What's new in the Arctic ?

[Laurent]

Pancake ice takes over the Arctic.
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090323/full/news.2009.183.html

[wili]

Thanks for that link, L. It confirms what I've been pointing out on occasion--that we miss a lot by just comparing raw numbers--like ice extent, area and volume--over the years and decades. This focus on quantities overlooks an enormous shift in quality: the ice we are measuring now is mostly a very different creature from the ice that was measured twenty or even ten years ago.

From the article:

When water is surrounded by ice packs, as has been common in the Arctic, areas of open water are small and there is little chance for wind to work up vigorous waves. In such calm conditions, ice forms in unbroken sheets called 'nilas'.

But now the Arctic has larger areas of open water, and more waves. "As soon as you introduce swell, you get an entirely different form of ice," says Jeremy Wilkinson of the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban, UK. Under these conditions, globs of ice crystals tossed about in the water combine to form first a soupy mixture called 'grease ice', and then 'pancakes' of thin ice a metre or two in diameter.

This can have all sorts of knock-on effects. Because the pancakes are round, for example, they have areas of open water between them when joined up, making the surface darker overall. This could have a warming effect as a result of less of the Sun's radiation being reflected. Water also slops up from these holes over the ice so that falling snow melts rather than settling, keeping the surface darker.

"This whole cycle is not in models of the Arctic or the Antarctic. It's one of these conundrums that people haven't looked into," says Wilkinson.

[Laurent]

Changes in Arctic ice affect Indian Monsoon: Scientists
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-changes-in-arctic-ice-affect-indian-monsoon-scientists-2050952

[Steven]

Old ice in Arctic Vanishingly Rare  (NOAA animation of Arctic sea ice age from 1987 to 2014).

http://www.climate.gov/news-features/videos/old-ice-arctic-vanishingly-rare

[Laurent]

Polar bears head north as Arctic warms

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/01/polar-bears-head-north-arctic-warms

[Wipneus]

You read it first on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum but here is the news item by ESA:

Satellites catch Austfonna shedding ice

23 January 2015
Rapid ice loss in a remote Arctic ice cap has been detected by the Sentinel-1A and CryoSat satellites.

Located on Norway’s Nordaustlandet island in the Svalbard archipelago, parts of the Austfonna ice cap have thinned by more than 50 m since 2012 – about a sixth of the ice’s thickness.

Over the last two decades, ice loss from the southeast region of Austfonna has increased significantly, and ice thinning has spread over 50 km inland and is now within 10 km of the summit.

The ice cap’s outlet glacier is also flowing 25 times faster, from 150 m to 3.8 km per year – half a metre per hour.

In the study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at the University of Leeds in the UK combined observations from eight satellite missions, including Sentinel-1A and CryoSat, with results from regional climate models.
(...)

[Espen]

You read it first on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum but here is the news item by ESA:

Satellites catch Austfonna shedding ice

23 January 2015
Rapid ice loss in a remote Arctic ice cap has been detected by the Sentinel-1A and CryoSat satellites.

Located on Norway’s Nordaustlandet island in the Svalbard archipelago, parts of the Austfonna ice cap have thinned by more than 50 m since 2012 – about a sixth of the ice’s thickness.

Over the last two decades, ice loss from the southeast region of Austfonna has increased significantly, and ice thinning has spread over 50 km inland and is now within 10 km of the summit.

The ice cap’s outlet glacier is also flowing 25 times faster, from 150 m to 3.8 km per year – half a metre per hour.

In the study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at the University of Leeds in the UK combined observations from eight satellite missions, including Sentinel-1A and CryoSat, with results from regional climate models.
(...)

That is normal pickpockets and some "scientists"  are the same breed.

[Laurent]

Icebergs 'have sound signature'
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31028901

[nukefix]

Icebergs 'have sound signature'
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31028901

Interesting, reminds me of unexplained sounds some of which are probably glaciological in origin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unexplained_sounds

[Laurent]

An other article on the subject :
Video: The sound of an iceberg being born
http://news.sciencemag.org/earth/2015/01/video-sound-iceberg-being-born

[solartim27]

Cross posted from the policy thread.  What's old is new again:  Shell returns to the Chukchi:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31034870

[jdallen]

Cross posted from the policy thread.  What's old is new again:  Shell returns to the Chukchi:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31034870

You'd *think*, with the Saudi's doing their best to swamp the oil market, Shell would bide its time and not expend effort going after what is at best marginal oil.  Ghawar could still produce at the rate the Saudi's are pumping for another 20+ years.  I'm hoping it's a blessing in disguise - drive the oil sands and arctic exploration folks out of the market, while alternatives still continue to evolve.

