Friday, February 25, 2011

Arctic Losing Winter Sea Ice...New and Alarming Trend..

Recent View of Arctic
    Cryosphere Today website
The Cryosphere Today website is very interesting, I recommend it.  The above image was taken from it. What it shows is actually quite disturbing. 

Every winter the Arctic sea ice extends and freezes its normal maximum area of about 14 million square kilometers (msk).  That is normal for now. If you go back to 1980, the Arctic normally reached a maximum ice are over 16msk.  In any case, the area that was frozen over would be completely covered with ice. 

The completeness of the ice coverage can be seen by the color given to the ice by the Cryosphere Today website. 
Arctic View winter before the great melt
Compare the two images from February 24th 2007 and 2011.  See the difference?  The 2007 image is a solid purple. That means that the Ocean is completely covered with ice -- 100%. That is good.  That is to be expected. After all, in 1980, the average ice thickness was 17 ft, and was primarily multi-year ice. 

The 2011 image is NOT solid purple.  The Arctic is NOT completely covered in ice. The ice concentration is less than 100%.  The colors indicate that the concentration is 95%, 90%, and as low as 80%.  Water is actually exposed to the air in those places. If you were to be walking there, you could drown. 

This is extraordinary.  Remember the image for 2007 shows the condition of the Arctic in the year when a summer ice minimum of 3msk was reached.  That was a serious meltback that blew away previous records by one million sq. kilometers! When that happened, climatologists rushed to their models to update them. None of the climate models predicted that huge meltback.  

But, even that year showed 100% ice coverage the preceeding winter.  This winter is different.  What does it portend?

First, I think the there should be a huge meltback this summer, easily beating the 2007 record.  I would not be surprised to see a summer ice minimum of 2msk. 

Secondly, I see a trend towards less and less winter ice. The loss of sea ice area until now has shown a decrease in area at the margins.  Now it is losing ice throughout, and it is doing it in WINTER!  If the cold Arctic air cannot freeze the ocean in the winter, then that means that Arctic Ocean is becoming to warm to freeze. 

Note Hudson Bay. It did not freeze over until January, two months late. But, it did freeze over. Note that its color is a solid purple, so it ishows 100% sea ice concentration. It may be thin ice, but it covers completely.  The Arctic is not doing that. 

Now another thing that may be happening is wave action. The Arctic is an ocean which means waves.  If the ice is not thick enough, then wave action will break it up.  So we might be seeing the development of ice and water mixture, a sort of ocean slushy.  This may be just as bad as having the ice melted, from an albedo effect.  If you notice, broken up ice floating in water, becomes clear and takes on the color of the water.  So, ice reflectivity is lost.  Sunlight, when it comes in the spring, will start being absorbed before the ice gets fully melted. 

As there is less summer ice, more solar energy is absorbed, warming the ocean that much faster. 

Now as the ocean warms, then the winter ice concentration should be expected to decline.  Now it is at 95% over much of the area.  In future years, may it go down to 90%, 80%, and even lower.  If this trend continues long enough, shouldn't we expect to see an ice free Arctic in the winter?  It might take several hundred years to reach that condition, but unless something happens to reverse the underlying conditions causing the trend, then how can it be avoided? 

Impact on Greenland
The importance of Arctic ice loss is on loss of albedo and the warming of the Arctic Ocean. The reason why that is important is that is where the climate of Greenland is determined.  When ice is year around to the north of Greenland, then all the weather coming to Greenland is freezing during the entire year. The ice cap is safe. 

However, when the Arctic ocean is open water, it is above freezing.  Thus, all weather systems going over it to Greenland become above freezing.  Greenland melts. The less ice, and the warmer the ocean, the warmer the air, and the faster Greenland melts. 

The climatologists foresaw an ice free summer Arctic happening soon. Maybe as soon as 2020.  However, none foresee an ice free WINTER Arctic!.  This could mean that Greenland's melt season would be year around. Not just for a few months in the summer. 

If that happens -- HYPER MELT time.  Now we could be talking about accelerating the melting of Greenlands ice cap by orders of magnitude.  To me, an increase of melting by 100 times more the current melt rate would not be surprising. 

This may seem extreme, but it is just a matter of deduction.  Think about it. 

Monday, February 21, 2011

Record Melting of Arctic Ice coming in 2011 !!!

I am forecasting a record meltback of Arctic Ocean ice area for the summer of 2011. In 2007, a record low of Arctic Ice area was recorded - approximately 3 million sq. km. Before that, a "normal" year would see an minimal ice area of about 5 mil. sq. km.  This year, I am forecasting a new record low of near 2 mil. sq. km. will be set. 

The Significance?


This is significant since ice has a high albedo factor.  That is, it reflects most of the suns light and heat back into space. As more and more of the Arctic ocean is ice free, more and more of the sun's heat is absorbed. Thus, the ocean's temperature increases, and less ice is formed in following years. This feedback process has been well underway for the last few decades. 

When the Arctic ocean north of Greenland becomes ice free each summer, then the air masses bringing weather to Greenland will be above freezing. In the past, the ocean north of Greenland was ice covered year around.  When their is north of Greenland, then the melting of the Greenland Ice Cap will begin in earnest. I believe it will enter what I call "hyper-melt" mode. With the warmer air coming to Greenland for longer summer periods. Then Greenland's ice will melt in earnest.  I would not be surprised to see an increase of melting by an order of magnitude. 

Satellite view of Arctic 05/012000
Note the color is dark purple indicating the ice covers the water 100%

How Do I know?  I regularly go to the Cryosphere Today site maintained by the University of Illinois.  This site has satellite images of the Arctic showing the ice coverage. The images of the ice are color coded showing the density of the coverage.  Dark purple for complete coverage through light blue for almost no coverage, and black for less than 15% ice. If you look at all previous years for May 1, you will see dark purple over all the Arctic.

Well, for 5/01/2011, you not see dark purple everywhere.  You will a lot of light purple, red, yellow, and green. That means that the Arctic ice is not completely covering the ocean.  It means that the cold Arctic air is not cold enough to overcome the heat of the Arctic ocean and freeze it over.  Therefore, this ice will melt very fast this summer. 

Satellite view of the Arctic from Cryosphere Today site.
Note the multi-colored Arctic showing that the ice is not 100% covering the water.
This is new
These colors you see is a new development. Normally you only see colors other than purple at the edges of the ice. The ice would be solid, except at the margins, where the melting would occur. But now we see large areas of varying ice concentrations. This can only mean that the ice has become too thin to remain structurally sound. That is, the waves of the ocean are breaking it up. It will melt much quicker and more easily.


If you look at the ice area for May 1, 2007, you will see that the ice completely covered the ocean. The Arctic set a record low summer ice minimum. Since 2011 is starting with thinner and less ice coverage than in 2007 the record sea ice minimum should be easily broken this year. 


I suspect that we are seeing a new pattern of ice melt.  If this pattern repeats itself next year, then it is likely that it is a permanent change. Permanent, that is, until there is no ice in the Arctic.