Our climate is sneaking into code purple (fifth & final level).
- Methane leaks from below the Antarctic ice sheet (Amery Ice Shelf, Wilkes Subglacial Basin, ...)
- Methane leaks from below the Greenland ice sheet (whole field)
- Methane leaks from the Siberian permafrost (land)
- Methane leaks from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, from the Laptev Shelf & from the Kara Shelf (sea-bed methane near Komsomolets Island & Wiese Island)
- Nitrous Oxide leaks from the Kara Shelf (near Wiese Island, near Komsomolets Island, ...)
- Methane leaks: Thwaites Glacier
- Nitrous Oxide leaks from the banks of Lena River (Siberia)
- Deep waters & surface waters near Nansen Basin are getting warmer very fast (+4°C, +5°C, ...)
We're losing our permafrost at a rate 100 times faster than models are predicting.
Sea level rise is about to hit a rate of 2.5 mm a month (proof is coming soon).
96% caused by basal melting below both ice sheets:
4°-6°C warmer at 100m!
Antarctic surface melt is only responsible for 2% of SLR.
Oceans are increasing their contribution (thermal expansion)!
Warmer & saltier ocean water flowing through channels, fjords, troughs & subglacial lakes is responsible for the rapid warm-up of the Antarctic ice sheet (lower part).
Surface melt:
Draining of supraglacial lakes is causing a destabilization of the upper part.
Pine Island glacier & Thwaites glacier are facing a rapid warm-up & a rapid salinization of the entire water column in front of their calving field.
Also Cook, Ninnis, Mertz, Frost, Totten, Vanderford, Scott & Denman glacier are facing extreme warm underflows (& Amery Ice Shelf).
The Arctic is warming 2-3 times faster than global average if you look at 60N-90N (Arctic Ocean with neighbouring seas)
The Arctic is warming 6-8 times faster than global average if you look at 75N-90N (Arctic Ocean without neighbouring seas)
When you look at 85N-90N (the pure Arctic) we have to admit the entire zone of the Arctic basin is warming +12 times faster than global average!
And we now know these conditions are comparable to the Mid-Pliocene Arctic conditions.
Only global mean temperatures were a little higher: 2°C to 3°C above pre-industrial levels.
But we also know these temperatures are potentially already in our climate system: ice sheet instability, deep-ocean warming, irreversible retreat of marine glacier, SST's & trapped GHG's.
It doesn't matter how long it has been that earth saw these kind of CO2 concentrations in her atmosphere.
115k, 3M, 20M, 34M, 56M or 200M years ago?
More important is the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere during the last few decades.
Biggest rate in about 420M years!
Because methane is getting the main contributor to global warming, it doesn't matter which GWP factors (100-year factors, 20-year factors or 10-year factor) we use to calculate the total CO2 equivalent of the main GHG's (N2O, CH4 & CO2 itself).