2012 Arctic Sea Ice Melt Shatters 2007 Record

Arctic sea ice extent -  A NEW RECORD MINIMUM

On 19 September the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) released a preliminary report stating that the 2012 minimum sea ice extent in the Arctic was probably reached on 16 September 2012.  On that date the sea ice extent was 3.41 million km2.  That sea ice extent smashed the previous record minimum sea ice extent from 2007 by 760,000 km2.

The map below shows the sea ice extent on 9/16/2012 when it was at its minimum (white area).  The orange lines show the 1979-2000 average for sea ice extent.

What percent of sea ice cover remained of the historical 1979-2000 average at the end of this year's melt season?  Just over 51%.  That's right, the Arctic sea ice was nearly half gone at the end of the melt season.

Again, some people might argue that the sea ice extent minimum might have been a fluke random event, but that is looking less and less likely.  When we look at the past several years' sea ice minimum data they ALL fall below the 1979-2000 average.  The graph below shows the sea ice minimum extents for all the years 2007-2012.  The likelihood of this many years of sea ice minima below the average by random chance alone is just 1.56%.

And this table shows the actual sea ice extent data:

To wrap things up, "Is the climate change house on fire?" Should we be alarmed?  Look at the data and reach your own conclusion - and these data are just the tip of the iceberg.

Is the house on fire? Indications of climate change - 2012

I'm not an alarmist, but there are times to be alarmed - like when your house is on fire, or when you see the headlong approach of unswerving headlights.

When it comes to global climate, is the house on fire?

Record-settting number of high temperature records

The most recent data I could find on daily temperature records in the USA was from July 2012.  According to the National Climate Data Center, there were 23,283 new record high temperatures set across the United States from Jan-July 2012.

There are also some other troubling data and scenarios out there.

In mid-July a compelling article on climate change and current weather and climate patterns by Bill McKibben appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine.  You can read it in its entirety by clicking the link below.  

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Building on data presented in that article we are now entering the 329th consecutive month with average temperatures above the 20th century average.  Yes, you read that right...329th month...that's nearly 27.5 years where EVERY month's average was above the 1900-1999 average temperature.  Now it is expected that any set of data from a natural system would include variability - year to year rainfall totals, temperature fluctuations, your heart rate, your annual body mass fluctuations, etc.  But when we see over 27 years of monthly average temperature data above the average of that for an entire century of temperature readings, we should probably sit up and think about what's going on.

If temperature fluctuations were behaving completely randomly, with no long-term temperature increase or decrease, we would predict that a given month's average temperature has a 50% chance (probability = 0.5) of being above average.  The chances of two consecutive months being above average would be 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25 (= a 25% chance of happening by random chance alone).  So, what are the odds of observing 329 consecutive months with average temperatures above the 1900-1999 average temperature by random chance alone?  to get the answer to this question you need to multiply 0.5 by itself 329 times.  The answer is, according to the Rolling Stone article 3.7 x 10^-99.  That means that there is a 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000037% chance of that happening by random chance alone.  That's such a small likelihood of happening that it's time to look for things that could be driving that other than random chance.

The prime suspect?  A trend of global climate change, i.e., global warming.

The total global average temperature hasn't increased all that much so far in the past 100 years or so...only 0.8oC.  And if we are seeing significant changes with only this small change in global temperature, what could happen when we reach 2oC?  - the projected limit that we could reach without incurring MAJOR global environmental and ecological effects?

BTW, climate models suggest that the atmosphere-ocean-earth system may be able to accommodate the emission of another 595 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere before we reach the 2oC mark.  But guess what?  The cumulative proven reserves of fossil fuels currently controlled by energy companies and countries with nationalized mining and extraction = 2,795 gigatons of fossil fuel.  That's just the fossil fuel that we know about.  That's 5x the total we can emit before hitting the 2oC mark.

Are there other indicators are there that climate is shifting?  Check out some of my other postings.

