Follow-Up on the Arctic Sea Ice

Here is a short follow-up post to my last one posted on Friday. I came across an interesting video posted by TedX Talks on some of the implications of the reduction of the Arctic sea ice. I found it quite insightful and the speaker, Dr. David Barber of the University of Manitoba in Canada delivered his talk in a way that was easy to comprehend.

Here is the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofaoiHYKtlc

On another note, there is an interactive graph showing sea ice extents throughout the year on the NSIDC website. You are able to obtain information on the sea ice extent on individual days. There are three different lines:
1. The 1981- 2010 average
2. 2012 (when the sea ice extent hit its summertime low)
3. 2016 (when the sea ice extent hit its wintertime low)

Here is the link to the interactive sea ice extent graph:

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

The entire Arctic sea ice scenario is way more complex than was expressed in my previous post, well beyond my comprehension at this point. I hope to have at least provided an overview on what I have taken away from the information I sought. I will perhaps branch off to something different for my next post. I may or may not return to sea ice, depending on what else jumps out at me regarding oceans and climates, which is proving to be a very vast topic.  

The Arctic Sea Ice

Sea ice is basically frozen seawater that lies on the sea surface due to its reduced density. A high proportion of sea ice on Earth is located in the two areas where the climate dominated by more cool temperatures – the Polar Regions. A certain amount of influence is provided by factors like atmospheric and ocean circulations, temperatures and other climatic components on nature of the sea ice in a particular area. As seasonal variations take place throughout the year, sea ice undergoes changes. Several years of studies carried out to observe these changes have aided scientists in developing graphs and trends on variables like sea ice extent, volume, thickness and so on.

The Arctic region, which is the polar region of the Earth’s Northern hemisphere, is almost entirely landlocked. This differs from the Antarctic region where Antarctica is a landmass surrounded by oceans. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) provided a very useful comparison between sea ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic. To put it simply, sea ice formed in the Arctic is less mobile, and therefore accumulates and during seasons when the ice is meant to melt, results in the formation of older ice sheets that become thicker over the years. There are also other disparities that are taken into account, such as the symmetry of the ice extent, snow thickness, solar energy absorption and so on.

The average Arctic sea ice extent throughout the year is about 15 million km² during winter and approximately 7 million km² during the summer months. Due to this phenomenon the Arctic sea ice has some significance to the Earth’s oceans and climate and that current issues pertaining to how it is changing could prove to be quite serious.

In March 2016, NASA reported that the Arctic sea ice maximum that tends to be some time between February and April hit a new low this year. It was recorded that the maximum sea ice extent of 14.52 million km2 was reached on March 24. The satellite records that produce this information also showed that 13 of the lowest sea ice maximums have occurred in the past 13 years. This can be coupled with current increased global temperatures, both in the atmosphere and the ocean. Warmer seas cause more difficulty in the formation of sea ice. And at the same time, less sea ice would mean that less sunlight is reflected back, reducing the albedo, which ties with a certain amount of climate regulation.

Another NASA article also displays some footage of satellite images showing how older, stronger and thicker sea ice has started melting away. This older sea ice, which is referred to as the ‘bulwark of sea ice’ by Walt Meier, one of NASA’s sea ice researchers, has become more susceptible to melting during the summer months due to warmer climates. This is a cause for concern as Meier also states that this increases the possibility of an iceless Arctic during the warmer months.

As stated previously, Arctic sea ice helps to regulate the climate of the Earth, by controlling the albedo. A change in the sea ice extent seems to be fully capable of causing a positive feedback in other factors, potentially snowballing (pun not intended) into a more severe and drastic consequence. In a paper written by Rothrock et al., the effects of the thinning of sea ice seem to relate back to increase in heat fluxes.

This change also inevitably affects living beings in the region. For instance, several journals and magazines reported that, between the years 2006 and 2013, 80000 reindeer in Russia starved to death due to shrinking Arctic sea ice. Their food supply had been cut due to thick layers of ice formed by more warm-weather precipitations like rain, causing the snow to harden on land. Thinning of the sea ice caused an increase in rainfall due to more open water available to be vapourised.

If attempts to reverse these effects are not taken, it will not be long before more consequences radiate globally. A warming climate has caused changes in the sea ice extent, which in turn also accounts for further changes in the climate. Anthropogenic warming is occurring at a rate higher than it has ever been, so it is only natural to think that the effects of this change will take shape well before we even expect it to.

Some links to the articles on the reindeer:

1.              http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0789-mass-reindeer-deaths-if-no-early-warning-system-for-climate-change-freak-freezes/

2.              https://sputniknews.com/russia/201611171047524973-climate-change-reindeers-famine-russia/

3.              http://www.sciencealert.com/80-000-reindeer-have-starved-to-death-as-arctic-sea-ice-disappears