I’ve covered the fate of the Arctic sea-ice for almost a year now, watching as report after report came out spelling doom for our northern pole. At the beginning of September last year I wrote a post called “Summer Ice to Disappear by 2030,” in which I quoted Dr. Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the Boulder University of Colorado National Snow and Ice Data Center, saying that “It’s amazing. It’s simply fallen off a cliff and we’re still losing ice.”
Some near 10 months later, Dr. Serreze has predicted that, unless weather and ocean conditions change, it does not look like there will be any summer ice in the Arctic this year.
“A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice,” Serreze said. “That’s the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it’s thin,” and thus, doesn’t have the strength to stand up to the increased temperatures. And so far, the preliminary evidence from a NASA satellite is showing that the ice surrounding the North Pole is “considerably thinner” than scientists have seen previously. This, according to NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally, who believes there is slightly less than a 50/50 chance that the North Pole will be ice free.
We know that last year was a record year for ice melt across the entirety of the Arctic, and as such, the young ice that sprung up between the end of 07’s summer and 08’s summer will be young, and more susceptible to melting.
With a more conservative estimate, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington puts the odds of an Arctic without ice at 1 in 4. However, even though this is half what Serreze is predicting, it is still much worse than many climate models had been predicting, which was 1 in 70 sometime in the next decade.
Though there is nothing scientifically significant about the North Pole being ice free, it does hold a symbolic significance. It caused such massive controversy last year when the Northwest Passage opened up that people begun to pay closer attention to it. And, as Seth Borenstein of the AP notes, it is where Santa Claus lives.
credit: lemoncat1 at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
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There’s nothing quite as nice as a really catchy title that perfectly sums up your story. If you want to leave it at that, then you’ve probably got the whole of the story. However if you want to know just a bit more about how climate change is affecting our planet’s poles, then keep reading.
Speaking in a telephone briefing last Friday, Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said that the Arctic and Antarctic are exhibiting opposite effects to the climate change affecting our planet.
It has been well documented that the North Pole is suffering from melting ice; however down south, in Antarctica, the climate change is powering winds that lower the temperature. “All the evidence points toward human-made effects playing a major role in the changes that we see at both poles and evidence that contradicts this is very hard to find,” said Francis.
To be published in the May 6th edition of the journal Eos, Francis and her co-authors conducted an examination of many previous studies about polar climate, and concluded that it “further depletes the arsenal of those who insist that human-caused climate change is nothing to worry about.”
The Arctic
The paper rightfully combines man-made global warming with natural variation, to explain what is happening in the north. They describe the conditions as a “perfect Arctic storm,” referring to human-generated carbon dioxide emissions and natural climate variations.
“Natural climate variability and global warming were actually working together and they’ve sent the Arctic into a new state for the climate that has much less sea ice,” said James Overland, an oceanographer at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “There’s very little chance for the climate to return to the conditions of 20 years ago.”
Antarctica
Conversely, Antarctica is exhibiting very different characteristics; and researchers believe that is because of the ozone hole that hovers above.
Gareth Marshall, of the British Antarctic Survey, points to changes in air pressure combined with the depleted stratospheric levels of ozone as the culprits for an increase in westerly winds. These winds sweep in along the Southern Ocean, isolating much of Antarctica from the impact of global warming.
The notable exception to this however is the Antarctic Peninsula, which sits just above the latitudes at which the winds sweep in. We have already seen what happens to locations that are not protected by these westerly winds (ie, the breaking up of the Larson Ice Shelf).
Good News / Bad News
The late 90’s – especially here in Australia where we are one of the nations closest and most affected by the ozone hole – was predominated by the need to change our ways. We had to stop using less of the chemicals that bore the hole in the ozone layer. Experts believe that the ozone layer will be fully recovered by 2070, as a result of strict international agreements banning these chemicals.
Subsequently, Francis and her colleagues believe that the ozone’s recovery will open the way for Antarctica to be subject to the same effects that are eating away at its northern cousin. It is, in all its glory, the epitome of “good news/bad news.”
Image courtesy of Wikipedia, depicting the collapsing Larsen B Ice Shelf and a comparison to the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
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The Arctic is heating up in more than one way, as we saw last week when Russia planted its flag on the seafloor below in an apparent move to establish a claim to the ample oil and gas reserves buried beneath.
What's disastrous for polar bears and Inuit subsistence hunters is emerging as a potentially huge -- and destabilizing -- fossil-fuel rush for the nations bordering the Arctic Ocean as the polar ice melts. How heated could disputes over the North's buried oil and gas riches become? It's still early, but I've already heard at least one theory that this could even spark conflict between the U.S. and, of all places, Canada. The ocean treaty regarding claims to seabed sovereignty might soon fall apart before the U.S. has even ratified it.
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