Early sea ice melt onset, snow cover retreat presage rapid 2011 summer decline

[dtotire]

July 18, 2011

Early sea ice melt onset, snow cover retreat presage rapid 2011 summer decline

Arctic sea ice extent declined at a rapid pace through the first half of July, and is now tracking below the year 2007, which saw the record minimum September extent. The rapid decline in the past few weeks is related to persistent above-average temperatures and an early start to melt. Snow cover over Northern Eurasia was especially low in May and June, continuing the pattern seen in April.



Overview of conditions
As of July 17, 2011, Arctic sea ice extent was 7.56 million square kilometers (2.92 million square miles), 2.24 million square kilometers (865,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average. Sea ice is particularly low in the Barents, Kara, and Laptev Seas (the far northern Atlantic region), Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay.


http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

[LiberalArkie]

1. Take a look at this

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.0.html

[snappyturtle]

2. This is amazing...thanks.