Grassroots September 2016, Vol. 16, No. 3 | Page 16
News
2016 Climate Trends Continue to Break Records
Patrick Lynch
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
T
[email protected]
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/climate
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/climate-trends-continue-to-break
break-records
wo key climate change indicators -- global
surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice
extent -- have broken numerous records
through the first half of 2016, according to NASA
analyses of ground-based observations and satellite
data.
Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record
as the warmest respective month globally in the
modern temperature record, which dates to 1880,
according to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute
for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six
sixmonth period from January to June was also the
planet's warmest half-year
year on record, with an
average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4
degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth
century.
Five of the first six months of 20
2016 also set
records for the smallest respective monthly Arctic
sea ice extent since consistent satellite records
began in 1979, according to analyses developed by
scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
in Greenbelt, Maryland. The one exception, March,
recorded the second smallest extent for that month.
While these two key climate indicators have
broken records in 2016, NASA scientists said it is
more significant that global temperature and Arctic
sea ice are continuing their decades
decades-long trends of
change. Both trends are ultimately driven by rising
concentrations of heat-trapping
trapping carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases
es in the atmosphere.
The extent of Arctic sea ice at the peak of the
summer melt season now typically covers 40
percent less areaa than it did in the late 1970s and
early 1980s. Arctic sea ice extent in September, the
seasonal low point in the annual cycle, has been
declining at a rate of 13.4 percent per decade.
"While the El Niño event in the tropical Pacific
this winter gave a boost to global temperatures
from October onwards, it is the underlying trend
which is producing these record numbers," GISS
Director Gavin Schmidt said.
Grassroots
Figure 1: Chunks of sea ice, melt ponds and
open water are all seen in this image captured at an
altitude
e of 1,500 feet by the NASA’s
NASA’ Digital Mapping
System instrument during an Operation IceBridge
flight over the Chukchi Sea on Saturday, July 16,
2016. Credits: NASA/Goddard/Operation IceBridge
Previous El Niño events have driven
temperatures to what were then record levels, such
as in 1998. But in 2016, even as the effects of the
recent El Niño taper off, global temperatures have
risen well beyond those of 18 years ago because of
the overall warming that has taken place in that
time.
"It has been a record year so far for global
temperatures, but the record high temperatures in
the Arctic over the past six months have been even
more extreme," Meier said. "This warmth as well
as unusual weather patterns have led to the record
low sea ice extents so far this year."
NASA tracks temperature and sea ice as part of
its effort to understand the Earth as a system and to
understand how Earth is changing. In addition to
maintaining 19 Earth-observing
observing space missions,
NASA also sends researchers around the globe to
investigate different facets of the planet at closer
range. Right now, NASA researchers are working
across the Arctic to better understand both the
processes driving increased sea ice melt and the
impacts of rising temperatures on Arctic
ecosystems.
NASA's long-running
running Operation IceBridge
campaign last week began a series of airborne
measurements of melt ponds on the surface of the
Arctic sea ice cap. Melt ponds are shallow pools of
September 2016
Vol 16 No. 3