A polar bear mother and her two cubs walk along the shore of Hudson Bay in Manitoba near Churchill, Canada. In May, the U.S. Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species saying it must be protected because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming. (AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward, File)
Arctic sea ice melting faster than expected
If the pattern continues, warming effects could reach up to 900 miles inland, melting permafrost
By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / June 12, 2008 edition
Arctic Ocean sea ice – one of the most visible indicators for global warming – may be headed for another record-breaking summer decline.
If the pattern continues, new research suggests, its warming effect could reach up to 900 miles inland, melting permafrost and potentially altering weather patterns at lower latitudes.
As of June 7, preliminary data show that the vast expanse of ice at the top of the world is some 55,800 square miles smaller than it was on the same date last year, according to University of Colorado researcher Sheldon Drobot. In May, sea-ice extent was slightly large than in May 2007. But the melt rate during the month – some 3,000 square miles a day – was faster, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
The ice’s seasonal shrinkage in 2007 smashed records, reaching a September minimum of 2.6 million square miles – some 23 percent smaller than the previous record, set in 2005. If it sets another record this year, it would mark the fifth season of record declines since 1998.
“The next few weeks should be quite instructive, and by mid July we ought to have a very good sense of how things are shaping up,” says Dr. Drobot, who is using satellite data on ice extent to develop forecasts of seasonal changes in Arctic Ocean ice cover.
Typically, bright sea ice sends sunlight streaming back into space, keeping things relatively cool at the surface. Leftover ice at the end of the summer forms the foundation on which ice rebuilds during fall and winter. Over successive seasons, older, multi-year ice grows thicker and more resistant to a meltdown in subsequent summers than thin, single-year ice. Last year’s record decline, however, left a shaky foundation. Some 63 percent of the ice is younger than average, while only 2 percent is older than average, according to Drobot.
The prospect of more open water in the Arctic Ocean in summer would be a boon to shipping interests, greatly reducing the sailing time between Europe and Asia, for instance. Indeed, the prospect of increased shipping is a key driver for Drobot’s forecasting research. And countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are trying to stake their claim to extended territorial waters under the Law of the Sea Treaty to exploit resources believed to lie beneath the Arctic Ocean floor.
But from a climate standpoint, more open water during summer translates into warmer temperatures, since the dark seawater absorbs sunlight, stores the heat, then slowly releases it. This played a large role in last year’s summer melt-off, explains Don Perovich, a researcher with the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H.
He and colleagues published an analysis last week showing that ice in the Beaufort Sea – which stretches from Barrow, Alaska, east to Canada’s islands in the high Arctic – underwent what he terms an extraordinary amount of melting from underneath due to warm water. Some of that water may have flowed into the Beaufort Sea from the Pacific or via the Atlantic, he acknowledges. But buoy measurements locally point to “enough solar heat to easily be responsible for this huge amount of bottom melting and still have heat left over.”
The seawater retained enough residual heat, in fact, to significantly slow the freeze-up of sea ice heading into last winter. The intensity of this classic “ice-albedo feedback” may be one reason why the Arctic is responding so much faster to global warming than many climate models had projected, he says. The results appeared in the June 3 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
The question now: “We see this big drop; are we going to hit a plateau and bounce around for a while or are we in free-fall?” he asks.
It’s a question whose answer may have implications well below the Arctic Circle. High-latitude warming – when reinforced by a five- to 10-year period of sudden, deep sea-ice meltbacks – could be 3.5 times higher than climate models typically project, according to a study published this week and prompted by last year’s sea-ice meltdown. Moreover, the added warmth extends as far as 900 miles deep into the North American and Eurasian continents.
“That was one of the real interesting aspects of this study – just how broad the impact can be,” says David Lawrence, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who led the group. The earlier these extended periods of low-ice summers appear during this century, the study shows, the sooner the most vulnerable forms of permafrost melt, and the more vulnerable colder forms of permafrost become to later climate warming. His group’s study appears in the June 13 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
The long-term climate implications of melting permafrost are unclear. Much depends on what happens to the hydrology of the region, Dr. Lawrence says. Carbon dioxide or methane could be the predominant gas vented as permafrost melts, depending on how wet or dry the region becomes. And as woodier vegetation migrates north, soaking up some of that CO2 in the process, the region still could emit enough methane – a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 – to offset the CO2 plants take up.
“The Arctic is a real challenge; it’s a complicated place up there,” he says.
Comments
2. D Payne | 06.13.08
Zany bipeds, addicted to their own exhaust. Earth looks forward to being rid of what basically is a bad case of head lice.
