El Niño Update [22 March 2010]

ENSO Cycle: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions

El Niño Weekly UPDATE prepared by Climate Prediction Center / NCEP –  22 March 2010

The latest weekly SST departures are:

• Niño 4   ~  1.1ºC
• Niño 3.4  ~  1.2ºC
• Niño 3 ~ 0.7ºC
• Niño 1+2 ~ (– 0.1ºC)

El Niño Map. [SOURCE: NOAA/ Climate Prediction Center / NCEP]

Summary:

• El Niño is present across the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
• Sea surface temperatures (SST) are more than 1.0ºCabove-average across much of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.
• Based on current observations and dynamical model forecasts, El Niño is expected to continue at least through the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010.

Related Links:

• Your Worst Fears About El Niño

• Climate Locked into ‘Unending’ El Niño?
• What Florida Might Look Like in 2014
• SE Australia Toasted Brown
• UK Flooding
• Speaking of El Niño, OLR Anomalies in Australia
• El Niño Update [16 Nov 2009]
• Recognizing El Niño
• El Niño and La Niña: Tracing the Dance of Ocean and Atmosphere
• TAO Diagrams
• El Niño Forecasts

El Niño Updates – Last 5 Weeks:

• El Niño Update [15 March 2010]

• El Niño Update [8 March 2010]
• El Niño Weekly Update [8 February 2010]
• El Niño Weekly Update [1 February 2010]
• El Niño Weekly Update [25 Jan 2010]

• El Niño [Main Page, Links to Weekly Updates Archive]

Greenland Ice Sheet Losing Ice Mass

Greenland Ice Sheet Losing Ice Mass on Northwest Coast: International Study

Greenland ice sheet lost about 1,604 km³ (385 cubic miles) of ice between April 2002 and February 2009, an amount equivalent to about 0.5 mm of sea-level rise each year, researchers say.

Greenland ice sheet has been losing an increasing amount of ice since 2000. Previously most of the loss was concentrated in its southern region, but now the loss is occurring in its northwest coast, a new international study says.

Click image to enlarge.

Greenland Melt Extent, 2005: Konrad Steffen and Russell Huff – Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder

Researchers from Denmark Technical Institute’s National Space Institute in Copenhagen and the University of Colorado at Boulder say the ice-loss acceleration started moving up the northwest coast of Greenland in late 2005. “The team drew their conclusions by comparing data from NASA’s Gravity and Recovery Climate Experiment satellite system, or GRACE, with continuous GPS measurements made from long-term sites on bedrock on the edges of the ice sheet.”

The uplift rates of about 4 centimeters  were discovered close to the Thule Air Base on Greenland’s northwest coast between October 2005 to August 2009. “Although the low resolution of GRACE—a swath of about 155 miles, or 250 kilometers across—is not precise enough to pinpoint the source of the ice loss, the fact that the ice sheet is losing mass nearer to the ice sheet margins suggests the flows of Greenland outlet glaciers there are increasing in velocity, said the study authors.” The report said

“When we look at the monthly values from GRACE, the ice mass loss has been very dramatic along the northwest coast of Greenland,” said CU-Boulder physics Professor and study co-author John Wahr, also a fellow at CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

“This is a phenomenon that was undocumented before this study,” said Wahr. “Our speculation is that some of the big glaciers in this region are sliding downhill faster and dumping more ice in the ocean.”

“These changes on the Greenland ice sheet are happening fast, and we are definitely losing more ice mass than we had anticipated, ” said Isabella Velicogna of the University of California-Irvine, who also is a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We also are seeing this ice mass loss trend in Antarctica, a sign that warming temperatures really are having an effect on ice in Earth’s cold regions.”

Click here for the rest of the report and a computer simulation of Greenland Ice Melt.

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• Polar Ice Caps
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• US glaciers shrinking dramatically
• Who is afraid of melting ice sheets?
• Emerging Patterns of Vanishing Ice Shelves
• Ice Melt in Alaska, Antarctica, Greenland Accelerating

Avila Fire Outside Caracas Consumes 120 ha

Image of the Day:

A massive blaze on the Avila mountain overlooking Caracas rages on into third day

Venezuela is experiencing a prolonged drought which has critically reduced water levels in the country’s hydroelectric dams causing electricity crisis. President Chavez declared a national emergency in the electricity sector last month as the water level in Guri Dam fell by 14 cm (5.5 in). Venezuela depends on hydroelectric power generation for about 70 percent of its needs.  Continued drought would dramatically affect the nation’s hydroelectric power generation capacity.

