex that even today it is hard to predict how they will evolve together. 450 million years ago the land masses were different, the earth’s orbit and tilt were different, the magnetic poles we different. It all adds up to a difficult job of deciphering temperature changes.

It is not all that difficult to decipher what happened last month because we keep track of the daily conditions right here at StormTrack9! The month of January ended up 6 degrees above normal. It was about the same amount above normal as the month of December. I can’t remember the last time we had to months in a row when temps were that far above normal….whoops, nope….I do remember. It was February and March of 2000. February of that year was 9 degrees above normal and March was 11 degrees above normal.

January of 2012 did not feel a whole lot like winter with 6 different days rising above 40 degrees. This warmth included 2 days with record highs. In Wausau, we had a record high of 47 on the 10th and 45 on the 11th. The best part about the month, in my opinion, is that precipitation was a little above normal. It is nice to start out the year on an above normal trend. Besides being above normal, there were no other odd patterns in the numbers. Here are the final January stats for Wausau:

Average High Temp: 29.3  (normal: 23.1)

Average Low Temp: 12.0  (normal: 6.0)

Precipitation: 1.04 inches  (normal: 1.02 inches)

Snowfall: 12.3 inches  (normal: 13.5 inches)

Highest Temperature: 47 on January 10th

Lowest Temperature: -14 on January 20th

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Arctic climate, Climate Change, Geology, Monthly Recap, Weather History