'Drastic' shrinkage in Arctic ice -- BBC

September 14, 2006 4:16 AM

'Drastic' shrinkage in Arctic ice: 'The extent of "perennial" ice - thick ice which remains all year round - declined by 14%, losing an area the size of Pakistan or Turkey.'
posted by The God Complex (24 comments total)

But hey, if you believe that, you're a Nazi sympathizer, so whatev.
posted by rxrfrx at 4:20 AM on September 14, 2006

As you can see at the Nasa Visible Earth site, they actually have recorded 'a loss rate of 9 percent per decade' (click to see the prediction for 2075 using that data). Given that, the loss of 14% in a single is year is astonishing.
posted by The God Complex at 4:24 AM on September 14, 2006

Also, This article from 2002 predicts that perennial ice would have been gone by this end of this century at the old rates:

"Melting sea ice would not affect sea levels, but it could profoundly impact summer shipping lanes, plankton blooms, ocean circulation systems, and global climate.

"If the perennial ice cover, which consists mainly of thick multi-year ice floes, disappears, the entire Arctic Ocean climate and ecology would become very different," said Josefino Comiso, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., who authored the study."

Sounds like, uh, good times.
posted by The God Complex at 4:26 AM on September 14, 2006

Truth be told, we were due for this.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:37 AM on September 14, 2006

Holy fuck. That's really, really, really bad. Less ice means less albedo, which means warmer oceans, which means less ice, etc, etc, etc.

The roller coaster's at the top of the incline now. Grab the bar.
posted by EarBucket at 4:44 AM on September 14, 2006

well, all it really takes is a cold swimming pool to produce shrinkage, but, yeah, i guess there'd be dramatic shrinkage in arctic ice.
posted by 1-2punch at 4:59 AM on September 14, 2006

Tough time to be a polar bear, too.
posted by paulsc at 5:00 AM on September 14, 2006

Holy fuck. That's really, really, really bad.

Yeah. How about this? NOAA's Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly map for the North and Central Atlantic.

The colors represent differences from normal -- green and blues are colder than normal, yellows and reds are warmer.

Note that most of the Central Atlantic is about normal, with a couple of hotspots. Off the US coast, the two warmer than normal spots -- the upper Gulf Coast, and a pool of warmer water by Bermuda.

But that's not the shocking part of this map. The shocking part is where the hottest than normal water is.

Note that the coastal waters off Labrador, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay aren't simmering at 30C, ready to snap out hurricanes. This is a difference chart. Actual sea surface temps are here -- these are 7 day running averages. The fact that the sea temps are even reading on this map, which goes off-scale low at 15C/59F, is enough of a concern. But when Hudson's Bay is off-scale *high* in the anomaly chart, which means it is at least 5C/9F warmer than normal, is just flat out scary.

Another factor -- wave action. Everyone studying this knows that at a certain point, waves break up thinning ice sheets, which dramatically accelerates their final melting. The problem is nobody is sure just how thick the ice needs to be to hold up to waves and still maintain a sheet.
posted by eriko at 5:27 AM on September 14, 2006

There's nothing about this in my Bible, so it can't be happening. Sorry to disappoint you all.
posted by kcds at 5:37 AM on September 14, 2006

Tough time to be a polar bear, too.

Although I wonder if polar bears will just evolve to jump further and swim better - that'd be cool...
posted by mattr at 5:39 AM on September 14, 2006

If there is any justice in this world, we will all wake up one day to find that Polar Bears have taken all our jobs and stolen our husbands and wives.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 5:44 AM on September 14, 2006

If there is any justice in this world, we will all wake up one day to find that Polar Bears have taken all our jobs...

Hey, those polar bears want my job, they can have it!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:51 AM on September 14, 2006

My Bible says that we're all screwed.
posted by craven_morhead at 7:17 AM on September 14, 2006

SST's can look scary, but they are just "surface" temps and how far down those temps go is unknown. It may be a thin layer of warm overtop cold. Obviously though, anything showing a warming trend is worrisome, the heat has to go somewhere, the overall temps are going up.
posted by stbalbach at 7:29 AM on September 14, 2006

Its worrying that the nasa budget is shrinking .........
posted by sgt.serenity at 8:15 AM on September 14, 2006

Does anyone else wish for rapid global warming (over the next 20 years or so) to the point of being incompatible with life?

I do. But I'm a dick like that.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 8:24 AM on September 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

That magnetic field link is really awesome.
posted by ddf at 8:38 AM on September 14, 2006

eriko -- I don't see Hudson's bay on that map -- the dark red anomaly is Lake Michigan. But you're right about the Newfoundland & North Atlantic area being worrying. Cooling saline tropical water sinks up there after doing the Gulf Stream, and that sinking is a big part of what drives the deep ocean conveyors. Stemming the downwelling in the North Atlantic gyre is what (for difference reasons) caused the Younger Dryas 7-century long climatic spasm 10,000 years ago. It could happen again.
posted by Rumple at 9:18 AM on September 14, 2006

Can someone please give me another link which will help me brush this one off as insignificant and go back to enjoying my entertainment?
posted by mosessmith at 9:35 AM on September 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

The roller coaster's at the top of the incline now. Grab the bar.


I think the worst positive feedback we'll experience is when humans start feeling the effects (such as starvation and economic depression), and everyone naturally assumes that we must address these problems before environmental ones. After all, starving people aren't going to care about the environment.
Say goodbye to topsoil!
posted by Citizen Premier at 10:01 AM on September 14, 2006

Rumple, take another look, the dark red patch is James Bay, the southernmost part of Hudson's Bay.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:38 AM on September 14, 2006

What’s the big deal? We all know cold water causes shrinkage.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:20 PM on September 14, 2006

I am glad I didn't put kids into this world. They're gonna be dieing miserable deaths. Us, too, perhaps; if we've hit tipping point, complete ecological collapse could happen within our own lifetimes.

Ugh.

I hope things are better than they appear.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:15 PM on September 14, 2006

I am glad I didn't put kids into this world. They're gonna be dieing miserable deaths.

I used to be able to say that. Now my friends are all spawning and I have to keep shtum.

Hi Wil!
posted by pompomtom at 9:06 PM on September 14, 2006