Thread: Sea ice melting as Arctic temperature rises

Sea ice melting as Arctic temperature rises

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMIDThe Associated Press
Thursday, October 21, 2010; 2:55 PM

WASHINGTON -- The temperature is rising again in the Arctic, with the sea ice extent dropping to one of the lowest levels on record, climate scientists reported Thursday.

The new Arctic Report Card "tells a story of widespread, continued and even dramatic effects of a warming Arctic," said Jackie Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility in Hanover, N.H.

"This isn't just a climatological effect. It impacts the people that live there," she added.

Atmospheric scientists concerned about global warming focus on the Arctic because that is a region where the effects are expected to be felt first, and that has been the case in recent years.

There was a slowdown in Arctic warming in 2009, but in the first half of 2010 warming has been near a record pace, with monthly readings over 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit) above normal in northern Canada, according to the report card released Thursday.

Highlighting the immediate consequences of the warming, researchers said last winter's massive snowstorms that struck the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states were tied to higher Arctic temperatures.

"Normally the cold air is bottled up in the Arctic," said Jim Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. But last December and February, winds that normally blow west to east across the Arctic were instead bringing the colder air south to the Mid-Atlantic, he said.

"As we lose more sea ice it's a paradox that warming in the atmosphere can create more of these winter storms," Overland said at a news briefing.

There is a powerful connection between ice cover and air temperatures, Richter-Menge explained. When temperatures warm, ice melts. When reflective ice melts it reveals darker surfaces underneath, which absorbs more heat. That, in turn, causes more melting "and on the cycle goes," she said.

In September the Arctic sea ice extent was the third smallest in the last 30 years, added Don Perovich of the Army laboratory. He said the three smallest ice covers have occurred in the last four years.

Other findings included:
- Winter snow accumulation on land in the Arctic was the lowest since records began in 1966.

- Glaciers and ice caps in Arctic Canada are continuing to lose mass at a rate that has been increasing since 1987, reflecting a trend toward warmer summer air temperatures and longer melt seasons.
- The temperature in the permafrost is rising in Alaska, northwest Canada, Siberia and Northern Europe.
- Greenland in 2010 is marked by record-setting high air temperatures, ice loss through melting, and marine-terminating glacier area loss. The largest recorded glacier area loss observed in Greenland occurred this summer at Petermann Glacier, where a piece of ice several times larger than Manhattan Island broke away.

The report card, prepared by 69 researchers in eight countries, is issued annually by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In addition to Richter-Menge, Overland and Perovich, lead researchers included Mary-Louise Timmermans at Yale University; Jason Box, Ohio State University; Mike Gill, Environment Canada; Martin Sharp, University of Alberta, Canada; Chris Derksen, Environment; and D.A. Walker, Vladimir Romanovsky and Uma Bhatt, University of Alaska-Fairbanks.
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Online:http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03804.html

Arctic of old is gone, experts warn

Warmer Greenland, low sea ice and huge glacier breakup cited in 2010 report card

msnbc.com
updated 10/21/2010 2:38:03 PM ET 2010-10-21T18:38:03

The Arctic — an area described as Earth's refrigerator because its ice helps keep temperatures cool — continues to warm up and is unlikely to return to earlier conditions, according to an annual report card issued Thursday by top scientists.

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"Record temperatures across the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, a reduced summer sea ice cover, (and) record snow cover decreases" were cited as factors supporting the conclusion in the 2010 Arctic Report Card issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The report card "tells a story of widespread, continued and even dramatic effects of a warming Arctic," lead researcher Jackie Richter-Menge, an expert at the federal Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab in Hanover, N.H., told reporters.

"It is increasingly unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future, that we will return to previous Arctic conditions," she said.

"It is very likely warming will continue" in the Arctic," she added, and "planning is urgent to adapt to the changes coming."

While 2009 saw a slowdown in Arctic warming, the report card stated, "the first half of 2010 shows a near record pace with monthly anomalies of over 4 degrees Centigrade (7 degrees Fahrenheit) in northern Canada."

Past report cards have also cited warming trends, the scientists acknowledged, but this last year has seen several anomalies: record temperatures in Greenland; the largest recorded loss of ice from a Greenland glacier, a 110-square-mile chunk that broke off Petermann Glacier ; and a 2009-2010 winter that saw a blast of Arctic winds that went north-south instead of west-east — causing a deep freeze across the U.S. Northeast and Midwest.

That latter event, which had been registered only three times in 160 years of records, "looks like it's connecting to the warming and ice loss in the Arctic," said Jim Overland, a NOAA scientist responsible for the report card's section on atmosphere.

"Normally we think of winds bottled up in the Arctic," he said, but now a north-south shift might become more common.

"As we lose more sea ice it's a paradox that warming in the atmosphere can create more of these winter storms," he added.

In Greenland, the warmth has meant accelerated flow of melt water from glaciers into the ocean, said Jason Box, a glaciologist at Ohio State University. As a result, he added, "sea level projections will need to be revised upward."

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The fourth annual report card was compiled from data and analysis contributed by 69 scientists in eight countries.

"Beyond affecting the humans and wildlife that call the area home, the Arctic’s warmer temperatures and decreases in permafrost, snow cover, glaciers and sea ice also have wide-ranging consequences for the physical and biological systems in other parts of the world," NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco said in a statement. "The Arctic is an important driver of climate and weather around the world and serves as a critical feeding and breeding ground that supports globally significant populations of birds, mammals and fish."

She also quoted a NOAA researcher in describing the Arctic's importance: "Whatever is going to happen in the rest of the world happens first, and to the greatest extent, in the Arctic."

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