Moisture and motorcycles - a new reality

It's late January in eastern Idaho - the heart of winter.  Historically this meant snow, ice, and COLD.  My first experience with Idaho winters was in January 1977 when I rolled into Rexburg Idaho to attend Ricks College (since renamed BYU-Idaho).  I got off the bus and started the 6-block hike up the hill to campus.  The roads were literally sheet ice.  I remember this because when my suitcases got too heavy to carry I just leaned down and slid them along the ice all the way to campus (this was in the days before suitcases with wheels - what a great invention!).  Roads and sidewalks around here were usually snow/ice covered from after Thanksgiving through March.  There was so much snow in fact that some of the more adventurous (i.e., crazy/stupid) guys in the dorm would jump from the second floor landing into the deep snow below.  My roommates and I also used to get together at the end of the day and share the ice-related wipe-outs we saw during the day, and they happened every day on campus.

There is, however, a new climate reality.

There are of course still times when streets and sidewalks are snow/ice covered, but for the most part the streets and sidewalks are now mainly dry and bare for most of the winter.  This is even in a year where we are currently over 130% of our annual precipitation to date.  So, if the climate was as cold as it used to be we should have mountains of snow, but we don't.  Sure you can see snow around, but it's nothing extreme at all.  The reason we don't have much on the ground is that it keeps melting off.

I was surprised yesterday afternoon (1/26/2015) when I noticed someone zip by on a motorcycle.  I saw another person on a motorcycle this morning.  Motorcycles in January in Rexburg, Idaho!?  In days past you'd take a motorcycle out in January only if you had some kind of death wish.  Now, however, the roads are bare so if you bundle up it's completely doable.  I was doubly surprised yesterday when I saw that the weather forecast for today is RAIN (!!!???).  We are slated to reach temps in the low 40sF today and it may not even reach freezing overnight.  Now THAT'S CRAZY!

Welcome to the new reality.

10 for 10 - Arctic Sea Ice Melt Trend Continues

Every year in October the National Snow and Ice Data Center (www.nsidc.org) releases a report on the minimum sea ice extent for the current year.  This year the NSIDC announced that the minimum summer sea ice extent for 2014 was 5.02 million square kilometers.  OK, so what?

NASA satellites started monitoring sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean back in 1979.  Satellite data are downloaded each day and sent sent to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, for analysis.  Thirty-five years of these data are now painting a sobering picture.  Though there is a significant amount of year-to-year variability among the data, a strong trend is emerging.

Average Monthly Sea Ice Extent September 1979-2014.  

Data courtesy of NSIDC.org

The data show that there is significantly less sea ice in the Arctic now than there was only a few decades ago.  The upper end of the trend line tops out around 7.9 million square kilometers of sea ice, and the bottom end of the line reached about 4.9 million square kilometers of sea ice.  The difference?  About 3 million square kilometers of sea ice gone missing.  How much is that?  That's about the same surface area as India, the 7th largest country in the world.

NSIDC also reports that we are currently losing on average 13.3% of sea ice cover per decade and that the ten Septembers with the lowest extents happened in the last ten years!  

Bottom line?  We are progressively losing more sea ice in the Arctic.  

10 for 10?  The last ten years, the ten lowest sea ice extents, and sadly at this rate it's not likely to get better before it gets even worse.

Quick Arctic Update - 15 Sept 2014

We are near the traditional end of the Arctic sea ice melt season, so I thought I'd check in and post a quick update.  Two years ago, 2012 set the the all-time recorded sea ice melt record (so far) with a minimum sea ice extent over 3 million square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average.  By comparison the 2014 Arctic sea ice melt season looks fairly tame, but don't be fooled, the current sea ice extend is creeping up on 1.5 million square kilometers below the long-term average, and it's still declining.  

This year's minimum sea ice extend will almost certainly not reach the record set in 2012, but it was a significant melt all the same.  This melt qualifies 2014 to be the 6th largest Arctic sea ice melt year on record, exceeded only by 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012.  The other years, 2009 and 2013 were just shy of this year's mark.  This also means that the eight years with the greatest Arctic se ice melt were the past 8 years.  It looks like a trend is forming....the bottom line, the sea ice melt is becoming more extensive as time goes on. 

(Graphs courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Univ of Colorado at Boulder, NSIDC.org)