Far North Science

NASA: Sea ice minimum / summer 2007

Arctic Ocean ice has thinned dramatically during the past few years, with vast quantities of stable multi-year ice flushing into oblivion out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Replacing these reliable royal-blue floes built over many years — the literal bedrock of the Arctic ice habitat — are weak pans formed during one or two seasons at a time.

Credit: UNEP

As this older ice increasingly “gives way” to the younger and thinner ice, the Arctic becomes more prone to another unprecedented meltback similar to the 2007 season, when ice cover set an all-time minimum record, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“This thinner, younger ice makes the Arctic much more susceptible to rapid melt,” said Research Professor James Maslanik in an online story. “Our concern is that if the Arctic continues to get kicked hard enough toward one physical state, it becomes increasingly difficult to reestablish the sea ice conditions of 20 or 30 years ago.”

Read on » » » »

A winter sunrise on Alaska’s Arctic coast in 1949
Source: NOAA photo library

With the specter of rising temperatures and meltdown of summer sea ice haunting Alaska’s climate outlook, a dollop of liquid cold gave Barrow a startling surprise last month.

The sun rose on Dec. 1, weeks after its official disappearance, according to the Alaska Climate Research Center in a dispatch about the 12th month’s climate in the Far North state.

In a rare optical effect, there was looming of the sun above the horizon at Barrow on the first of December On this date the sun is always well below the horizon at Barrow, having set for the winter one week prior.

This time, however, very cold air near the ground refracted the suns rays northward beyond their usual range. In addition, some clouds formed about 6 miles above sea level, and provided a mirror to reflect the suns image north to Barrow.

So, even though Barrow was theoretically dark on the first of December, it was quite bright this year, even though the almanacs do not show the sun rising there until the 23rd of January.

Read on » » » »

This still image from an animation shows the temperature
anomalies that were present during 2007. Note the Arctic.
Source: NASA GISS

With January’s chill comes the season of the annual temperature scorecards for the home planet. Both the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Climate Data Center say 2007 delivered some of the warmest average temperatures on record for the globe and United States. Each agency produced slightly different results.

Was 2007 the second warmest year on record? Or the fifth? And what about the United States?

Here’s one answer, from the NCDC:

The average U.S. temperature for 2007 was 54.2 °F; 1.4 °F warmer than the 20th century mean of 52.8 °F. NCDC originally estimated in mid-December that 2007 would end as the eighth warmest on record, but below-average temperatures in areas of the country last month lowered the annual ranking.

For Alaska, 2007 was the 15th warmest year since statewide records began in 1918.

One thing’s for sure. The trend line has continued to lurch upward. For up, and for those of us at the high latitudes, where the sun never abandons June yet hardly shines in December, 2007 clearly was another sign that climate change continues its acceleration.

From the GISS story:

The greatest warming in 2007 occurred in the Arctic, and neighboring high latitude regions. Global warming has a larger affect in polar areas, as the loss of snow and ice leads to more open water, which absorbs more sunlight and warmth.

Snow and ice reflect sunlight; when they disappear, so too does their ability to deflect warming rays. The large Arctic warm anomaly of 2007 is consistent with observations of record low geographic extent of Arctic sea ice in September 2007.

Read on » » » »

Barrow Sea Ice Cam on 12-19 at 15:25:41 AST
View latest image

Here are some new Far North Climate tidbits:

November dried out Fairbanks, delivering the 6th lowest precipitation on record, only .11 inches. Four of the six driest Novembers have struck since 2001. Turkey day baked at 43 °F — second warmest Thanksgiving ever.

A bold Chinook scoured the Alaska Range between November 20 to 24 with 66 mph winds at Antler Creek and 50 mph peaks at Otto Lake in Healy. The mercury chipped 51 °F near Fort Greely, far above normal.

Barrow saw the 3rd warmest November of record, with 3 November days Zero or below. If you stood on the Arctic shore and scanned north, you would have seen not a single pan or floe of frozen water. Supposedly that’s never happened before.

Read on » » » »

Source: NSIDC

Here’s more insight into the solar influence behind the Arctic Ocean’s record meltdown, released last week during the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference in San Francisco.

Portions of the sea surface in the Arctic Ocean just north of the Chukchi Sea beyond Alaska warmed about 9 ° F more than historical averages — rising from a “normal” average summer temperature of about 30.2 ° F to more than 39 °F.

The data comes from a study led by Washington oceanographer Michael Steele, who has appeared in several FNS dispatches and national climate news this past week.

Steele and his co-authors worked data showing the summertime ocean surface temperatures and heat content, with a particular concentration on the Arctic’s “peripheral” seas, he wrote in the abstract published by the AGU.

Many areas cooled almost 1 deg;F per decade between 1930 and 1965, when the Arctic Oscillation pattern fell. The same areas warmed by the same factor during the next 30 years.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Summer warming of the ocean between 1965 and 1995 stored enough heat in the water to actually thin the next winter’s ice pack by about 50 cm, or about 20 inches.

As the heat oozes back into the air, it can delay fall freeze-up up to 10 days. Further, the extra warmth rides the wind to shore, where it can deliver an extra 15 to 20 watts/m2 to Alaska’s North Slope, Steele and his authors wrote.

This process feeds on itself: More heat, later freeze up, thinner ice, bigger meltback. And the heat goes on….

Read on » » » »

Sea ice off Gambell, Alaska.
Photo by Ned Rozell.

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

SAN FRANCISCO — For the past few years, vanishing northern sea ice has been a theme of many talks and posters here at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which draws about 15,000 scientists to the Moscone Center during the weeklong conference.

At a press conference here on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007, scientists revealed that the ice on top of the northernmost ocean took a punch in the summer of 2007 that might be a knockout blow.

In 1980, the dense ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean like a large, moving jigsaw puzzle took up about the same area as the entire Lower 48 states; in September 2007, it was about as big as the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, said Don Perovich of the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire.

The ice loss in 2007, 23 percent greater than the previous record in 2005, has some scientists here predicting that the northern sea ice will vanish in summer as soon as five years from now. Perovich agreed that one of the greatest environmental changes people have ever seen might be close at hand.

“I used to say that sometime in my children’s lifetimes (sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean would disappear for half the year), but now I might see it,” said Perovich, who is in his 50s.