4. Benjamin Roberts | 06.16.08
The article’s conclusion vastly underplays the potential danger of the greenhouse gas emissions that could result from the permafrost melt. The suggestion that increased plant growth would more offset these emissions turns the real story on its head.
In fact there are well-founded concerns among climate scientists that this could be the mother of all feedback loops, dwarfing the impact of the ice/sea water albedo effect the article discusses. This is because methane is a vastly more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and it held in enormous quantities in the permafrost.
There is even evidence in the fossil record that the greatest extinction of life the planet has seen (the Permian, which wiped out 90% of all species) was caused by a sudden permafrost melt due to volcanic activity. Be very afraid.
6. Henry Clay Barry | 06.18.08
The Arctic is melting. But the impact I care most about, is how a melted Arctic Ocean will effect Greenland?
I am no expert, but it seems logical that a melted arctic ocean would have to put sky rockets under Greenland melting. Of course, experts tell us that will take a thousand years, like they told us last year an ice free Arctic was a hundred years off. Time just flys by doesn’t it?
That could cause oceans to rise 21 to 24 feet. Millions of displaced Millions of dispossed, Millions of homeless, Millions of people without food or the money to buy it. I am talking about America the rest of the would around coast lines will be worse off. It won’t be fun for anyone.
7. Ivaylo Avramov | 06.20.08
When the problems are related, complex and global, then the measures should be complex and global too. We simply can’t afford to fight every single problem before mankind (desertification and drought, food and water shortage, poverty, unemployment, bad or missing medical care and illiteracy, conflicts, crime and terrorism, economic recession, etc.) by single solution, one at a time. We have to fight/mitigate them on all fronts, simultaneously.
Desert Ice Project - the possible solution.
10. anti666 | 06.29.08
There are a lot of feedback loops in operation. It isnt JUST the arctic warming, its the warming of the oceans, causing intensified hurricanes, typhons and monsoons. Also, the burning of the dried out sub sahara, the rain forest, and most of california and the droughted west, is adding a lot of soot and carbon dyoxide into the atmosphere. The albedo effect is really important, and of course, the ice selves on Greenland and Antartica, seem to be breaking apart rapidly, with Greenland maybe about the push ahead of The Antarctic sea shelfs. Greenland could really warm up, with there is little or no ice in the Arctic this summer. (I read in AOL news, that scientists said that the arctic is warming up so much faster than predicted, that complete melting of the ocean during the summer has a 50-50% chance of happening this summer. I DO believe that the global scientists are right, about the effects of Global warming, and the climate change it causes. What they are WRONG about, is how long it takes to tip over the edge of super hot earth like DUNE. It takes maybe a couple of decades, with serious amounts of damage happening suddenly, in a couple of years, with little plateaux of relative balance, between the large meltdowns. Sea levels are going to go up faster than gas prices, and TENSE wont come close to conveying the mood around the world. IT would be scifi, except we are in a vast metamorphosis of our global ecosystem. The effects this will have on the world economy, politics, culture, or even food and shelter availability, can only be left to the imagination. And yes, imagine the worse, so you can be prepared for anything, instead of only being prepard for a “Best case scenario” composed of false hope and denial.
11. Mike Higgins | 06.29.08
It might be instructive to know that Southern Hemisphere sea ice was at “record” high levels during four the past five months. It may also be instructive to know that “record” levels for both the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere mean since 1979. Reliable records before 1979 do not exist.
“On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were “unprecedented” for the month of April in over 25 years. Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982. This continues a pattern established earlier in 2008, as global sea ice in March 2008 was also the third highest March on record, while January 2008 sea ice was the second highest January on record. It was also the second highest single month in the past 20 years (second only to Sept 1996).”
See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3066 for corroborating historical data and graphs.
12. Jennifer | 06.29.08
I recently heard on the news that the Arctic Circle will be melted by September. Start believing it; Life is about to get verrrry interesting.
13. Mike Higgins | 06.29.08
It might also be instructive to see the actual data on the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and tornados over the past 60-100 years. This data shows that there is absolutely no evidence supporting the claims that these events have increased in number or intensity.
To view the data, visit http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/GW_Article/GWReview_OISM150.pdf for a peer-reviewed 12-page report endorsed by 9,000+ American PhDs.
15. Ini | 07.14.08
Life is about to get verrrry interesting.
Highs and/or lows; the ARCTIC ICE TOP is melting, and Not as a storage Freezer where just a throw of the switch, makes it ice up again, over-night!