We shall see.

[nukefix]

Perhaps Shell is betting that the supply from fracking and shale is going to disappear soon...that's more than what Ghawar is producing..

[plinius]

Although being off-topic, I fear it is quite the other way round. Oil prices have collapsed to a level where the marginal costs (not accounting for the first line investments) are just barely covered. The market equilibrium contains these producers. While this certainly helps against further rapid expansion of shale production (and probably crap like tar sands), it does not push coal out of the market, which is far more harmful.
Also, regenerative energies are mostly economies of scale - the more you sell, the cheaper they become, due to an own learning curve and process optimization. So, the current low oil prices will take steam out of their expansion and research and defer their undercutting the prize for coal production farther into the future.
There is no good in lower oil prices.

[epiphyte]

Pancake ice takes over the Arctic.
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090323/full/news.2009.183.html

Catching up after a brief hibernation here...

The picture in this article epitomizes all that makes me uneasy about extrapolating low-resolution satellite imagery into area and extent numbers, and then using those numbers as input to volume models which don't distinguish between a meter thickness of ice over which you could safely drive a battle-tank, and the hour-old undrunk Margarita seen in the image.

From Space, even to Sentinel 1,  which has much higher resolution than the existing satellite record, all of that stuff is just ice - which is one of the reasons why I think that one year or another, sometime in late summer, PIOMAS will tell us that there is a meter or more of ice over most of the arctic, when in reality we are days away from... poof.

[viddaloo]

epiphyte, that and the documented uncertainty of the PIOMAS estimates is the reason for my "Piomas Minus 1000" (p1k) graph posted once in a while.

Looks great to have a daily number, but they can't even say for sure if it's 1000 km3 too high or too low (and when the Europeans say it's way too high, you can hear the drop of a pin).

[KeithAnt]

Wipneus, brought the degree of regression from the Austfonna ice cap to our attention.
My question is; it might be silly, what impact would that have on the extent and volume of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean? Or, would the regression of the Austfonna ice cap be too small to make much difference overall?

[Neven]

Keith, my first guess would be: not much of an impact (except perhaps local), but obviously a tell-tale sign (duh).

[Laurent]

Tides stir up deep Atlantic heat in the Arctic Ocean
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-tides-deep-atlantic-arctic-ocean.html

Arctic ice warms from below
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7539/full/518277e.html

[Laurent]

Chilling reminders of climate change in the Arctic
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530093.600-chilling-reminders-of-climate-change-in-the-arctic.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|environment#.VOWciGN3_z8

[Laurent]

Interior Department Rolls Out First Rules For Arctic Drilling
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/interior-arctic-drilling-rules_n_6723974.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green

[epiphyte]

Interior Department Rolls Out First Rules For Arctic Drilling
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/interior-arctic-drilling-rules_n_6723974.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green

The suggested rules are insanely reckless.  The industry response is... I don't think there's even a word to describe a position that would willingly stake a few weeks profit against the likelihood of an epoch-changing event.

At first reading, the rules say that as long as there are resources on hand to cap a blowout in the same summer season as it happens, everything is peachy. The industry says that a capping stack on the primary well (I.e. the same safeguard that failed to contain the BP blowout) is all that is needed.

One can well imagine why the industry wouldn't want the first rule - it takes weeks to drill a relief well to cut off a blowout, and there's no way to keep a rig on-station in the presence of significant ice. In combination, this implies that in order to be safe the drilling season would have to end several weeks before the end of summer. With only, say, 12 ice-free weeks to work with, they would have four weeks to drill, four weeks to produce, and if all goes well, four weeks of safety buffer at the end of each summer.

Couple the above with having two rigs in the area instead of one, and it completely changes the economics of the thing. The proposal (which itself is fraught with danger) would allow maybe 2 weeks of production/rig/year. What the industry wants to do (a single rig relying on a welltop blowout-prevention stack for safety) would allow 8-10 weeks production/rig/year - but in the event of an accident which left the wellhead open, it would pretty much guarantee that oil would be gushing into the arctic ocean (and accumulating on the bottom surface of the ice) for the whole of the next winter.

