Did the Russian Meteor lead to a cold Arctic this year?

[Gray-Wolf]

I've been looking at the stratospheric plots for the debris left by the impact over the skies of Russian this year and am left wondering if this aided the cool Arctic this summer?

 

We know from past impacts of similar size ( Tunguska ,1912?) that the effects of such impacts can lead to strange atmospheric occurrences ( reading newsprint late into the evening due to 'bright skies') so did the dust lead to impacts that 'dimmed' the Arctic?

 

I , for one , did not expect a significant 'rebound' in Arctic ice this year ( due to it's fragile nature) so am wondering whether 'Natural variability' was given a helping hand this season due to the lingering effects from the dust this object left over the polar region?

 

The other matter of possible interest, should the impact have shown impacts, is the promise of our close encounter with the Debris field of the Tail of comet ISON? Will this injection of dust into the upper atmosphere lead to another period of 'dimming'?

 

I find it most important as I have no problem embracing the issues AGW poses for our society. Any 'Natural' impacts that detract from the trends we have seen will only serve to strengthen the climate misleaders case ( in the short term) and so delay actions to offset the worst we can expect. This , to mean , will mean that the resumption of rapid warming will occur with the addition of Worse Case Scenario amounts of GHG's....not a prospect to be welcomed?

[BornFromTheVoid]

I very much doubt a small piece of rock could have had any measurable effect on the Arctic. Even minor Arctic volcanic eruptions eruptions would produce many orders of magnitude more debris than the meteor did.

As for the meteor showers/comet debris fields, if they do have any effect on the weather, it should be easily detectable given how regular and predictable they are.

[UV-RAY]

Did a meteorite start the warming trend? Come on GW looking for explanations as to why AGW isn't playing ball is a bit silly.

[Gray-Wolf]

Thanks for your prompt reply BFTV!!!

 

I just remember the report on the impacts of minor volcanic eruptions causing far greater impact than the models had accounted for and wondered if this 'seeding' would have proved enough , over the short term, to impact local climate and so have longer term impacts via the perturbations it set in motion?

 

I am not seeking a 'reason' from the impact but looking for whether 'augmentation' from it may have occurred?

[Gray-Wolf]

S.I. , I'm trying to get as full a picture of how 'events' impact our world as I can. I would not expect folk who do not see our pollution as capable of climatic influence as really taking this on board but those of us that do try and account for a large variety of forcings need look at such?

[chionomaniac]

I think that this was addressed at the time and was found to have no measureable impact when looking at the whole Arctic stratosphere as a whole. If it were to have an impact it would have been noted as an increase in the stratospheric temps at the time - and there was no such increase recorded.

 

I guess it's a bit like expecting a match being lit to have a measurable impact in the millenium Dome!

Edited September 24, 2013 by chionomaniac

[Coast]

It certainly was powerful enough to generate some impressive infrasound returns that sent a shockwave around the Earth two times:

 

A preliminary estimate of the explosive energy using empirical period-yield scaling relations gives a value of 460 kt of TNT equivalent. 

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50619/abstract

 

Hundreds of tonnes of dust lingered in the atmosphere for a long time too:

 

By Feb. 19, four days after the explosion, the faster, higher portion of the plume had snaked its way entirely around the Northern Hemisphere and back to Chelyabinsk. But the plume’s evolution continued: At least three months later, a detectable belt of bolide dust persisted around the planet.

 

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/15aug_russianmeteorplume/

 

Did it affect the Arctic weather earlier this year? I guess the jury is still out on that one.

 

The study is ongoing, with potential research directions including looking at whether or not meteor debris can affect cloud formation in the stratosphere and mesosphere.

 

http://www.weather.com/news/science/space/russian-meteor-explosions-dust-cloud-lingered-atmosphere-months-20130819

Edited September 24, 2013 by Coast

[Yarmy]

Wouldn't have thought so. It exploded in the air I thought and so most of it would have either vapourized or fragmented and fallen to the ground. It was only about 20m in diameter to start with.

 

This year's rebound was still way below the long-term average. It's trends that matter, the longer the better, and the trend for Arctic ice is down, down, down.

[Gray-Wolf]

Thanks for the links coast!

 

My interest here was piqued by the increase in noctilucents over the past century and the recent uptick in atmospheric methane making its way into the strat ( and breaking down into it's constituents, including water vapour, via ultra violet interaction).

 

With extra Water Vapour I'd have thought that any added condensation nuclei would lead to more cloud formation?

 

Have we seen an extra active noctilucent season? Did it start earlier than normal?

 

If the dust from this event was able to have measurable impact then the mega tonnage of dust from ISON's tail , from Jan 12th 2014, might be something worth looking at?

[Bobby]

The meteor was about ~9,000 tonnes and less than that entered into the upper atmosphere. I can't see that being enough mass to have a significant global effect on the climate.. if that's spread out across the entire atmosphere that's not much. Wikipedia says 15,000 tonnes worth of meteors enter the atmosphere every year. How much influence do meteors have on our climate? Why would the Russian one have a major impact? The Tunguska meteor was a lot larger, maybe if it was many times the global average then it may have a significant effect I think. I think other factors will override any effect it produced.

Edited September 24, 2013 by Bobby

[Snowkissed]

You have given me lots of food for thought Grey-wolf, thank you! I have to say that I too am following ISON with interest with regards how it might effect the atmosphere etc.

[Gray-Wolf]

From the info i'd be aware of Tunguska was a comparable object impacting with similar force?

 

The 'background' debris that we face each year can be discounted but a large event ( as this one surely was???) must demand some thought?

