Arctic Sea Ice Volume At All-Time Record Low, Sea Ice Extent At Record-Low 2012 Levels

[hatrack]

EDIT


Total Arctic sea ice thickness and its departure from normal for June.
Credit: Zack Labe

New data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center show that sea ice extent was at its sixth-lowest mark for June. Sea ice was missing from 348,000 square miles of the Arctic Ocean, an area about three times the size of Arizona. After the string of record- or near-record low months late last year and early this year, the sixth-lowest extent might sound like an improvement. It’s not. As of July 2, sea ice extent was on par with 2012, a year that went on to set the mark for lowest Arctic sea ice minimum on record. That year, a major storm in August helped churn the ocean and smash ice to smithereens.

There are signs this year’s ice would struggle to sustain itself if a similar scenario plays out. This winter saw a string of warm weather like no other in the Arctic. The number of freezing-degree days, a measure of how cold it’s been, are well below 2012. Fewer freezing-degree days translates to higher temperatures that cut into ice pack.

And while ice extent isn’t record low right now, ice volume is at a record-low level, according to data gathered by the University of Washington’s PIOMAS program. Thinner ice is largely driven by rising temperatures.


Departures from average in cumulative freezing degree days, from July 1 for a given year through July 1 of the next year.
Credit: NSIDC

“The lack of winter cold is consistent with the low spring ice thickness seen in PIOMAS,” Mark Serreze, the director of NSIDC, said in an email. “But the winter warmth is also a result of low ice extent in winter. In areas of open water in winter, there are large heat fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere, warming the atmosphere. Hence, it’s a two-way street.”

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http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-crazy-warm-sea-ice-21599

[Moostache]

1. To anyone holding out hope on this issue...it is OVER. Game. Set. Match.

The amount of carbon ALREADY in the atmosphere guarantees at LEAST a 3 or 4 Degrees C temperature rise THIS century...and then those gases will continue the feedback loops for thawing methane and a runaway effect is imminent.

I will be long dead and much reviled (as will ALL who lived in the time this disaster COULD have been stopped but was not) by the doomed survivors of the hellish dystopia to come. I have told my children that I am sorry I could not do more to educate and persuade people that we were dooming the species through inaction and propaganda.

I hope that something of humanity manages to survive what is coming, but the odds are very long that anything larger than a cockroach is going to be around by the year 2117.

[OnlinePoker]

2. PIOMAS says it's running below 2012, DMI says it's running above 2012 (by a lot)

Who is more accurate?

PIOMAS


DMI 2017


DMI 2012