Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with reading in Siberia | Hacker News Reader

Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with reading in Siberia

washingtonpost.com

69 pointspseudolus12 comments

Alaska had it's hottest ever recorded summer in 2019 [1] and for quite a few years they've been significantly above average.

It's been said the Arctic is the canary in the coalmine for climate change. Once more of the glaciers and permafrost melt more of suns heat energy will be absorbed rather than reflected, and climate change will accelerate.

[1] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/high-tem...

https://www.ktva.com/story/40990489/anchorage-officially-saw...

[1] https://phys.org/news/2019-07-alaska-shatters-temperature-la...

Of particular worry is accelerated methane release from peat bogs in the thawing permafrost, creating a positive feedback loop (with potentially irreversible consequences) [1] [2].

We’re rapidly running out of runway to mitigate the worst of climate change.

I dread to think how many joules of energy it’s going to take for us to stop emitting carbon, but also sequester that released since the Industrial Age began. I suppose there is some consolation in that enough sunlight hits the Earth in an hour to power humanity for a year, so the clean energy is there for the taking. It’s just going to take decades of sunlight to step back down the carbon curve [3]. Such is the cost of burning ancient sunlight.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback

[3]https://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf

I think that permafrost loss being accelerated and the affect it has had on overall temps is concerning. I wonder what man-made acceleration of permafrost loss like the hydraulic mining has speed up this process that has been taking place since 2013 and I think we are seeing the results. Sad really.

The clathrate gun has fired. Things are going to be worse than just "sad".

Admittedly I know very little about the topic, but I wonder if it's feasible to locate large concentrations of methane and capture and store it.

Maybe give us a chance to at least slow the feedback loop down.

Based on my crude understanding, I believe it’s too defuse to effectively capture and store or flare across the permafrost. This is why it’s crucial for us to responsibly manage natural gas wells that we can properly control the release or leakage of gas from.

And meanwhile, as the north sea becomes navigable, Japan and Russia invest in new Arctic oil extraction projects. https://www.ft.com/content/df288d08-1c14-11ea-9186-7348c2f18...

https://www.globalforestwatch.org/ is a useful site to get a sense of the size and progression of fires in Siberia.

I can't find confirmation to this in Russian news, which strongly suggests that this is fake news. If such a record were set, it would beat the +37.3C record set in 1988.

Note that the article says "if verified", which you should read as, "we just published this without verifying".

Here's apparently where everyone is getting this from: http://www.pogodaiklimat.ru/monitor.php?id=24266

Don't know about you, but to me the site does not look very credible. Other sources (such as http://www.hmn.ru/index.php?index=8&value=24166) suggest the temperature got up to 36C that day.

>I can't find confirmation to this in Russian news, which strongly suggests that this is fake news.

Why?

Because Verkhoyansk is in Russia and this supposedly happened 2 days ago there. Someone would have written about it.

A quick Google for "weather Verkhoyans" says that todays temperature is 29c/84f

I also couldn't find 38 °C on this map (german):

https://kachelmannwetter.com/de/messwerte/nordasien/temperat...

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