The recent shrink of the Arctic ice cap has stunned scientists and swamped previous projections. After melting back at a rate never seen before, the 2007 minimum ice extent fell 1 million square miles below the 29-year average for September — the loss of a habitat as large as Argentina.
The decline occurred much faster than scientists thought possible, consuming as much ice in one season as one might expect to lose over three consecutive summers, according to a story published online by NASA.
Here’s the latest from the Arctic slush bowl. And the news is not reassuring.
As of Sept. 25, the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean hovered at about 1.61 million square miles — a scant 1 percent increase over the all-time minimum extent observed about 10 days earlier. The Northwest Passage, more ice free than at any time in decades, had slowly begun to clog up. But open water extended hundred of miles north and west of Alaska, exposing coastal villages to enormous fetches for storms and forcing marine mammals to deal with the smallest and most seaward ice habitat of their lives.
As the Bush Administration spends time chatting with other major carbon-producing nations about making soft, ineffectual (and almost certainly symbolic) reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the Arctic has gone soggy, appearing as ice-free as some climate researchers once predicted for 2050. (See the UN meeting on clmate change earlier in week.)
In fact, given the accelerated rate of melt, several scientists now say the ocean could become ice free in summer as early as 2030. That’s only 23 years — less than a generation for coastal residents, ice seals and bears.
“The amount of ice loss this year absolutely stunned us,” ice scientist Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told the Boulder Daily Camera in this story. “It didn’t just beat all previous records — it completely shattered them.”
“Going, going, gone,” Deborah Williams of Alaska Conservation Solutions, told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, in a story published in the Anchorage Daily News. “We must take action now; it is urgent. We want to be part of the solution, not just the poster child of the problem.”