Record ice loss in Arctic

Troyboy1208 · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 4:48 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic

I never said it was a good thing. Just that its interesting. And yes I am talkinga bout sea ice. Is the planet trying to do some desperate rebalancing here?

Dan1195 · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2005 Posts: 245

Within the past day or two you can see multiple locations where areas of open water have appeared: North of Barrow, E. Beaufort Sea, and off the NW tip of Greenland. Since we all know that is a lot of thin ice, it could be a a sign that a rapid meltdown is possible with favorable weather patterns. The Kara sea which opened early last year, has not yet but looks like it may do so soon.

Troyboy1208 · Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 9:21 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic

It is also to follow the retreat of winter snow pact in canada and russia. Rapid melting at this point is very possible.

dohboi · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 1128

What I noticed in the satellite images is that the only part that is consistently %100 ice is the area that never totally melted last year. The means everywhere else is not only thin ice, but threaded with open water that will absorb solar energy and widen at exponential or faster rates once the sun is hitting 24/7, that is any day now. I don't see anything standing in the way of a total or near total collapse. I hope I'm wrong.

dorlomin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 05, 2007 Posts: 974

Dan1195 · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2005 Posts: 245

See ice coverage is now slightly below this time last year and we are starting to approach the main melt season. That is, where the sun will be above the horizon 24 hours a day over most of the ice cap. No significant expansion on couple of areas that have opened up around the northwest passage yet. However, the snowmelt line is rapidly approaching the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

sjn · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 5:12 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic

I predict we are going to see an acceleration of the melt from here on out. The overall area is currently being held up by an upward surge in Hudson Bay, maybe a glitch, or perhaps slush flowing in from the Baffin/Newfoundland region. Either way it is showing a very large area on the map at very low concentration around the cutoff point.

dohboi · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 1128

sjn, what do you mean by "cut off point" here?

dohboi · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 1128

And now this from the BBC:

giant cracks in arctic ice

Troyboy1208 · Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic

They have a nice feature over at the cryosphere website where you can compare images side by side. If you find today's date last year and compare to this year it would seem places are opening up that had not yet opened up yet last year. Last time i checked (Friday) the melt had almost caught up with last years melt at this time. This is of grave concern since the ice that is there is only a year old. Under ideal conditions only 30% of first year ice survives...this does not bode well for the arctic.

sjn · Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 11:13 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic

sjn · Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 11:26 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic

dohboi · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 1128

Thanks for the clarification and the images, sjn.

Again, it strikes me that only the region that never melted last year is showing up now as 100% ice covered. I would assume that the areas striated with lighter shades have bits of open water here and there throughout the area. This seems like a very bad situation when added to the fact that this is all thin, one year ice.

As the sun hits those bits of open water 24/7, I would think each would act as a heat center to rapidly melt the ice around it, with an ever increasing melting due to loss of albedo. Am I missing something?

Troyboy1208 · Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 12:06 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic

dissident · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 380

The Cryosphere Today images are all poor resolution. You can get higher resolution images from

link

choose amsr.n.comb from the menu (you need java but not javascript). The images are assembled throughout the day so they are complete by evening in the eastern time zone.