Guardian: Melt ponds in fresh sea ice could help explain the evermore open summertime Arctic Ocean
Upcoming in the AGU’s Journal of Geophysical Research is a paper that may explain why the almost-surely-doomed multiyear sea ice pack on the Arctic Ocean is marching to its end even faster than the computer models expect. Ice-free summers beckon. The Guardian‘s Oslo stringer Gwladys Fouché got wind of it early and explains it very well. The process is not only a good example of feedback loops but provides a sample of how such loops can catch researchers a bit by surprise. The news story is an admirable job of explanation without hype. The underlying theme is that ponds of meltwater sitting on top of ice are darker, hence warm up more in the sun, than snow or ice. Nothing new there – the process is seen on the land-borne ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. But what’s newly unusual about the arctic’s sea ice that makes it friendlier and hence more vulnerable to big, wide ponds? Read the piece and see.
Grist for a closely-related Mill: Could find no press release on the above news at the research’s parent agency, the Norwegian Polar Institute. However, here’s another Arctic one at the site, and with news of something potentially significant: A large pool of freshwater building up in the Arctic. Could cut loose soon. This one is UNDER the sea ice…or what’s left of it.
Other Arctic Sea Ice News:
- Boomberg – Alex Morales: North Pole Explorers’ Arduous Trek to Prove Arctic Melt Speed ; Two men and a woman, none of them trained scientists, are going to walk across the winter sea ice and measure its thickness distribution. Got a holy grail in here, too, provided by a source. But is sea ice thickness really the whole holy grail, top prize, summa cum laude, ne plus ultra, etc of the Arctic climate system?
- CBS News – Steve Berriman : How Much Ice Is Left In The Arctic ; same topic as prev.
- New Scientist – Catherine Brahic: Arctic’s personal greenhouse turns up the heat ; A general story on why it’s warming up there.
Grist that Needs Milling: BUSTED SATELLITE? National Snow and Ice Data Center Arctic Sea Ice Page. Haven’t seen anything in the press on this, but looks like the prime satellite sensor for measuring Arctic sea ice has been sending bad numbers lately, ergo it is on the fritz, and in the meantime one of the best data bases in this field is corrupted. Well, it has gotten one nibble: A blogging climate skeptic sees it as more evidence the arctic is not, really, melting.
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