Ominous Stat: Arctic Sea Ice Extent Way Under-Performed This Winter And Set A Bad Record

The winter "maximum" sea ice extent in the Arctic was
the lowest on record this year. That's an ominous sign for 
more climate change coming down the pike.

 It's official.

The extent of Arctic sea ice, which normally reaches its peak in March, was pretty pathetic this year. 

It's a sign climate change continues unabated, and it's a factor that could help accelerate the problem. 

First, the immediate issue at hand, per the Washington Post:

 "Just 5.53 million square miles of ice had formed as of March 22 this year - the smallest maximum extent in the 47-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Since then the ice has already begun to melt again."

WaPo goes on:

"The record comes age a grim time for ice in all corners of the globe. In Antarctica, which has historically been more isolated from the effects of human-causing warming, sea ice shrank this month to the second lowest extent on record.  Research published in the journal Nature in February found that Earth's glaciers are dwindling at an accelerating rate,"

Back up there in the Arctic, this year's maximum ice extent was 31,000 square miles smaller than the previous record. That 31,000 square miles is about the same size as South Carolina. 

The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the globe. This winter was a classic example. Some areas of the far north were as much as 22 degrees Fahrenheit above average, which helps explain why Arctic ice didn't freeze as it should have

When there's less sea ice, the Arctic can warm even faster. More ice means when the sun shines on those gleaming white surfaces, bouncing the sun's heat back up into space.

When there's blue open water instead of ice up there in the Arctic, the sun's warmth is absorbed by that water Or as WaPo explains:

"With so little sea ice in the Arctic this year, more sunlight will be able to reach the open ocean, which absorbs more than 90 percent of the radiation that hits it. This will further warm the region, accelerating ice melt and exposing even more water to the light."

That's known as a feedback loop. Arctic ice melts because of climate change. That allows more heat to come in, melting even more ice and accelerating climate change even more. 

As I always like to say, what goes on the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.  

Sure, the lack of ice makes the Arctic melt even faster, but the warming effect does to an extent spread all over the world. It would just make our recent spate of record and near record hot years just keep going and going, like some torrid, evil Energizer Bunny.  

A lack of ice in the Arctic won't in itself make sea levels rise. As you've probably heard me say before. If the ice cubes in your glass of gin and tonic melt, it won't make the glass overflow. But the Arctic heat that might last through the summer can bleed on over to the Greenland ice cap, which is above sea level. The more that ice cap melts, the higher sea levels go. 

Why Worsening Antarctic Ice Problems Are Your Problem, Too

Two new reports paint a worrying picture of Antarctic
ice, which is a problem for the whole world. 

 The amount of sea ice surrounding Antarctica reached a new low for the end of winter, increasing worries that the South Pole and surroundings are now in an ice decline similar to the Arctic at the top of the world, the Washington Post reports.

Additionally, according to another article the Washington Post, 40 percent of Antarctica's ice shelves - which are separate and different from sea ice - have dwindled in the past quarter century, and that's allowing more land ice to flow into the oceans. The extent of ice shelf melting is more extensive than previously thought. 

Yes, this stuff is oh-so-distant away from us, so you'd think who cares?  Well, everyone should. What goes on in Antarctica doesn't stay in Antarctica.

The Antarctic ice problems will probably worsen sea level rises on every coastline around the world. If you don't live anywhere near the coast, the ice crisis in Antarctica might worsen the climate changed we're all already feeling. 

SEA ICE ISSUES

 The sea ice around Antarctica usually reaches its peak in September, when winter is ending in the Southern Hemisphere and spring is beginning.

This year, the maximum sea ice extent around Antarctica this September was the lowest on record. As the Washington Post reports, the season's maximum ice extent around Antarctica was reached on September 10 - much earlier than normal, The ice was remarkably lacking. Says the Post:

"At that time, the annual ice coverage was at a record low of 6.55 million square miles - a whopping 398,000 square miles lower than the previous low set in 1986."

