NOAA Releases Newsworthy, Accessible, And DIre 2018 Arctic Report Card

Fractured sea ice in the Arctic. Photo was taken in 2017 northwest of
Greenland by NASA 

NOAA just released its annual "report card" of how the Arctic is doing under a changing climate. At best, they give it a "D-" , probably an "F."

The best way to see and hear the NOAA report card is a YouTube video NOAA put out, which you can see at the bottom of this post.  

Before we get to that, here's some highlights from the report that are important:

For the past 12 years, including in 2018, sea ice extent was near record lows. Also, old ice, which has survived several years without melting, is at extremely low levels. Only 1 percent of the ice in the Arctic is four years old or older.

This is important because newer ice is much more prone to melting in the summer than the old stuff.

You might be getting sick of the next thing they point out, but it's intriguing me and it really gets to the heart of why we should care about climate change.

NOAA scientists seem to have signed on to the notion that because the Arctic is warming faster than te midlatitudes, the jet stream is getting wavier and slower. As the New York Times puts it:

"The jet stream normally acts as a kind of atmospheric spinning lasso that encircles and contains cold air near the pole; a weaker, wavering jet stream can allow Arctic blasts to travel south in winter and stall weather systems in the summer, among other effects."

Given that, it seems that because Arctic ice is getting so lame, we here in Vermont and elsewhere in our "southerly" latitudes will have to get used to more occasional severe Arctic blasts, even if winter temperatures overall are rising.

That leaves me with the impression we'll have more "boomerang" winters. Record cold, followed by record heat. Kind of like last winter, when it was 20 below on January 7, and just five days later it was 61 degrees with heavy rain and ice jams and flooding, followed two days later by subzero temperatures again.

Finally, the report says there's no indication that the Arctic will ever revert to its icier, colder former self.

I'm glad there are still some independent scientists in the U.S. government. I know our Dear Leader Trump would say this report is "fake news." But until somebody comes up with some credible evidence that these scientists are wrong, I'll go along with it.

Here's the NOAA video: