NOT SO COLD FACT: This year's summer ice cover, represented in white, is slightly more than 1 million square miles smaller than the long-term average, represented by the pink line.
Image: NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE DATA CENTER
'Tis the season in the Arctic when the sun disappears below the horizon and twilight replaces daylight. Temperatures drop and ice that melted throughout the Arctic summer begins to cover the world's northernmost ocean again. Scientists have used satellite pictures since 1979 to map the extent of such ice at its minimum, and the picture this year isn't pretty. Covering 1.59 million square miles (4.12 million square kilometers), this summer's sea ice shattered the previous record for the smallest ice cap of 2.05 million square miles (5.31 million square kilometers) in 2005—a further loss of sea ice area equivalent to the states of California and Texas combined.
"The sea ice cover this year has reached a new record low," says Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "It's not just that we beat the old record, we annihilated it."
As a result of atmospheric patterns that both warmed the air and reduced cloud cover as well as increased residual heat in newly exposed ocean waters, such melting helped open the fabled Northwest Passage for the first time [see photo] this summer and presaged tough times for polar bears and other Arctic animals that rely on sea ice to survive, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Such precipitous loss of ice cover far outpaces anything climate models or scientists have predicted.
This new record low continues the trend of steadily shrinking summer sea ice. "We're already set up for a big loss next year," Serreze notes. "We've got so much open water in the Arctic right now that has absorbed so much energy over the summer that the ocean has warmed. The ice that grows back this autumn will be thin."
In fact, a German expedition on the icebreaker Polarstern has revealed that existing Arctic sea ice in the center of the ice cap is only about three feet (one meter) thick, 50 percent thinner than it was just six years ago. As a result, more melt water is mixing with the salty seawater and pulses of warmer Atlantic seawater have intruded into the Arctic Ocean.
Whereas the South Pole remains protected by differing geographic, atmospheric and oceanic conditions, the North Pole is undergoing rapid change not seen in at least 6,000 years and perhaps as much as 125,000 years, and which may spread to lower latitudes. "It is reasonable to think that if you lose the sea ice cover that is going to have an impact elsewhere, in the midlatitudes," Serreze says. Some modeling studies of such effects have suggested drought in the western U.S. or changes in precipitation patterns across Europe.
Serreze expects the ice will bounce back somewhat next year, if only because he cannot imagine it shrinking any more so swiftly. But ice-free summers in the Arctic may become the norm in the near future. "At this point, I'd say the year 2030 is not unreasonable" for a summer without sea ice in the Arctic, Serreze says. "Within our lifetimes and certainly within our children's lifetimes."
When that occurs, the Arctic Ocean may become a spooky, foggy place, haunted by diminished populations of spectrally thin polar bears clinging to life in residual habitat. "It's going to be a different world," Serreze notes. "The observed rates of change have far outstripped what we projected."
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10 Comments
Add CommentI think that we can use Liquid nitrogen to refreeze water into ice at the Arctic zone but I am afraid that may affect the aquatic wealth including rare species of aquatic animals .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho is this Serrez character? Sounds like he just fell off the turnip truck. Has he ever heard of "The Snowball Effect". That is what is going to happen! It will hit us so fast & so hard, most people will have no clue what hit them. Due to ignorance, selfishness etc. etc. we have no chance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to cease the population explosion. Such a pity & so deplorable what people are going to put their children through.
We needed to act 10 years ago. We are past the point of no return.
Now only almighty God can bring the earth back to the normal situation which is only possible through ancient science in India call shvyog which means union with god.The
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisearth is getting destroyed by sinful activities of masses.We have to pray god to help the mother earth by poitive force which is called sanjeevani power in sanskrit.pls log on to
www.shivyog.com as how to cahnge the present civilization back to right path.all this change is happening because we are not only burning oil but even exposure of woman's body with which the entire universe is getting disturb because univers is directly connected to humanity.
rgds/suresh wadhawan
I thought the article contributor was out of touch with reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen I read the comments, and thought I fell into the twilight zone.
I think it will be good to open tunnels between oceans and some low lands (like valleys, deeps caves, or holes inside earth) so they absorb the excess water coming from poles melting, this may be a good solution for some time to help cities near shores and islands that started to sink under the rising of ocean water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not surprised that the nutty comments are started. This is an unprecidented event.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe melting of the North Pole ice cap will change the world in unpredictable ways. We are fantisizing about religious implications as well as macro-engineering projects. One even suggested a way mankind could reverse the process. Another suggested we dig tunnels through the earth to transfer fresh melt water to areas that need it. So ridiculous as if we have unlimited resources, which we do not. Nor do we have the power to make individual decisions even if we knew what to do, which we don't. The best we can hope for in this historic occurrence is to use the situation in a personal or small enterprise way to help others who this may effect. This is a part of the natural geological cycle of the earth. This has nothing or very little to do with the activites of man being a very small percentage of what it happening. If mankind were gone today, the process would go on regardless, there is nothing we can or should do. Throwing money we do not have at it will not stop it or even effect it. The hype is all political rhetoric aimed at controlling the money supply we do have. Global warming is taking place there is no doubt, but it has more to do with the place of earth in orbit and the changing energy from the sun over time than us. Mankind has an inflated sense of its own effect. Our actions affect our local environment on a daily basis but that power does not extend to the universe. We are a microcosm of ego-centricity. We will all be gone some day as we suddenly appeared in the concept of time. A blip on the radar of eternity. There have been many ice ages and hot spots in history of the earth so it is inconceivable that we are during the entire short history of mankind going to affect it for long. Mankind's activity is not significant. Those who believe so are simply not seeing the whole picture.
Sorry the site does not allow Rich Text or spelling correction making it impossible to fully express ourselves and be properly understood. Maybe in the next millineum, ha.
If all the North Pole Ice melts, Humanity Will Become Extinct! The 10,000 Gigatons of Methane gas under the ice will escape and rise in the atmosphere, cause a Green House Effect, and cause the extinction of Humanity, in the same manner it has caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Read "Mass Life Extinctions," in the October 2006 issue of the Scientific American Magazine, and
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Methane, a Menace Surfaces," in the December 2009 issue of the S. A. M. And this will happen not in 50 or 60 years as some say, but in the next few years. Immediate actions are
required so that we may survive!
If the Arctic Ice melting now seen is actually happening because of vastly increased soot from the industrialization of China, which falls on the ice surface and dramatically increases the absorption rate of solar energy during 23 hr. days, then the summer meltback may reach a limit short of the North Pole depending on prevailing winds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhether C02 increases a lot may be immaterial, the soot problem from China's coal plants and millions of new diesel engines on the road adds to dust problem from arid NW China, over-grazed Mongolia, and the Gobi desert. Normally the dust falls in the Bering Strait as an atmospheric fertilizer which feeds plankton and the whole fabulous food chain of the Bering Sea fishery.
While things may be tough for polar bears, it is going to be great for fish, seals, whales, and migratory birds, When fish processing ships venture into the summer Arctic ice-free sea, just require them to go by spits of land and pump out all the fish guts and fish parts they don't want on shore for the polar bears to eat and Nature will be a winner all around.
The Chinese don't seem to be so swept up in the idea that they need to slow down the dream of every Chinese citizen to have hot running water in every house, electricity in every house, a clothes washer and drier in every house and a full complement of all other appliances, and at least one car in every driveway.
A lot will depend on whether Chinese leadership perceives that their NW aridity problem is being caused by the climate being too hot, or maybe by it being too cool! The Chinese will not trust Western experts on this for the same reason the Russians don't--they suspect that the habits of good objective science have given way to a quasi-religious green hysteria with intimate ties to the political and economic agendas of insider manipulators.
If manmade global warming is perceived by China to be more a problem changing political perceptions and definitions, they know exactly how how to disarm and brainwash political opponents. They will use the same tactics they used on their own nation's Tianamin Square pro-democracy movement to make that problem go away. They will adopt the language of green politics to provide cover for what they really intend to do.
I don't expect that those protesters in Australia who are trying to stop the coal that China has already purchased from being loaded on ships will succeed. China has also bought fossil fuel property in Canada's oil shale region.
Naive question : Could the weight of the ice removed, melted off Groenland and North Pole affect the Axis of Rotation of the Planet ? Did not this happened in the past ? ( I think of the tropical forests that covered Northern Europe). Thank you for your reply.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is sad to say that there are some people who do not realize that they are the cause of this carbon and climate problems. Can’t you see that due to this advance technology we have, the fast growing population, the negligence and ignorance of the people on how to care the earth, the earth is in big trouble and nobody else is to blame but us? And we have to suffer the consequences due to our actions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis world is not ours and we do not have the right to destroy it. God has commanded the first man and woman on earth to take care of it and not just them because this commandment is for all of us. Our Creator has given us everything we need but because of the fact that man has “no point of satisfaction”, we are aspiring for more and in return we will suffer more. Blaming an individual or a country is of no use, we took part in making this problem. Companies and all of them in the business world are doing everything to meet their consumer’s demands and that’s us. But don’t say it is too late or there’s nothing we can do about it because there are still a lot of small things that we can do. Great thing starts from small beginnings.
You may want to watch the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, because this might help you. I just wanted to share some lines by Al Gore. “Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problems. Each one of us is the cause of global warming, but each of us can make choices to change that. With the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive. We can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands we just have to have the determination to make them happen.”
The nature is just reciprocating what we have done to her. Think of the future, your children's future. If you do not act now, then when? Don’t wait until the world will end. You have a chance now, grab it.