Record sea ice melt season reduces sea ice extent to only about 50% of its historical average

It's nearly the middle of September, the traditional end of the sea ice melt season in the Arctic Ocean.  The rate of sea ice melt has slowed over the past few days, perhaps signaling the beginning of the end of the Arctic Ocean sea ice melt season for 2012, but it's not completely done yet, and it's been a crazy summer in the Arctic!

Do you see what I see?  The extent of sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is WAY smaller now than the 1979-2000 average (orange lines) with only ~51% of the 1979-2000 average sea ice cover remaining today.

Consider this...

The average sea ice cover (extent) in the Arctic from 1979-2000 was about 6.7 million square kilometers.  Right now there is only about 3.45 million square kilometers of sea ice in the Arctic (as shown above).  The area of ice that is MISSING is shown on the map below.  Sea ice extent has NEVER been this low.

How does this compare to the previous sea ice melt record?  The previous sea ice melt record was in 2007.  The dark gray line on the graph below shows the 1979-2000 average sea ice cover.  The dashed green line shows the sea ice cover during 2007, and the blue line shows sea ice cover during 2012.  The 2012 ice melt smashed the 2007 record, with over 750,000 km2 more sea ice melting than in 2007.

Interestingly, the high amount of sea ice melt in 2007 was largely the result of an unusual Arctic weather year.  It had huge high pressure regions over large areas of the polar north, and lots and lots of sunshine, which meant lots of sea ice melting.  In 2012 however weather conditions did not appear to be set up to produce lots of sea ice melt.  There was a major cyclonic low pressure system that produced lots of cloud cover.  And that combined with associated winds normally slows sea ice melt.  But not this year.  It has just apparently gotten too warm overall in the Arctic for that kind of weather system to slow sea ice melt as much as it used to.

Maybe the sea ice melt in 2007 and 2012 were just statistical outliers.  I would have considered that as a possibility...until I saw the data for sea ice in the Arctic for the years between 2007 and 2012.

The graph below shows the sea ice cover data for the years 2007-2012 plus the 1979-2000 average.  An outlier is an observation that falls well outside of the observed long term trend.  What we see when we look at the data is that every year since 2007, and others not shown here, all fall well outside the 1979-2000 average.  But because there are getting to be so many years outside that average they collectively no longer can really be considered outliers.  Instead, they are possibly representing a new trend.

I just read an extremely interesting paper on what is and has been going on in the Arctic with respect to sea ice.  I recommend it highly if you are seriously interested in this topic.

• Stroeve, J. C., et al. 2012. The Arctic's rapidly shrinking sea ice cover: a research synthesis. Climate Change 110:1005-1027 DOI 10:1007/s10585-011-0101-1

Here is a link to a PDF file containing that paper: 

https://arcus.org/files/projects/supplemental/674/stroeve_etal_seaice_synthesis_2011.pdf

One of the things I found most compelling in Stroeve's article was the analysis of sea ice extent over the last 30+ years.  The conclusion is that the rate of sea ice loss is no longer linear.  Annual sea ice extents are dropping faster over the past decade than during previous decades.  The upper graph shows the rate of sea ice loss 1979-1998 in blue, and the rate of sea ice loss 1999-2010 in red.  The significant difference in these rates of sea ice loss is worth noting.  Stroeve's paper refers to models that suggest that the Arctic could become ice free in the summer as soon as 30 years from now.    

On the heels of this year's record sea ice melt, however, some climatologists are starting to suggest the possibility of a summer free of ice in the Arctic as soon as 10 years from now.  Yow!

"The Heat is On" - Arctic Sea Ice Melt 2012 Is Now Underway

Winter 2012 wasn't that severe for most parts of the country, but don't you still love signs of spring?

One sure sign of Spring is the start of the annual sea ice melt in the Arctic Ocean.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC; http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) reported this week that the Arctic Ocean Sea Ice melt is now underway.  Or, at least, that it looks like we've reached maximum sea ice extent.  Next stop? Summer!

