Tag: ice melting

Arctic Ice to Hit Record Low, Researchers Alarmed

Arctic sea ice likely to hit record low next week

Satellites see Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet M

Greenland glacier loses ice

Antarctica Surrounded by Threats

Satellite observations analyzed data Recent years have brought unprecedented melting to Arctic sea ice, the white cap that covers the far north. Now, months before the sea ice reaches its annual minimum extent, this summer looks likely to follow suit, bringing unusually ice-free waters.Satellite observations analyzed by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center show the extent of the sea ice hovering below the baseline, the average between 1979 and 2000, for most of the spring and dipping particularly low in June."It definitely portends a low-ice year, whether it means it will go below 2007 (the record minimum in September), it is too early to tell," Meier said.The sea ice undergoes a seasonal cycle, spreading across the Arctic waters during winter and retreating in the warmth of summer. Historically, the ice - which provides important habitat for walrus and polar bears - reaches its minimum extent between the first week of September and around the end of the third week of the month, according to Walt Meier, a research scientist at NSIDC.Recent years rank as the lowest on record since continuous record-keeping began in 1979, and scientists blame a combination of natural weather fluctuations, such as wind patterns, and ...

North-East Passage is viewed by shipping companies to be a time and fuel saving alternative The North-East Passage, the sea route along the North coast of Russia, is expected to be free of ice early again this summer. The forecast was made by sea ice physicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association based on a series of measurement flights over the Laptev Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean.Amongs experts the shelf sea is known as an "ice factory" of Arctic sea ice. At the end of last winter the researchers discovered large areas of thin ice not being thick enough to withstand the summer melt."These results were a great surprise to us", says expedition member Dr. Thomas Krumpen. In previous measurements in the winter of 2007/2008 the ice in the same area had been up to one metre thicker. In his opinion these clear differences are primarily attributable to the wind: "It behaves differently from year to year.If, as last winter, the wind blows from the mainland to the sea, it pushes the pack ice from the Laptev Sea towards the North. Open water areas, so-called polynyas, develop in this ...

0.7 millimeters per year to sea level change The Greenland ice sheet continues to lose mass and thus contributes at about 0.7 millimeters per year to the currently observed sea level change of about 3 mm per year. This trend increases each year by a further 0.07 millimeters per year. The pattern and temporal nature of loss is complex.The mass loss is largest in southwest and northwest Greenland; the respective contributions of melting, iceberg calving and fluctuations in snow accumulation differing considerably. This result has been published by an international research group led by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in the latest issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 1 June 2012.The result was made possible by a new comparison of three different types of satellite observations: measurements of the change in gravity by changes in ice mass with the satellite pair GRACE, height variation with the laser altimeter on the NASA satellite ICESat and determination of the difference between the accumulation of regional atmospheric models and the glacier discharge, as measured by satellite radar data.For the first time and for each region, the researchers could determine with unprecedented precision which percentage melting, iceberg calving and fluctuations in ...

WHOI video WHOI physical oceanographer Fiamma Straneo examines the connection between ocean conditions and climate-driven changes to Greenland glaciers and describes some of the challenges to doing scientific research in the far north.

Increasing levels of pollution are threatening the world's oceans Though there are few places colder on Earth than the Canadian Arctic, scientists have warned that increasing levels of pollution are not only threatening the polar icecaps, but the world's oceans.They say that could mean everything from the smallest fish to the largest sharks are in danger.In the second of a three-part series on the Arctic, Al Jazeera's Steve Chao reports on how he spent two weeks with scientists as they investigated what as known as climate change's "evil twin".