The effect that this would have on the next and subsequent melt seasons is impossible to imagine. It seems entirely plausible though that it on its own could change the face of the planet.

[jdallen]

it continues to astonish me... that energy corporations somehow think they can drill for and produce oil profitably in the Arctic ocean.

They are obviously uncaring of the risk involved.

[Buddy]

The oil and gas companies care about risk, every bit as much as the tobacco companies do about smokers lungs....


To quote Albert Einstein:  "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."     

[Laurent]

Northop scientist and General Election candidate helps finds cause of rapid warming in Arctic Ocean
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/northop-scientist-general-election-candidate-8672774

[Jim Hunt]

This is not exactly IN the Arctic, but nevertheless:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-needs-an-ambassador-to-the-arctic-to-shape-its-future-say-lords-10074161.html

The UK needs to “up its game” in the battle to save the Arctic and should start by appointing an ambassador to the region, according to a critical report from the House of Lords.

“The Arctic is changing in front of our eyes. That change is momentous and unprecedented. It will bring both difficulties and opportunities and it is vital that the UK takes this challenge seriously and is able to respond to it,” said Lord Teverson, chairman of the House of Lords Arctic Committee.

[Laurent]

Submarine data used to investigate turbulence beneath Arctic ice
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150227112541.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

[DavidR]

Submarine data used to investigate turbulence beneath Arctic ice

That's an interesting paper, and perhaps highly  relevant  to this year where the ice in the Barents has been rushing around at the behest of numerous Arctic storms.  One would have to  assume that the water in that  area has been well mixed in the last couple of months.

This would suggest a more rapid melt  in that  are than usual. 

[jdallen]

Submarine data used to investigate turbulence beneath Arctic ice

That's an interesting paper, and perhaps highly  relevant  to this year where the ice in the Barents has been rushing around at the behest of numerous Arctic storms.  One would have to  assume that the water in that  area has been well mixed in the last couple of months.

This would suggest a more rapid melt  in that  are than usual.

*Maybe*.  The top layers of water will lose heat pretty rapidly, and won't pick up more without continued mixing.

The major effect of the movement and mixing will be to leave the ice still mobile when the sun returns.  When that happens, open water will pick up heat very rapidly once the watts/M2 reaches a high enough level.

Before then, surface temps won't affect the ice particularly; the energy required for a phase change isn't really available, especially when most of the water is still below 0C.  It may thin a bit, but won't really decline significantly.

Again, I think the key take away with this amazingly warm weather over the pack is, the ice hasn't been given enough of a chance to thicken and strengthen.  Weather will still play a key role, but we may not see what that will be until we get to July.

[Laurent]

Ancient cod bones carry modern warning about mercury, climate change
http://www.adn.com/article/20150301/ancient-cod-bones-carry-modern-warning-about-mercury-climate-change

[KeithAnt]

Study integrating observations of sea ice from submarines, satellites and aircraft

http://www.washington.edu/news/2015/03/03/on-thin-ice-combined-arctic-ice-observations-show-decades-of-loss/

[Laurent]

Looking at the salinity, it seems to me that for the first time there is a seeable bridge of salinity between the pacific and the atlantic ocean.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticsss_nowcast_anim30d.gif

[Laurent]

Arctic sea ice could set an ominous new record this year
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/05/arctic-sea-ice-could-set-an-ominous-new-record-this-year/

As I wrote in my story, the flight to Kivalina, which hugged the coastline of the Chukchi Sea north of Kotzebue, Alaska, revealed weak sea ice conditions that were visible to the naked eye. In many cases, the ice covering the ocean did not reach the frozen shore. The ice itself had extended fractures in many places — and this was February

[johnm33]

Looking at the salinity, it seems to me that for the first time there is a seeable bridge of salinity between the pacific and the atlantic ocean.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticsss_nowcast_anim30d.gif

Even more apparent here,
 http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycomcice1-12/navo/arcticsss_nowcast_anim30d.gif
from
 http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycomcice1-12/arctic.html
I've been looking at this area, just south of hudson

 on worldview [ http://1.usa.gov/1A2fzGU ] for a week or so and it looks like the turbulent water emerging from beneath the ice in the south of Baffin/Labrador is putting a prodigious amount of heat into the atmosphere, [from the Pacific?] and is the cause of the weather system about to slam into the arctic. Shows up a treat here as a huge mushroom bursting south and east

I can't see that flow of energy stopping soon.
[edit top half was missing but was in system when I came to restore?]