I love maps and graphs - data rock!  Here is a map from the NSIDC showing maximum sea ice cover this winter.

The orange lines show the average extent of sea ice cover for the years 1979-2000.  The white area shows the current sea ice extent with at least 15% sea ice cover.  

This was an interesting sea ice year.  If you look at the map you'll see that we have much more sea ice than average in the Bering Sea, west of Alaska and north of the Aleutians.  At the same time there was not as much ice as usual in the Barents Sea north of Scandinavia and Russia.  Remember the tough time ships had reaching Nome, AK, this year?  That's because of all the sea ice.  

So, how does this winter's maximum extent stack up against recent years?

2011-12 sea ice cover is shown in light blue in the graph above.  

The maximum sea ice extent for this winter didn't reach historical averages...again.  But this year it got within about 600,000 square kilometers of the 1979-2000 average sea ice maximum.  Even so, the NSIDC reports that this year's sea ice extent is the 9th lowest sea ice extent reported since 1979.  You might also be interested to know that all of the past nine years, 2004-2012, are the nine lowest sea ice maximum extents on record.  

So what!?  

Here's what this means.  First, less ice is forming now than it used to.  Second, this means that the edges of the sea ice melts away from coastlines sooner,  This makes it tougher for animals that need the pack ice to get there - like polar bears.  This is especially tough on females and their young cubs.  Mothers and cubs often aren't able to move far from the den and move out onto the ice until the ice melt is well underway.  By this time bears often can't reach the ice pack unless they do a LOT of swimming.  In recent years polar bears have been been seen swimming across huge stretches of open water.  Bears have reportedly been spotted 100s of miles from land or ice...but this takes a toll, especially on cubs.  Sadly, increasing numbers of cubs aren't making it...they fatigue and drown.  It's even getting tougher for adults to make this kind of swim.

Photo - Eric Lefranc Freelance

"DISTRESSED POLAR BEARS"

Polar bear - Ursus maritimus - Olga Strait, Svalbard, Norway - Mother and cub trapped on a little ice floe drifting 12 miles from the nearest coast in Olga Strait. Polar bears are usually good swimmers however the cubs can not swim for so long and will probably not make it. (http://www.poyi.org/67/01/ae01.php)

Polar bears need to pack ice to hunt for their main prey - seals.  The seals live on the ice year round and give birth to their pups in dens under the surface snow.  This is what bears are looking for.  But if the ice is too thin or short-lived both bears and seals have a hard time.  And that's just the effect on these animals.  A bigger effect is the role that sea ice plays in something called the albedo.

The albedo of an object refers to its ability to absorb or reflect light.  

A perfectly black body will absorb all light that strikes it, and we see black.  If it is perfectly white it will reflect all light and it looks brilliant white.  

So what!?

When the Arctic Ocean is covered by sea ice it is closer to white and reflects most of the light that strikes it.  This keeps the Arctic colder than it would otherwise be, but, as the ice melts dark seawater is exposed, and because it is so dark it absorbs most of the light that strikes it.  This can warm the water, melt more ice, and - worse case scenario, eventually warm the Arctic Ocean seafloor.  

Why is this such a bid deal?  Scientists have discovered that some areas of the Arctic Oceans sea floor is actually permafrost - frozen sediment - that contains methane hydrate.  Methane hydrate is methane trapped in ice.  Methane is a greenhouse gas. If the Arctic seafloor warms enough the methane will be released and the Arctic Ocean will "burp" methane into the atmosphere, accelerating warming even more.  

This is a model of methane hydrate.  The methane is the green and gray molecule in the middle, and the red and white molecules are water frozen into ice, trapping the methane inside.  

Methane hydrate is really interesting stuff.  It can, for example, burn...

The white stuff is ice, and the methane is released and burns as the ice melts.  Similarly, methane will be released by sediments in the Arctic Ocean sea floor if the sediment warms enough for the ice to melt.  This photo shows methane being released underwater.  

Bears and ice and methane, oh my!