 

The NASA plots show the Debris curled tight over the Arctic post event and not 'spreading around the whole atmosphere'? As such the waking Arctic must have had some impact and that impact must have had further ramifications on that area as one augmentation played into the next set of events?

 

I am not trying to say that a single event 'caused' the cool summer but did it have impact? did it make things more severe than just 'Natural' on it's own?

 

If we think it did then will we face surprises next year when ISON deposits a 'whole atmosphere' of dust over a week long period?

 

Again I'd stress that we already failed to model the impacts of smaller eruptions on global temps ( and their inputs are teeny when compared to the dust ISON is already losing each hour!) so should we find that such air bursts can impart effect than the tonnage we will encounter come Jan must cause concern?

 

The only folk pleased will be the climate misleaders should the Arctic , once again, prove to be in rebound mode.

[Bobby]

From the info i'd be aware of Tunguska was a comparable object impacting with similar force?

 

The 'background' debris that we face each year can be discounted but a large event ( as this one surely was???) must demand some thought?

 

The NASA plots show the Debris curled tight over the Arctic post event and not 'spreading around the whole atmosphere'? As such the waking Arctic must have had some impact and that impact must have had further ramifications on that area as one augmentation played into the next set of events?

 

I am not trying to say that a single event 'caused' the cool summer but did it have impact? did it make things more severe than just 'Natural' on it's own?

 

If we think it did then will we face surprises next year when ISON deposits a 'whole atmosphere' of dust over a week long period?

 

Again I'd stress that we already failed to model the impacts of smaller eruptions on global temps ( and their inputs are teeny when compared to the dust ISON is already losing each hour!) so should we find that such air bursts can impart effect than the tonnage we will encounter come Jan must cause concern?

 

The only folk pleased will be the climate misleaders should the Arctic , once again, prove to be in rebound mode.

 

Looking around on the web the weight estimates of the Tunguska meteor put it at least 10x heavier than the one this year, 100s of thousands of tonnes rather than ~10 thousand.

 

What do we know though about how small meteors, comets affect our climate? Has research been done in this area?

[SomeLikeItHot]

Tunguska explosion was meant to be around 10-15 Megatonne explosion. The Chelyabinsk one was mean to be about 0.5 Megatonnes about 20-30 times smaller.

[Timini Cricket]

Since 2005, The American Meteor Society has kept logs of fireball sightings reported in to them:

 

http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireballs/fireball-report/

 

lots of good information there

 

(2013 to date)

2005	467	2006	517	2007	591	2008	730	2009	699	2010	954	2011	1636	2012	2145	2013	2250	pending	201	

This indicates an almost five-fold increase in sightings over the last 8 years. Why would this be?

 

More fireballs or more observer-hours watching the skies? It is certainly easier to communicate to report by mobile phone/internet services, so there may be some observational bias here.

 

More fireballs is also possible - more satellite debris falling to earth would increase fireball numbers, or is our region of space just getting dirtier? Is the solar system passing through a debris cloud?

 

NLC -noctilucent clouds, Polar Mesospheric clouds have been linked to meteor burn-up debris or meteor smoke as nuclei for formation, and have been increasingly observed over the past few years. http://www.spaceclouds.info/ for lots more info, incl Chelyabinsk and Volcanic effects. 

 

(Megatonne explosion = equivalent weight of TNT to get that explosive effect, and is nothing to to with the mass of the object as it enters the atmosphere.)

 

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm sure the only difference in the Tunguska event and this years was the angle of entry? The Tunguska event flattened the trees below due to a steep entry angle whereas the spring event was more 'glancing' in it's entry angle.

 

Most folk don't realise just how bad springs event would have been had it approached at a steeper angle and a couple of degrees earlier in time ( allowing the air-burst to be over major population centers with the shock wave pushing down on the area below it)?

[4wd]

There will be events like this all the time, this one only made the news because it was over a fairly well populated area and lots of video footage emerged.If it was over the Pacific it would hardly have got a mention.

[Gray-Wolf]

The global monitoring of the event begs to differ with you 4?

 

Such impacts will now be reported no matter where they occur over the planet.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[4wd]

Recorded, but not reported unless someone got it on their "hand held device"

[barrel1234]

The cold arctic would have been due to a combination of reduced solar activity, weather patterns and the PDO being in a negative phase- When the AMO gets started and turns negative too then you will see some pretty cold times in the Arctic regions.

 

   I can't understand why a relatively minor meteor event could be put before more obvious and hugely more powerful natural drivers.

 

Of course that being said more major meteor/volcanic events will for sure have an impact.

[Gray-Wolf]

I started the thread on the back of seeing the NASA plot for the debris field and the 'unusual' turn of events across the Arctic ( compared to the average years post 07').

 

Personally The 'odd' weather had already begun before the air-burst but maybe it was an added factor in the spring weather up there?

 

We still do not know how Ison is going to pan out but if it does leave a weeks worth of debris in our way then I'm sure it will hold the potential to mess with our weather over it's period of impact?

[UV-RAY]

All this talk of a small comet effecting temps 80 degrees North is nonsense IMO, it's kinda like looking for excuses GW and playing down possible natural forcings at play.

[Methuselah]

All this talk of a small comet effecting temps 80 degrees North is nonsense IMO, it's kinda like looking for excuses GW and playing down possible natural forcings at play.

I agree...My inbuilt 'baloney-meter' has gone off the scale!

[UV-RAY]

I agree...My inbuilt 'baloney-meter' has gone off the scale!

inbuilt baloney-meter :-)

[Methuselah]

inbuilt baloney-meter :-)

It has an AGW bypass!