[johnm33]

Still huge amount of evaporation taking place, streamers from almost every crack in the ice.
http://map2.vis.earthdata.nasa.gov/imagegen/index.php?TIME=2015065&extent=-924800,-3076864,-361600,-2513664&epsg=3413&layers=MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,Coastlines&opacities=1,1&worldfile=false&format=image/jpeg&width=2200&height=2200
Energising the cyclone off SE Greenland.
http://1.usa.gov/1KC8JCg
 Looking on nullschool that cyclone is still visible right up to 250hPa.

[Laurent]

Climate change in the Arctic is messing with our weather
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/mar/16/climate-change-in-the-arctic-is-messing-with-our-weather

[Laurent]

Polar bears face starvation as unlikely to adapt to a land-based diet, says report
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/01/polar-bears-face-starvation-unlikely-adapt-to-land-based-diet

[Laurent]

It's Time to Take Arctic Drilling Off the Table
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-shogan/its-time-to-take-arctic-d_b_7000330.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green

This is not, however, the time to hang heads and concede the Arctic. Shell still needs to gain approval for its exploration plans, a revised set of which were just submitted to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). And even if BOEM deems these plans complete, there will still be a comment period to follow during which the public will have the chance to speak up for the Arctic.

[Laurent]

Greenpeace activists scale Arctic-bound Shell oil rig – video
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2015/apr/07/greenpeace-activists-arctic-shell-oil-rig-video

Greenpeace activists board Arctic-bound oil rig
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/07/greenpeace-activists-board-arctic-bound-oil-rig

[Laurent]

Arctic research vessel set adrift to study sea ice decline
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/08/arctic-research-vessel-adrift-studying-sea-ice-climate-change

[Laurent]

The Arctic has melted so much that now people want to race yachts through it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/08/the-arctic-has-melted-so-much-that-people-want-to-race-yachts-through-the-northwest-passage/

[Jester Fish]

Absolutely batsh*t crazy...Nuclear powered oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean
What could go wrong?....Ummm....everything!

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2015/0428/Russia-to-power-Arctic-drilling-with-floating-nuclear-reactors

[Laurent]

Climate drives 'new era' in Arctic Ocean
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32553668

Arctic mission monitors ice shift
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32467674

[Sigmetnow]

Canada’s new national map shows more Arctic ice—but not because there is more
http://qz.com/395224/the-glare-of-ice-thoughts-on-the-new-national-atlas-of-canada/

[Sigmetnow]

Scientists Praise Contributions of Two Dutch Explorers Who Perished on Arctic Sea Ice
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/scientists-praise-contributions-of-two-dutch-explorers-who-perished-on-arctic-ice/

[Laurent]

Arctic Waves Pound Vanishing Ice
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/arctic-waves-pound-vanishing-ice-video/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+energy-and-sustainability+%28Topic%3A+Energy+%26+Sustainability%29

[Jim Hunt]

Arctic Waves Pound Vanishing Ice

It's not that new! See also:

Importance of waves in the Arctic

[Laurent]

Russia Stakes New Claim to Expanse in the Arctic
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/world/europe/kremlin-stakes-claim-to-arctic-expanse-and-its-resources.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

MOSCOW — Russia formally staked a claim on Tuesday to a vast area of the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole.

[Lennart van der Linde]

Special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society on Arctic sea ice:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2052

[Sigmetnow]

A giant ancient virus was just uncovered in melting ice — and it won’t be the last

Let's get one thing out of the way really quickly: The ancient, giant virus recently discovered in melting Arctic ice is not going to kill you.

But here's the bad news: It's not the first ancient virus that scientists have found frozen — it's the fourth found since 2003. And you can be sure it won't be the last. And with climate change causing massive melts, it's not totally alarmist to suggest that something deadly might one day emerge from a long, icy sleep.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/09/an-ancient-giant-virus-was-just-uncovered-in-melting-ice-and-it-wont-be-the-last/