Forecasters Issue ‘Bomb Cyclone’ Warning
A “bomb cyclone” in the northern Atlantic will cause temperatures around the North Pole to spike to near 0C (32F) on Wednesday – some 20C higher than normal, according to weather forecasters.
The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang and the Arctic Journal said the unusual weather will be caused largely by a massive low-pressure system, hurling warm, moist air up from the middle and low latitudes.
“Computer model simulations show the storm, sweeping across the north-central Atlantic today, rapidly intensifying along a jet stream ripping above the ocean at 230 mph,” the Washington Post reported, adding that the storm’s pressure is forecast by the GFS model to plummet more than 50 millibars in 24 hours between Monday night and Tuesday night, easily meeting the criteria of a “bomb cyclone,” which is a drop in pressure of at least 24 mb in 24 hours.
This “bomb cyclone,” which will occur largely over Iceland, means that the North Pole, which will be shrouded in darkness, will likely be warmer than regions of southern California, Oklahoma and Texas, US meteorologist Eric Holthaus was quoted as telling the Sydney Morning Herald.
“It’s as if a bomb went off. And, in fact, it did,” said Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang, about this week’s event. “The exploding storm acts as a remarkably efficient heat engine, drawing warm air from the tropics to the top of the Earth.”
“We’ve probably never seen weather like what’s being predicted for a vast region stretching from the North Atlantic to the North Pole and on into the broader Arctic this coming week,” wrote environmental blogger Robert Scribbler.
The Norwegian met office has also predicts temperatures as high as 5C (41F) in Longyearbyen on Wednesday, the Arctic Journal reported.
Storm’s Impact on Sea Ice
Meanwhile, Discovery News reported that such high temperatures – even short-lived – could impact the formation of winter sea ice at a time when sea-ice levels in spring, summer and fall are already at historic lows as a result of climate change.
Last week, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the latest edition of its annual Arctic Report Card, and noted that: “Arctic sea ice set a new record unlike anything previously observed. The 2015 low is 350,000 square miles below that. In fact, the nine lowest Arctic sea-ice extents in the satellite record have all occurred in the last nine years.”
According to the data, the sea-ice minimum this year was the fourth smallest on record.
Discovery noted that “sea ice during the winter maximum is becoming younger and thinner, whereas, in 1985, what is known as ‘very old ice’ – ice that has survived several summer melt cycles – constituted 25 percent of the Arctic icepack. In 2015 that figure was a mere 3 percent.”
It added that because it is thinner, younger sea ice “is less resistant to melting, and a high proportion of first-year ice means that the ice pack effectively must rebuild itself completely each winter.”
Recommended Reads
- WorldPolicy.org: Whose Arctic Is It? The Ethics of Arctic Campaigning
- Indian Country Today: Year of Clout: 10 Stories of Indigenous Environmental Influence in 2015
- EcoWatch: Watch 25 Years of Arctic Sea Ice Melt in One Minute
- Arctic Journal: Why Can’t America Build an Icebreaker?
- Arctic Journal: Tourism in Greenland: Happiness is an Add-on
Top image: Pools of melted ice form atop Jakobshavn Glacier, near the edge of the vast Greenland ice sheet. Greenland’s glaciers are hemorrhaging ice at an increasing rate. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)