Arctic sea ice heads for record low

Supercell

From http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22175-arctic-sea-ice-heads-for-record-low.html

Excerpt :-

Going, going… Next month could see Arctic sea ice shrink to its smallest extent yet, beating the previous record, set in 2007. Any such record will be driven by unusual weather, but is also a result of underlying warming.

Big Tone

Supercell wrote: »

From http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22175-arctic-sea-ice-heads-for-record-low.html

Excerpt :-

Probably ties in with our below-par Summers here being wetter and duller than usual...all that evaporated ice being dumped as rain on Ireland for the 5th year in a row now, whilest Iceland and Greenland enjoy a run of very good Summers since 2007!

Birdnuts

Big Tone wrote: »

Probably ties in with our below-par Summers here being wetter and duller than usual...all that evaporated ice being dumped as rain on Ireland for the 5th year in a row now, whilest Iceland and Greenland enjoy a run of very good Summers since 2007!

I'm begining to wonder this myself - if it is part of a longer term trend then its quiet worrying to say the least:(

TURRICAN

They said the ice is melting faster than the models predicted and could be gone by the 2030s.
Lord knows if il be around then, but for the children its a hard graft ahead.
So much is changing so fast,hardly gives time for us humans to adapt quick enough.

Times are changing rapidly.
Remember the summers we got years ago...i dont think we will see that in Ireland anymore.

Nabber

The predictions are pointless tbh. Oil was supposed to run out in the 80s. The Ozone layer should be gone by now. Acid rain should have disolved all our buildings.

I'm not sure why there is this big emphasis on 'this record has been broken' We are still coming out of an Ice Age. Melting ice every summer is expected, this is Nature. Why do we think ice melt should be the same amount every year?

Coles

Link to source

Supercell

Personally I wish it wasn't heading this way, whether the current warming is man made or not (and this year is heading to be the warmest ever apparently) it means (more)crappy summers in Ireland and possibly cooler winters too, at least initially. I really don't see any upside here in our damp little corner.

Coles

The big unknown is the scale of the impact of warming waters on the Methane hydrates that are trapped on the Arctic Seabed. Quite worrying.

megatron989

Coles wrote: »

The big unknown is the scale of the impact of warming waters on the Methane hydrates that are trapped on the Arctic Seabed. Quite worrying.

Indeed Coles, your very right. The chance of some tipping point being reached is increased when locked up methane is released. Now obviously we can't know for sure if this will happen in the next few years but if it did we could be in trouble. As I remember it Russia has found areas where permafrost has melted and harmful gas (also methane I believe) was detected. A large release could send climate change into over drive in the short term.

maquiladora

MiNdGaM3

Arctic sea ice area has hit a new record low (as of the 18th), 3 weeks before the last years previous record minimum on the 9th of September.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

pauldry

yes its at 2.877million square kilometers now

the previous low was 2.91 square kilometers so it could beat it by quite a distance.

a lot of ice is still melting bar a return to cold weather and conditions are not cold enough yet.

Big Tone

Coles wrote: »

The big unknown is the scale of the impact of warming waters on the Methane hydrates that are trapped on the Arctic Seabed. Quite worrying.

You may be surprised, and alarmed, to know that this is already happening.

Using aerial and ground-based surveys, a scientific team identified about 150,000 methane seeps in Alaska and Greenland in lakes along the margins of ice cover.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18120093

MiNdGaM3

Cryosphere today has updated and it's still falling, now 60,470km2 below the previous record.

Here's a comparison between the current sea ice area and previous annual minima.

Big Tone

Arctic sea ice looks set to hit a record low by the end of the month, according to satellite data.

Scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said data showed that the sea ice extent was tracking below the previous record low, set in 2007.

Latest figures show that on 13 August ice extent was 483,000 sq km (186,000 sq miles) below the previous record low for the same date five years ago.

The ice is expected to continue melting until mid- to late September.

"A new daily record... would be likely by the end of August," the centre's lead scientist, Ted Scambos, told Reuters.

"Chances are it will cross the previous record while we are still in ice retreat



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19330307

MiNdGaM3

Big Tone wrote: »

Arctic sea ice looks set to hit a record low by the end of the month, according to satellite data.

Scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said data showed that the sea ice extent was tracking below the previous record low, set in 2007.

Latest figures show that on 13 August ice extent was 483,000 sq km (186,000 sq miles) below the previous record low for the same date five years ago.

The ice is expected to continue melting until mid- to late September.

"A new daily record... would be likely by the end of August," the centre's lead scientist, Ted Scambos, told Reuters.

"Chances are it will cross the previous record while we are still in ice retreat



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19330307

That gap between this year and 2007, going by the NSIDC sea ice extent figures is now has gone from 483,000km2 on the 13th to 594,720km2 on the 19th.
We're now only 286,680km2 off the record daily minimum.

Data here and here

EDIT: Having just updated to the 20th, we're now just 174,290km2 off the all time daily record low, and 644,810km2 ahead of where 2007 was at this time!

Cú Giobach

Nabber wrote: »

The predictions are pointless tbh. Oil was supposed to run out in the 80s. The Ozone layer should be gone by now. Acid rain should have disolved all our buildings.