That's still a lot of ice.  But any decline is worrying. A lack of sea ice won't directly increase sea levels.  Ice melting on an ocean is like an ice cube melting in your gin and tonic. It won't increase the amount of liquid in your glass.

But sea ice is white. Or at least white-ish. It's great at reflecting sunlight out to space. That, in turn, helps air condition all of Earth. Open ocean is darker and absorbs sunlight, helping to warm the world.  It's called a positive feedback.

Climate change is already boosting global temperatures.Then the effects of that warming, in this case a dark surface to absorb the sun't heat, accelerates the mess even more.  

ICE SHELVES LOSING

Also, the sea ice surrounding Antarctica stabilizes the ice sheets on the continent or near its shore. The new lack of sea ice, and that darker water absorbing the sun's heat, could allow warmth to further eat away at the ice sheet,  glaciers and ice shelves

Ice shelves are enormous floating pieces of ice extending out into the ocean from glaciers on land in Antarctica. They act like dams in a way, slowing the flow of ice on the land into the oceans. Ice shelves surround most of Antarctica's coastline. 

That study I mentioned at the beginning of this post about the ice shelf decline is probably more serious than this year's crappy sea ice extent around Antarctica. 

Damage the ice shelves and you damage the ability for Antarctica to hold onto its immense glaciers.  That glacial ice flows into the oceans, melts and helps accelerate sea level rise around the world. 

Says the Washington Post: 

"'The surprising result to me was just how many ice shelves are deteriorating that substantially and continuously,' said Benjamin Davison, lead author of the study. 'Lots of ice shelves not just the big ones, are steadily losing mass over time with no sign of recovery."

The study sounds like a lot of work, but I guess most scientists are used to this. The team analyzed more than 100,000 satellite images from 1997 to 2021.   During that time, 71 of 162 ice shelves lost mass, another 29 managed to get a little bigger and the rest didn't change much one way or the other. 

West Antarctica showed the biggest ice shelve diminishment, and the numbers are huge. The Getz Ice Shelf lost 1.9 trillion tons of ice over the 14 years analyzed. Another ice shelf lost 1.3 trillion tons. 

In West Antarctica, warming ocean water is undercutting the ice shelves, prompting them to melt. The ice shelves in East Antarctica are much more stable, because the water along the immediate coast there has still managed to stay almost as cold as it ever was.

The scientists said you don't need a complete collapse of most or all of the ice shelves to cause real problems. As long as many are weakening, more land-based ice can flow into the water to melt, and raise those global sea levels. 

This is all just one more thing to worry about in the age of climate change. 

 

The Arctic:: Humid, Rainy, Stormy, Smoky And A Typhoon?

A storm surge pushes into Nome, Alaska earlier this year
as a former typhoon raked much of the state. The Arctic is
turning wetter, stormier, more fiery and less icy due to
climate change. 

When you think of the Arctic, torrential rains, smoky skies, fires, storm surges, humid weather and typhoons don't really come to mind. 

As the latest annual report on the Arctic tells us, though, those weather patterns might not dominate the top of the world just yet, they are increasingly become factors in a rapidly warming environment.  

NOAA releases an Arctic report card every year. The latest publication, released last month,  is the 17th annual summary of a vastly changing Arctic.

Some of the top takeaways from the latest report as quoted from the document: 

"Arctic annual air temperatures from October 2021 to September 2022 were the sixth warmest dating back to 1900, continuing a decade-long trend in which Arctic air temperatures have warmed faster than the global average. The Arctic's seven warmest years since 1900 have been in the last seven years."

My take: Being the sixth warmest and not #1 is no big accomplishment. Earth has been in a La Nina pattern for three years now. That tends to cool the world a little bit. Sixth warmest isn't a great sign if we've been in a La Nina for so long. 