A helicopter drops water over a wild forest fire at the Avila national park, known also as Waraira Repano, in Caracas March 22, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Jorge Silva. Image may be subject to copyright.

“Since the weekend, the fire has lit up the night sky and consumed nearly 120 hectares (300 acres) of the Avila’s thickly wooded slopes, which are home to more than 120 mammal species and 500 types of bird.” Reuters reported. More …

Related Links:

• Drought and Deluge
• Major Blackout Plunges Brazil into Darkness
• Murphy’s law has no time vector!

Native Groups Nix Enbridge Pipeline

Native groups won’t allow Enbridge pipeline

Native groups on Canada’s Pacific Coast say they’ll  block Enbridge Inc’s proposed Northern Gateway project to carry oil sands crude from northern Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia, for export.

“The proposed 1,170-kilometre Northern Gateway line is to carry crude oil from Alberta tar sands to Kitimat B.C. where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to refineries along the Pacific Rim, poses a perilous threat to the environment and the very existence of aboriginal ways of life, said Art Sterritt, Coastal First Nations executive director.” The Province reported.

The Exxon Valdez, three days after the vessel ran aground on Bligh Reef. The Exxon Valdez spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, United States, on March 24, 1989. Some 41 million liters of Prudhoe Bay crude oil were spilled into the sea destroying a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals, and seabirds.  Photo: NOAA

“Some people are saying (the pipeline) is a done deal. It’s not,” Art Sterritt, executive director of the Coastal First Nations, a coalition of native Indian communities in the area, often called the Great Bear Rainforest.

“Enbridge completely ignores the fact that the larger part of the pipeline is going through the traditional territories of B.C.’s First Nations. You see them here today in opposition.”

The First Nations alliance, representing 28 entities, have formally opposed the Northern Gateway project declaring oil tankers carrying Alberta sands crude will be blockaded. The groups are ready for a legal and political fight.

“Aboriginal leaders said their opposition to the project was strong enough for them to continue the fight, even if Enbridge gets government and court permission to build it—including blockading tankers.” Reuters reported.

“We are prepared to put boats across the channel,” Gerald Amos, a director of the coalition and a native leader from the Kitimat area, told reporters at a news conference in Vancouver.

The announcement came on the 21st anniversary of the Exxon Valdez tanker’s disastrous oil spill in Prince William Sound Alaska.

“And the Vancouver announcement was accompanied by national newspaper ads comparing the two events.” Reuters said.

Steve Wuori, vice-president of liquids pipelines for Enbridge Inc, Canada’s second-largest pipeline company, told the Reuters at Canadian Oil Sands Summit in Calgary that he was “chagrined” by the comparison to the Exxon Valdez disaster.

“It’s disappointing to see the dialogue over what is an important infrastructure project under stringent environmental standards and engineering practices reduced to a recounting of a 21-year-old incident,” Wuori said.

Enbridge digging the earth for one of their pipelines. Photo: Enbridge  Northern gateway website. Image may be subject to copyright.

The Northern Gateway Pipeline Project

Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway Project consists of two separate sets of pipelines, according to  Enbridge  Northern Gateway website .

The West Line will transport petroleum from near Edmonton to Kitimat, a distance of about 1,170 km, in 36 inches in a giant 915mm (36 inch) diameter pipe carrying an average of 2.1 million liters (525,000 barrels) of petroleum per day.

The East Line will transport condensate from Kitimat to near Edmonton in a large 510mm pipeline of 193,000 barrels of condensate per day. The condensate is needed to thin bitumen (heavy petroleum products) for pipeline transport.

Enbridge Northern Gateway project proposed double pipelines map. Photo: Enbridge  Northern gateway website. Image may be subject to copyright. Click image to enlarge.

At least 125 groups, businesses, environmental organizations and prominent Canadians oppose the Northern Gateway project.

News Links:

• Disasters Caused by Oil and gas Drilling, Oil Spills, Leaks, Land, Water and Air Pollution