Arctic ice: Less than meets the eye

[n2doc]

31 August 2010 by Chris Mooney

The ice may not retreat as much as feared this year, but what remains may be more rotten than robust

LAST September, David Barber was on board the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Amundsen (pictured), heading into the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. He was part of a team investigating ice conditions in autumn, the time when Arctic sea ice shrinks to its smallest extent before starting to grow again as winter sets in.

Barber, an environmental scientist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, went to sleep one night at midnight, just before the ship was due to reach a region of very thick sea ice. The Amundsen is only capable of breaking solid ice about a metre thick, so according to the ice forecasts for ships, the region should have been impassable.

Yet when Barber woke up early the next morning, the ship was still cruising along almost as fast as usual. Either someone had made a mistake and the ship was headed for catastrophe, or there was something very wrong with the ice, he thought, as he rushed to the bridge in his pyjamas.

On the surface, the situation in the Arctic looks dramatic enough. In September 2007, the total extent of sea with surface ice shrank further than ever recorded before - to nearly 40 per cent below the long-term average. This low has yet to be surpassed. But the extent of sea ice is not all that matters, as Barber found. Look deeper and there are even more dramatic changes. This is something everyone should be concerned about because the transformation of the Arctic will affect us all.

more

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727751.300-arctic-ice-less-than-meets-the-eye.html

[hedgehog]

1. The irony here is that ice breakers cut channels in the ice,

which then speed the melting of the remaining ice by exposing the dark water to the sun.

[n2doc]

2. tiny, tiny effect- insignificant n/t

[GliderGuider]

4. True. An icebreaker's channel is only 60 feet wide or so

The Amundsen's beam is 64 feet. The wake channel isn't completely cleared of ice anyway, so much of the surface remains reflective. As well, most of the water an icebreaker travels through is already open.

[n2doc]

5. And if the ice is of any thickness it closes up behind the ship

From 1983

[hedgehog]

6. I figured the effect was neglible, but good to have confirmation.

[GliderGuider]

3. Here's a little statistic from the article:

According to PIOMAS estimates supplied to New Scientist by Zhang, the average volume of Arctic ice between July and September has fallen from 21,000 cubic kilometres in 1979 to 8000 cubic kilometres in 2009. That is a 55 per cent fall compared with the 1979 to 2000 average. "The loss of ice volume is faster than the loss of ice extent," says Zhang. His model suggests that not only has the total volume of Arctic ice continued to decline since 2007, but that the rate of loss is accelerating

As my mother says, "Shit, bugger and goddamn."

[Flying Squirrel]

7. I'm scared for Santa Claus. n/t

[The Croquist]

8. Santa Claus drown in 1959

March 17, 1959
North Pole
USS Skate SSN-578



May 18, 1987
North Pole
HMS Superb, USS Billfish, USS Sea Devil



Did you notice that the 1959 picture was in the winter? That is twenty days earlier then when Peary supposedly reached it in 1909. Speaking of Peary, I'll ask this question again. Why did guys like Peary leave for the North Pole during winter instead of August? Maybe I'll get an answer this time.

[DLnyc]

9. I believe that is because the ice is safer in the winter.

My understanding is that the summer ice is too full of cracks and holes to cross quickly and safely, so they chose late winter when the ice is (was, I guess I should say) more solid.

Some interesting stuff:
http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/arctic_ice_2010_1_nature_sea_ice