The beginning of the Arctic sea ice melt season - 11 June, 2019

I had a message from a friend saying that her friends holidaying in Svalbard from the UK were getting around in shorts and T-shirts!
An early- season assessment 
of Arctic sea ice – 11 June, 
2019

It is very difficult to truly assess the ice and compare it to previous years. I have made an attempt to paint a picture from all the clues available - air temperatures, sea temperatures and data relating to temperatures in the Central Arctic Basin.

The picture is not very pretty as if seems to me that the ice is not only melting earlier, is thinner and in much worse shape than in previous years.

Whether we set a "Blue Sea Event" (technically, the disappearance of at least 80% of sea ice extent is anyone's guess and may largely depend on weather conditions as the melt season progresses.

In the meantime, the Arctic sea ice is being eroded from below as is clear from the CNN video below.

This time last year I was not yet following the melt season (I started in July when I started working with Margo). I shall provide comparisons with last year in due course.

Here is my video report:



***

This GIF shows the thinning ice.

And the present sea ice concentration

I neglected to show these pictures from NASA 
Worldview.

First a general view of the Arctic basin with melting 
around the edges in progress.



This shows the situation in the Barents Sea, from 
Svalbard up to Western Siberia -  Novaya Zemlya and 
the Yamal peninsula

The Beaufort Sea between the Canadian Arctic archipelago and Alaska.

The Bering Sea, between Alaska and Siberia

LINKS:

Arctic melt: Threat beneath the ice

We know the Arctic is experiencing a vast melting of sea ice. But deep in the ocean, something is happening that scientists are still trying to fully understand

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/08/world/arctic-beneath-ice-intl/index.html?fbclid=IwAR31yrTg6ZH5Xuz8Z2Y5BcXFn24rYBdaUUQ1hKZxs3Krj1B4yhMZpJtXVIQ

This is the video from the above article.

Arctic ice has very big problem because climate change | ice faces trouble from above and below


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSOHlw9KF3U&feature=share


The latest from Sam Carana and the Arctic Blog

When Will We Die?

The outlook for people living now is that they will die before the end of the century. After all, even in more developed regions, people statistically die at an age below 75 years, as the image on the right illustrates.



The image calls up questions regarding possible shortening of life expectancy due to global heating.



http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

Arctic ice has very big problem because climate change | ice faces 

trouble from above and below

For the longest time the story of ice melt has been about rising air temperatures. But what is happening under the sea ice? CNN's Arwa Damon heads out with a team of scientists to the far corners of the Arctic Circle to find out.
Source: CNN