Norwegian scientists predict a climatic catastrophe for Russia. Finding out whether you need to be afraid.
"Add ice?" - on a hot summer day, any bartender will offer this option. Well, you will most likely agree: with ice it is much fresher and more pleasant. And not only in a glass with a cocktail, but also in the ocean - especially if this ocean is called the Arctic. Only there the ice melts. And it would be nice, in theory, to add it. But, alas, there is no global climate “bartender”. The process is most likely irreversible, scientists admit. Where will it lead?
ARCTIC ANTIUTOPIA
In the Arctic, global warming is proceeding by leaps and bounds. The average temperature on Earth is growing at a rate of 0.17 degrees over 10 years, while in the Arctic over the same 10 years it rises by 0.8 degrees. More than four times faster!
And the Barents Sea holds the record for the rate of warming even against the background of the Arctic. In just 16 years of this century, the average temperature there has increased by 2.7 degrees, Norwegian scientists - Sigrid Lind, Randi Ingvaldsen and Tore Furevik from the Institute of Marine Research in the Norwegian city of Tromso, the University of Bergen and the Center for Climate Research in Bergen, state with surprise.
Why with surprise? The whole planet will get warmer by the same 2.5-3 degrees only by the end of the 21st century. And even then not a fact, this is just one of the scenarios. And humanity is trying to prevent it. The goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, to which Russia and almost all countries of the world have joined, is to limit warming to 2 degrees by the end of the century. And in the Arctic, it turns out, everything has already happened. Like in a dystopian movie.
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ICE PROTECTION MELTS
Formally, the Barents Sea, "by registration", refers to the Arctic Ocean. But it is on the border with another ocean, the Atlantic. So in terms of climate and physical properties of water, it is similar to him too. It's like Krasnogorsk: officially the Moscow region, but there is also a Moscow metro, and all the stores of the capital's chains, and residents through one in Moscow work.
So: in recent years, from the beginning of the 21st century, the Barents Sea has become more and more Atlantic in its climate and character. And less and less unlike the Arctic seas. A new phenomenon, the “moving” of the sea from one ocean to another, is the subject of a recent study by the Norwegians. The Barents Sea washes not only the coast of Norway, but also Russia - the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions with the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. And the weather is influenced by almost the entire European part of Russia. So the conclusions of the Scandinavians are not alien to us. They are based, by the way, on observations of the temperature and salinity of water in the Barents Sea, which were carried out annually, from 1970 to 2016, by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research and the Russian Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography named after V. NM Knipovich, as well as data from satellites.
What's going on? The southern part of the Barents Sea - just the one off the coasts of Norway and Russia - was previously relatively mild in terms of climate, the influence of the warm Gulf Stream is very noticeable there. The northern half of the sea, until recently, had a harsh and Nordic character, and was covered with ice for most of the year. It turns out that Arctic ice melting in summer plays an important role: it creates a layer of cold and fresh water on the ocean surface. The warmer and saltier water of the Atlantic remains in the depths - as a result, the heat from the ocean does not enter the atmosphere.
It was like that before. Now the ice in the Arctic is less and less. Why melt then? The northern part of the Barents Sea has already lost 40% of the cold fresh water layer. Warm Atlantic water comes to the surface. Most likely, this is why the Barents Sea became the epicenter of global warming, the authors of the study suggest. By 2040, there will be no “Arctic” ice water in the Barents Sea at all.
“The entire Barents Sea is becoming as warm and salty as the Atlantic Ocean. Events of this magnitude happen very rarely - for huge masses of water to radically change their characteristics, says Sigurd Lind.
POLAR VORTEX FLY OVER US
Well, okay, say? Why is the Atlantic Ocean bad? Not bad. But what is happening speaks to the scale of change beyond the Arctic Circle. The melting Arctic can really change the climate of all of Russia and all of Europe (although it's hard to believe under air conditioners in a sultry metropolis).
“Warm Arctic - cold continents”. This hypothesis has more and more supporters among climatologists, although the mechanism of this paradox is not entirely clear. Perhaps the key role is played by the so-called polar vortex - a huge atmospheric funnel constantly “hanging” over the planet's poles. The eddy is most active in winter, when the temperature contrast between the Arctic and temperate latitudes is maximum. The warmer the Arctic, the less the contrast, and the polar vortex begins to behave strangely. The currents in it weaken, and it "slides" from the pole to the south, and carries the Arctic cold with it. Remember spring this year did not come at all? Frosts crackled in March, snowdrifts grew. And not only in our country, but also in Europe and the United States. So: in March 2018, the polar vortex split into two parts! It seemed a little to no one.
Researchers believe that such anomalies will continue to recur. “The faster the Arctic warms, the more unpredictable weather there will be,” says climatologist Robert Rohde of the Berkeley Earth Research Center.
The scientific director of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia, Roman Vilfand, reminds that the Gulf Stream can also suffer from the melting of ice. And what will happen to Europe and the European part of Russia without an ocean "heater", and it's chilly to imagine! But Wilfand is optimistic:
- There is no talk of a disaster. Yes, climate change in the polar regions is happening many times faster than in the middle lane and in the south - this is an absolute fact. The melting of ice leads to the fact that the water temperature rises, the temperature difference between the polar and tropical waters decreases. As a result, the Gulf Stream, the warm current in the North Atlantic, can slow down or weaken. Biodiversity may also diminish, with fish living in cold waters moving further north. But all this is not a disaster. This is a very slow process, to which one can and must adapt, think over how to minimize negative consequences. In Japan, for example, where earthquakes constantly occur, they learned to build houses that are resistant even to 9-point aftershocks. But here meteorologists alone will not be able to cope. Engineering thought should work,decisions are needed at the state level.
YULIA SMIRNOVA
