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Sea Ice Death Spiral Continues — Start of 2016 Sees Arctic Ocean Ice Hitting New Record Lows
Robertscribbler,
2
February, 2016
In
January, Arctic sea ice extent hit a new record average low for the
month. Meanwhile, during the first days of February, both Arctic sea
ice extent and area hit new daily record lows even as global sea ice
area also entered the second lowest range ever recorded. And so it
seems that the sea ice death spiral of a record warm world continues.
(According
to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice extent
averages were the lowest on record for the month of January since at
least 1979. The new low beats out 2011, continuing an ongoing decadal
January decline of about 420,000 square kilometers every ten years.
Image souce:NSIDC.)
But
before we go more into the new spate of record low Arctic and global
sea ice measures, it’s important to consider the context — our
world has not seen the current level of heat forcing from greenhouse
gasses (CO2 + methane + NOx + other greenhouse gasses) in the
atmosphere since about 15 million years ago. It’s an unprecedented
amount of hothouse potential that is having equally unprecedented
results.
Unprecedented
Volume of Heat Trapping Gasses Drives Raging Atmospheric and Ocean
Warming
About
50 billion tons of CO2 equivalent from all those greenhouse gasses
hit the Earth’s atmosphere each year these days. In vast part
driven by industrial fossil fuel burning and extraction, this
unconscionable, monstrous, and difficult-to-imagine accumulation of
heat-trapping vapors is pushing the world to warm up at an
unprecedented rate. A pace that is now at least 20 times faster than
the widespread warming that occurred at the end of the last ice age.
(It’s
likely been a record warm start of the year for the Arctic above the
80 degree North Latitude Line. Temperatures in that high Arctic
region have tended well outside the 2 standard deviation range and
have hit above the record line on numerous occasions. Image
source: NSIDC.)
Back
then, it took about 2,500 years for the Earth’s atmosphere to heat
by 1 degree Celsius for a total of a 4 C temperature increase over
10,000 years. By just this past year, in 2015, fossil fuel burning
had managed to do more in 135 years than what an Earth System rising
up out of an ice age did in all of two and one half millenia. For
2015 hit
a new record high of about 1.1 C above 1880s averages in all the
major global temperature monitors (NASA,
NOAA, JMA, UK MET Office). It’s amazing, crazy, terrifying to think
about. The end of the last glacial period was a great upheaval that
violently re-shaped our world. And fossil fuel industry is running a
similar, if much more dangerous, geological process in
fast forward by pumping out heat trapping gasses at a rate at least
six times faster than anything seen in all of Earth’s history.
Yet
as amazing as the current rate of atmospheric warming is, it’s just
the thin lens through which a vast amount of heat is transferring
into the world’s ocean systems. In fact, according
to Peter Gleckler, an oceanographer at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory “Ninety, perhaps
95 percent of the accumulated heat is in the oceans.”
(What
was possibly the warmest January on record for the Arctic contributed
to major sea ice losses in almost all of the major ice formation
basins. Image source: NSIDC.)
And
all that extra heat doesn’t just sit there. It goes to work
transforming water to water vapor — shoving atmospheric moisture
content 7 percent higher for each degree Celsius of warming even as
it amps up the rate at which water evaporates from the Earth’s
surface or falls down in the form of precipitation. Perhaps still
more ominously, this heat goes to work melting the great white ice
coverings it comes into contact with at the shoreline and upon the
ocean surface.
Arctic
Sea Ice Hits New Record Lows For January Through Early February
For
2016, that heat has led to new record lows in Arctic sea ice extent
and area even as it has pushed global sea ice coverage within
striking distance of a scant range never before seen in the whole of
the modern era. New record daily lows for sea ice extent — now an
almost annual occurrence for at least some time during the calendar
year — are now also being breached.
(Arctic
sea ice area explores new record low territory on January 29 through
31 of 2016. Image source: Cryosphere
Today.)
In
the major monitors, Arctic sea ice extent hit a new record low
average for the month of January, 2016. This average included a
number of record daily lows early in the month even as the entire
monitor held within 1st to 3rd lowest on record for each day
throughout January. Record daily lows were again breached in the
NSIDC measure on January 29th.
A
streak that continued on through February 1st with totals hitting
13.911 million square kilometers for the day. That’s
119,000 square kilometers below the previous record daily low for
February 1 set in 2011 at 14.030 million square kilometers or a
region of ice lost below the previous minimum extent slightly larger
than the State of Virginia.
Arctic
sea ice area as recorded by Cryosphere Today (see graphic above)
followed a similar record low range through the end of January. By
January 31st, the most recent date in the measure, Arctic sea ice
area had hit 12.27 million square kilometers or about 61,000 square
kilometers below the previous record daily low for sea ice area set
during 2006.
(A
very warm Arctic during January of 2016 likely contributed to shoving
the global sea ice area measure into striking distance of new record
lows by early February. Image source: Pogoda
i Klimat.
Data Source: Cryosphere
Today.)
Also
disturbing is the fact that global sea ice area — which has shown
consistent losses over time — has also now come within striking
distance of new record lows. The Cryosphere Today monitor now shows
global sea ice area in the range of 14.5 million square kilometers or
just above previous record lows set during 2006 for this time of
year.
Conditions
In Context — Amazing Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies, Major
Winter Warm-ups Hit Sea Ice Hard
Arctic
sea ice area negative anomaly is now in the range of -1.23 million
square kilometers. With Antarctic sea ice at around 200,000 square
kilometers below average, it’s pretty clear that the bulk of
current global sea ice losses are now ongoing in the Arctic.
Warm
ocean waters, especially in the Barents Sea and the Greenland Strait
are likely major contributors to record low sea ice extents during
recent weeks. These sea surface temperatures now show between 1 and
an amazing 8 C above average reading in the NOAA sea surface
temperature anomaly map below.
(Sea
surface temperatures are in the range of 4-8 degrees Celsius or 7-14
degrees Fahrenheit above average near sections of sea ice in the
Northern Barents Sea. These very warm sea surfaces continue to
suppress refreeze and provide melt pressure on into early February.
Image source: NOAA.)
Such
amazingly warm waters likely helped contribute to major atmospheric
warming events in the high north over the past two months including
one above freezing event at the North Pole during late December and
another near freezing event for the same region during late January,
likely added to the overall melt pressure. The very warm water in the
Barents likely helped to enable the observed warm air slots that
formed north of Svalbard and on toward the North Pole on numerous
occasions.
Over
the next seven days, Arctic air temperatures are expected to range
about 1 C above average — as opposed to the 2-3 C above average
range seen during the past month. This slight cooling may allow for a
more rapid freezing of some regions including the Sea of Okhotsk. But
overall warm waters and airs along the sea ice edge in the Bering and
Barents should continue to suppress major ice formation there. By the
second week of February, risk increases that high amplitude Jet
Stream waves will deliver another burst of warm air to the far
Northern Latitudes, potentially continuing the trend of extreme above
average atmospheric temperatures in the region of the Arctic Ocean
during 2016.
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