I'm not sure why there is this big emphasis on 'this record has been broken' We are still coming out of an Ice Age. Melting ice every summer is expected, this is Nature. Why do we think ice melt should be the same amount every year?

The big issue is how will it affect us, just because something is "natural" doesn't mean we can just ignore it, should not be interested in it or can/should not be concerned about it.

pauldry

Arctic Sea Ice on Cryosphere thingy has decreased further.

To say this wont affect Climate is nonsense.

There is already evidence to suggest it has with all the weather types becoming more extreme worldwide and some of it must be attributed to Arctic.

Rain is heavier
Heatwaves more serious
Snowstorms more severe when they do come
Typhoons, Hurricanes and Wind harder to determine but there seems to be annual serios ones too.

So expect warm and wet for Ireland Id say.

MiNdGaM3

pauldry wrote: »

Arctic Sea Ice on Cryosphere thingy has decreased further.

To say this wont affect Climate is nonsense.

There is already evidence to suggest it has with all the weather types becoming more extreme worldwide and some of it must be attributed to Arctic.

Rain is heavier
Heatwaves more serious
Snowstorms more severe when they do come
Typhoons, Hurricanes and Wind harder to determine but there seems to be annual serios ones too.

So expect warm and wet for Ireland Id say.

It's hard to understand how anyone could think that losing all that ice (now 2.36 million km2 below average) could not effect the NH mid latitude weather, but somehow there are plenty around.

It will be interesting so see the weather patterns this Autumn as the system deals with the huge loss of ice and the latent heat release from the Arctic ocean as it begins to freeze.

pauldry

It may not be an immediate climatic change but I even drove home today and there was a shower for 30seconds of intensity of about 200mm per hour and car aqua plaining then 200 yards up the road ...dry.

I was thinking maybe the shrinking ice will mean it will renew itself quicker in September making for an earlier colder Winter and the US is due a cold one to average the temperature down a bit from the hot Summer.

The climate still seems to balance itself but now it was to go to extremes to do so.

quercus

thought this was interesting, we ill find out if its true in a few months:)

http://www.pbmc.coppe.ufrj.br/en/news/246-less-sea-ice-brings-more-snow

MiNdGaM3

Almost all the sea ice record have been broken now. The 5 day NSIDC mean will be broken tomorrow, leaving just the IMS extent and PIOMAS volume data left to beat, both of which are currently lowest on record for the time of year.

Victor Meldrew

Longyearbyen got some snow last night.... Mountains were clear previously....

Presumably they are heading back into cooling before things get cold again...

Would imagine it will be the reverse of the thaw, with land freezing an holding snow beside clear seas

Danno

What data are you looking at lads...

No record low at all! http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/

Nabber

Cú Giobach wrote: »

The big issue is how will it affect us, just because something is "natural" doesn't mean we can just ignore it, should not be interested in it or can/should not be concerned about it.

I agree.

But when the % for human error is higher then the % of change, then your concerns are in all likelyhood based on human error and not weather change.
My issue is with the scare mongering, it's wrong whether weather related or not.

gothwalk

Danno wrote: »

What data are you looking at lads...

No record low at all! http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/

Charts there only seem to run up to the 22nd, last week, rather than the 29th? I can't see numeric day-by-day data there, only gifs.

Big Tone

Danno wrote: »

What data are you looking at lads...

No record low at all! http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/

From both those charts it's definitely heading that way for 2012

Here's an animated illustration of artic ice melt over a 30 period up to the end of August

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/loop/nhem-1mo-loop.html

Mr Benevolent

So does more ice melting mean more cold water in circulation, dropping overall sea temps?

Big Tone

Confab wrote: »

So does more ice melting mean more cold water in circulation, dropping overall sea temps?

Basically it's the opposite, a rise in sea temps as there is less ice for the sunlight to reflected back into space and to the water absorbs the sunlight instead resulting in a warming of the sea and therefore encroaching even further into the ice sheet...it's a vicious cycle..if mankind cannot reverse this trend, which doesn't look likely, then Earth could end up like it's sister planet Venus (which suffered from a runaway geenhouse gas effect even though it had oceans of water billions of years ago), smothered in greenhouse gases with no escape from the heat of the Sun...there's already solid evidence of newly discovered vast tracts of methane being billowed into Earth's atmosphere right now from the artic..and that's a deadly greenhouse gas!

gothwalk

This article from the 27th says the record has now, definitely, been broken:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/27/arctic-sea-ice-shrinks-lowest-extent

MiNdGaM3

Danno wrote: »

What data are you looking at lads...

No record low at all! http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/

Cherry picking at its best.
I think we were looking at these charts








And many more https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/

Here's the closest thing to the numerical data for the IMS chart ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/masie_extent_sqkm.csv
Most of the data sets are automated and based purely on passive microwave data and is not comparable to the IMS graph. The IMS/MASIE involves lots of other techniques, and is used for shipping, including military applications so they have a tendency to err on the side of caution with their data, hence why its a little higher than others.
Anyway, the loss over the last 4 days with IMS/MASIE is almost 800k, with about 650k being lost in the last 3 days alone. When the IMS chart updates, expect that line to continue diving!