"Arctic sea ice extent (coverage) was higher than many recent years, but much lower than the long-term average. Multiyear ice extent, sea ice thickness and volume rebounded after a near record low in 2021 but was below conditions in the 1980s and 1990s, with older ice extremely rare."

My take: I'm glad to hear Arctic sea ice rebounded somewhat. I bet that won't be a long term trend, even if the coming year has good ice, compared to recent years. You're going to get periods when ice rebounds, then melts away again. You want to see many years of increasing sea ice to breathe any kind of sigh of relief. A year or two tells you nothing. 

"The 2021-2022 Arctic snow season saw a combination of above average snow accumulation but early snowmelt, consistent with long term trends of shortening snow seasons in several areas. 

Wetter than normal conditions predominated over much of the Arctic from October 2021 to September 2022. Precipitation has increased significantly since the 1950s across all seasons and datasets. Heavy precipitation events are more common in the North Atlantic subarctic, while much of the central Arctic shows increases in consecutive wet days and decreases in consecutive dry days." 

My take: No surprise there. A warmer world is in general a wetter world. Warmer air can hold more moisture. Given the right conditions, it can rain and snow a lot. The Arctic is still really dry compared to places, like, well, here in Vermont, but it is getting a lot wetter pretty fast on and near the roof of the world.

"The Greenland ice sheet lost ice in 2022, the 25th consecutive year of ice loss. In September, 2022, the Greenland ice sheet had unprecedented late season warming, creating surface melt conditions over 36 percent of the ice sheet on September 3, including the Greenland ice sheet's summit at 10,500 feet. This followed a July 18 large surface melt observed across 42 percent of the Greenland ice sheet surface."

My take: I'll be really surprised if there ever is another season in which the Greenland ice sheet actually expands over the course of a year. Decades ago, this happened pretty frequently. Not every year, but often enough. 

On some years the net loss of Greenland ice won't be that much, relatively speaking. But I think we're going to see more years like 2012 which was a super melt year that still has scientists gasping.

By the way, the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, which trashed southeastern Canada in late September, moved on toward Greenland, causing a smaller, but still unprecedented late season melt. 

The unseasonable melts are "challenging how researchers define the Greenland summer melt season," according to the report. 

The earlier than usual snow melt, and this summer's hot dry conditions in interior Alaska contributed to major wildfires. By July, 2 million acres in Alaska had burned. Visibility at the Fairbanks airport was reduced on several days by smoke. 

There's some geopolitical aspects to the melting Arctic as well. Shipping is increasing up there, which adds political, environmental and society effects to those living in the Arctic, and for governments competing for commerce on top of the world.  

The annual Arctic report has been generally been getting more comprehensive and detailed as the years go by. This year's edition was compiled by 147 experts from 11 nations. 

This year's model pays more attention to the indigenous population near the top of the world. Says NOAA:

"The 15th chapter of the report card, authored by a team that includes Native Alaskan scientists, describes how warming air temperatures, shrinking sea ice, shorter periods of snow cover, increased wildfire, rising levels of precipitation and changes in animal migration patterns and their abundance profoundly affect the safety, food security health, economic wellbeing and cultural traditions of indigenous people."

This chapter on how the changing Arctic is affecting indigenous people is pretty fascinating, and disturbing. 

As the Washington Post reports:

"The sea ice retreat forces hunters to travel as far as 100 miles from their homes to find walruses during the spring harvest. The thinning of sea ice has also made seal hunting dangerous in some communities."

It takes longer for indigenous people to hunt, given the more challenging conditions. With a lack of sea ice, wave heights are higher, which makes hunting on the water more dangerous. People near the Bering and Chukchi seas are also seeing more die-offs of birds like ducks and puffins because of starvation and a lack of sea ice.

Although there are naturally yearly ups and downs in the Arctic, I don't see any evidence suggesting that climate change will slow its assault on the top of the world. In fact, few people would be surprised if it all accelerates. 

Just remember: What goes on in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.