The head of the Royal Canadian Navy says Canada needs to bolster its military presence in the Arctic to prepare for a boom in human and economic activity resulting largely from climate change. Global warming is thought to be occurring faster in the North than anywhere else. The gradual disappearance of sea ice is opening [...]
Tag Archives: Arctic sea ice
Arctic sea ice melt on pace to set record low volume this year
The University of Washington’s Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System PIOMAS model combines data on sea ice concentration with models of ocean and atmospheric conditions to estimate total ice volume. Sea ice volume normally changes with the seasons, but monthly estimates through July 2011 show that the volume for each month has tracked well [...]
Ongoing sea level rise threatening $100 billion in U.S. naval bases
A report commissioned by the United States Navy concludes that climate change will pose profound challenges for the sea service in coming decades, including a need to secure Arctic shipping lanes, prepare for more frequent humanitarian missions and protect coastal installations from rising seas. The 15-month study, conducted by the National Research Council, accepts the [...]
Arctic sea ice at the record low for beginning of March
Arctic sea ice extent for February 2011 tied with February 2005 as the lowest recorded in the satellite record. Sea ice extent was particularly low in the Labrador Sea and Gulf of St. Lawrence. February 2011 tied February 2005 for the lowest ice extent for the month in the satellite record. Including 2011, the February [...]
Arctic sea ice low, struggling to winter maximum
Data released March 1, 20011 by NOAA’s National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that the seasonal extant of Arctic sea ice at the end of February, 20011, stood at a well below the level set in February 2007, the record low year for the annual summer minimum, and almost 3 million square kilometers below [...]
Melting snow and ice warming planet faster than expected: 10⁹ GigaWatts
Mark Flanner at the University of Michigan and his collaborators used satellite data to measure how much changes in snow and ice in the Northern Hemisphere have contributed to rising temperatures in the last 30 years. The loss of snow and ice warmed the planet more than models predicted it would. Snow and ice help [...]
Cold weather over U.S. linked to record low Arctic sea ice
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2011 was the lowest in the satellite record for that month. The Arctic oscillation persisted in its strong negative phase for most of the month…[and]…cold conditions in northern Europe and the U.S. are linked to the strong negative mode of the Arctic oscillation. Cold air is denser than warmer [...]
January Arctic sea ice lowest on record
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2011 was the lowest in the satellite record for that month. Arctic sea ice extent averaged over January 2011 was 13.55 million square kilometers (5.23 million square miles). This was the lowest January ice extent recorded since satellite records began in 1979. It was 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square [...]
Arctic sea-ice in January below the extant of the record low 2006/2007 season
At the close of January, 2011, the extant of Arctic sea ice stands below the January mark during the historic 2006/2007 season when sea ice reached it’s record year-round minimum (set in early fall).
Polar bear swims for 9 days to reach ice
In one of the most dramatic signs ever documented of how shrinking Arctic sea ice impacts polar bears, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska have tracked a female bear that swam nine days across the deep, frigid Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe 426 miles offshore. The marathon swim came at a [...]
