Seemorerocks: A dicussion of the ice-free area north of Greenland

Thursday 23 August 2018

A dicussion of the ice-free area north of Greenland

The area north of Greenland is now mostly ice-free

I have been blogging on abrupt climate change for over six years now and I must admit that only now is the reality truly sinking in and hitting me emotionally.

While I was posting articles and even while I was looking a satellite pictures I felt strangely detached. However, waking up yesterday to the article from the Guardian hit me full-force in the gut and I have been experiencing the same physical sensation that I did several years ago when I thought I was going to lose my mate, Pam to cancer. The lump in my throat and the feeling in the chest was (and is) dread and grief.

At the moment I can hardly direct my already-limited energy towards anything else. I have hardly been able to summon much interest in the things I usually post about, such as geopolitics and the corruption of media and politics.

So I expect that, unless there is a change there will be less of this for the next little while.

I have learned that the area affected is Cape Morris Jessup, the northernmost part of Greenland as well as the northern part of Ellesmere Island in Canada and we are talking about the Lincoln Sea

I have put the following together from the satellite pictures from yesterday but in addition to Margo's excellent update yesterday Robert Fanny (aka Robertscrobbler) has done an informative video on this today.

I have been re-reading the article from the Guardian from yesterday and find it to be generally accurate although it seems to be put together by someone who is unfamiliar with the subject.

Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record

I must say I feel for the Danish and Norwegian scientists who have been researching this and described their findings in terms like 'scary'

WARM WATERS ARE MELTING THE ICE FROM BELOW

The consensus view seems to be that it is temperature spikes giving rise to winds that have pushed the ice away from the coast.

"Abnormal temperature spikes in February and earlier this month have left it vulnerable to winds, which have pushed the ice further away from the coast than at any time since satellite records began in the 1970s....

“The ice there has nowhere else to go so it piles up. On average, it’s over four metres thick and can be piled up into ridges 20 metres thick or more. This thick, compacted ice is generally not easily moved around.

“However, that was not the case this past winter (in February and March) and now. The ice is being pushed away from the coast by the winds...."

As a non-expert who has been following this for some time I would say this leaves a an important aspect out of the equation - that is the warm waters from the Atlantic that are mixing with the ice to degrade it and melt it from below.

We have been following this for some time through the sea temperature anomalies in the waters surrounding the central Arctic plateau.

Now that the ice has receded the sea temperature anomaly appears in Climate Reanalyzer, although you have to look hard to notice it.

This shows that warm waters are affecting the thick, multi--year ice and I wouldn't mind betting that their influence is as great, or greater,than the atmospheric conditions although, no doubt the conditions described in the article provided the immediate trigger.

CONDITIONS AT THE NORTH POLE

Margo seems to me to be the only person who has been paying close attention to the conditions of the ice close to the North Pole and has pointed attention to cracks and holes in the ice and to what looks very much like we're looking through thin ice at open sea below.

It could conceivably be meltpools (bad enough in itself) but in discussions we have decided that the thinness of the ice doesn't allow for this possibility.

The following photos are taken at 87 degrees N, which is right at the centre of the picture below on the 20th August which provided good condtions for looking at this.