Arctic sea ice continued it's downward trajectory this year as the ice declined to its annual minimum on September 17, 2014.
Reflection from the blue waters under thinning ice produces the pale blue-green color in this true-color MODIS image of the Laptev Sea, north of Eastern Siberia.
Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
According to Walter Meier, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Center, "Arctic sea ice coverage in 2014 is the sixth lowest recorded since 1978"
Wunderground highlights findings from the National Snow and ice data center
Arctic sea ice coverage has continued its long-term downward trend since satellite records began in 1978, officially falling to 1.94 million square miles (5.02 million square kilometers), according to analysis from both NASA and NSIDC scientists. This year’s minimum extent is similar but slightly below last year’s, and well below the 1981-2010 average of 2.40 million square miles (6.22 million square km).
The summer’s melt season started on the cool side, and actual melt start several weeks later than has been observed over the past decade. In addition, there were no large storm systems (though numerous small ones) or persistent (and periodically strong) winds that can help break up ice, exposing the dark waters around the broken up ice which increases the lowers the overall Albedo, allowing warming on sunny days and increased ice melt. Despite the relatively cool summer and long periods of cloudiness resulting from the numerous ‘small storms’ across the arctic basin - we still saw overall coverage fall well below the long-term average (which is now officially considered 1981-2010).
This summer, the Northwest Passage above Canada and Alaska remained ice-bound (though some observers and adventurists were able to traverse the ‘southern route’ briefly. From a 100 year+ period of record, the 2007 ‘opening’ was the first ever recoded. OTH - the 'Northeast Passage' that refers to the coastal/offshore waters north of Siberian Russia - has opened 7 years in a row now - and three is no record of it having been open ever before.
A relatively small region of fully open water extended from the Siberian coast by the Laptev Sea to beyond 85° North (just a couple hundred miles from the North Pole) – the farthest north open waters has reached since satellite records began in 1979. This was due to a very persistent southerly flow in that area since late spring and through most of the summer melt season. This flow brought warmer air towards the North Pole region and helped ‘push’ and compress remaining ice floes toward the Pole.
This years summer sea ice extent ended significantly above the all-time minimum record set in 2012, but this in NO WAY means the arctic ice is returning to more average conditions. In total – the Arctic Ocean is losing ice coverage at the rate of 13% per decade, and this years’ average was still 1.8 Standard Deviations (STD-DEV) below the long term mean (1981-2010).
Case study on the Laptev sea shelf can be found here. As noted in the above image and in The Snow and Ice Data Center, the Laptev is continuing to melt. This prologue from the Russian-German Cooperation in the Siberian Shelf Seas sheds light on the critical role this sea plays in our climate.
1. The Laptev Sea is farthest away from the influence of the Atlantic and
Pacific water masses whose properties can be followed both in terms of
oceanography and biology from the Barents Sea (Atlantic influence) and the
Bering Sea (Pacific). The Laptev Sea is henceforth the most Arctic of the wide
Eurasian shelf seas.
2. The Laptev Sea oceanography is characterized by an intensive interaction
between the marine water masses of the Arctic Ocean and the river run-off
from the Lena River and a number of other large rivers draining the Siberian
shield areas and adjacent land regions. Sediments of the Laptev Sea floors
should reflect this influence through their variable composition.
3. The Eurasian shelf seas are some of the largest shelf seas of the World
Ocean. Because of the peculiar climatice situation of the Arctic Ocean the
circum Arctic shelfs are believed to be places of the formation of cold, saline
and oxygen rich brines which cascade across the continental margins into the
adjacent deep-sea basins, henceforth, influencing the oceanography of the
northern hemisphere polar deep-sea basins. These brines seem to influence
the morphology and physiography of the deeper Parts of the continental
margins through gully, channel and canyon formation as well as the
deposition of large quantities of tubidites in the Arctic deep-sea basins.
4. The ice margins of the Arctic ice pack and of the coastal fast ice are subject
to extreme seasonality. This is particularly well developed under the influence
of the seasonally highly variable run-off of the Lena River.
5. The nutrients contributed by the rivers to the Arctic shelf seas are resulting
in a considerable biological productivity despite the extreme living conditions
which have developed in the Arctic Ocean.
6. Recent investigations of the flaw lead separating the coastal fast ice from
the drifting Arctic ice pack have shown that the Laptev Sea is one of the most
important "ice factories" of the entire Arctic Ocean. Here new ice is
continuously formed which is then contributed to the Trans Polar Drift and
which is transporting large quantities of sediment included into the ice due to
the peculiar ice-formation processes (frazil ice) in the Laptev Sea.
7. The monitoring of the extent of the Arctic ice cover since the beginning of
this century has shown that the global temperature increase during the past
decade have Seen a response in a reduction of the ice cover. The Eurasian
shelf seas, in particular the Laptev Sea, might therefore be excellent objects
to monitor the impact of Global Change.
8. The history of the Laptev Sea during the geological past is particularly
interesting because this region was properly located to the east of the large
north European ice shield. Its paleo environmental variability is influenced by
the changes of the river run-off from the large Siberian land masses by
eustatic sea-level changes and by the impact of tectonics of the young
intersection of the active mid-ocean Gakkel Ridge and the underlying
continental basement.
The carbon needs to stay in the ground forever.
The above animation of daily Arctic sea ice extent during the melt season of 2014, from March 21, 2014 - to Sept. 17, 2014 – when the ice appeared to reach it’s minimum extent for the year. Technically, It’s the sixth lowest minimum sea ice extent measured in the satellite era. The data was provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency from their GCOM-W1 satellite’s AMSR2 instrument. Credit: NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Trent Schindler