Talking is one thing; ACTION is a small step for man, but a big charge for MANKIND. Living in need, is not living in Want.
When we tip the ‘Living Balance’, a cascade of other changes occur.
Good trees have edible fruits, whereas, thorny bushes bears thorns.
JOIN the GLOBAL ACTION - ‘Living Balance’ Campaign against ‘Imbalances’.
JOIN Greenpeace ACTION!!!
16. J.J. | 07.16.08
The warming of the planet beyond historical norms is not a hoax. We have a very clear record of the last 650,000 years. The CO2 levels are literally off the charts, far above historical norms. The mass redisribution of water is already evident. If the salinity north of the Arctic Circle changes too much, the thermohaline conveyor, (the Gulf Stream and all other interconnected subsurface ocean currents) will stop. This will mean winters in the Northern Hemisphere, especially europe, will become VERY severe, because of the lack of warm water coming in to the area from the tropics. As the waters cool, they become more saline, and therefore heavier, which causes them to sink, pulling water behind them like a siphon. In the 1300’s, this process was slowed, not stopped, and the result was 500 years of very severe winters.
17. Sarah Silverado | 07.30.08
Benjamin’s #4 post above has it right. From what I’ve read, the amount of methane in the permafrost is so massive, that once it starts to release, positive feedback loops will create greater warming and thus more methane will be released, causing such a fast warmup of the planet, that it will cause widespread extinction, much the way it did during the Permian. Plants and animals will simply not have sufficient time to adapt. Humans I’m sure will but in far less numbers than 6.5 billion.
Here’s an odd connection to the above possible scenario of methane releases from thawing permafrost. The History Channel did a special on the Mayan calender end date of 12/21/2012, and linked together numerous predictions from seers over the past 1,000 years, of a firey sky debacle occuring near or on the Mayan calender date above. If methane did release in large enough amounts, it would form methane clouds and lightening or jet exhaust could ignite it into balls of fires in the sky. I know, it sounds too bizarre to be plausible, yet the melting of the arctic causing the melting of the permafrost that holds untold amounts of methane, which is a 20-25 times more intensive greenhouse gas than CO2, makes one wonder if we are headed towards a very hot and eery future. Look, up in the sky, its a bird, its a plane, no its a methane cloud on fire!!! And the question is; How hot would the planet get with methane clouds burning? How would the climate change? We’ve lived in what scientists refer to as a very tame period for climate. But it could all change in a short period of time into a fierce, raging, out of control weather system of unparalleled proportions.
Now forget everything you just read, stay in denial and have a nice day.
18. Mike | 08.07.08
This is TOTAL BS. CO2 levels are not at record levels on a geologic timescale, they are relatively low. There are so many other variables in what causes sea ice to melt, but you guys are like sheep and believe anything put on TV. I just read a research paper that showed that the Arctic has been ice free in the past and the Polar Bears did just fine. Also it’s these exact sale alarmists that had the world believing we were headed in to the next ice age. It was on the cover of Time Magazine in the 70’s. Before you start spouting off on here and preaching the end of the world you might want to consider what happens to food crops if we Cool Down. You might read up on the fact that they have discovered GIANT erupting volcanoes under the arctic ice sheet. That couldn’t possibly cause ice to melt could it? All that heat released in to the ocean! No let’s blame my SUV. You idiots are why gas prices are so high, and why utility bills are rising at record rates. It won’t be long and only the wealthy will be able to afford electricity. Oh and just look at one more thing. If seas were really rising, don’t you think all the coastal dwellers would be worried? They aren’t. Those cities are growing like crazy. Land ice is NOT melting, and the antarctic ice is at an all time record. The climate has cooled over the last 8 years. Oh, and Carbon is stored in a permafrost not Methane.
19. j obispo | 08.18.08
Another factor we are overlooking is the possible large releases of methane hydrate as the oceans warm. This could also be a large factor in greenhouse gas emissions as part of the chain reaction (no ice to reflect heat, permafrost emissions, methane hydrate emissions).
Remember that methane only has about a 20-year halflife in the atmosphere. Eventually the earth will be just fine. But all your children will be dead.
1. duncan d. mcgilvray | 06.12.08
I walked the amazingly increased distances mount glaciers at Chamonix in 1994, the province of Alberta in 1997, and the Alaskan coast in 2002. The shrinkage was stunning. Churchill, Canada is now an accelerated tourist destination to see the doomed polar bears. It is difficult to grasp their pending extinction.