Not much ice left – warm blue arctic ocean due soon

Climate News Links on April 12, 2022

Blue oceans absorb more heat than ice caps. Loss of thick ice at winter’s end makes blue ocean likely soon. Expect more extreme weather!

Loss of thicker March sea ice from 1979 to 2022… Zack Labe, 12/04/2022

Featured Image: Arctic Sea Ice Thickness By Year. / Data: PIOMASS v2.1 (Zhang & Rothrock 2003) from 1979-2022 (averaged with ≥0.15 thickness) / Source: http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/ / Graphic: Zachary Labe (@ZLabe)

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State of the Arctic in 2020: bad news for our future

William P. Hall on February 26, 2022

Amer. Meteorological Society’s 2020 State of the Climate reports accelerating Arctic warming (Arctic amplification) that drives world climate

Zach Labe samples that data to show midwinter temperature over the Barents and Kara Seas has risen by more than 2 °C per decade!

Note: over the next few days I will be posting a comprehensive post on the full State of the Arctic article and the warnings we should be taking from it.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Antarctic sea ice reaches NB4 low extent this summer

William P. Hall on February 25, 2022

Southern sea ice coverage fell below 2 million km² for first time since satellite records began in 1979, exposing more ocean to solar heating

For details see NSIDC.org

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Towards a warming ‘blue ocean’ in Arctic summer

William P. Hall on February 21, 2022

Arctic sea ice is now dropping to its NB4 lowest extents in nearly 1500 years — trending towards ice-free summers and rapid ocean warming

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

We shouldn’t forget – Antarctic ice is also melting

William P. Hall on January 24, 2022

Zach Labe is always a good source of graphics summarizing collections of data on our changing climate Here he shows the melting of sea ice around Antarctica. The horizontal line shows the average extent of sea ice over the era of satellite measurements (beginning in 1978). The red line shows how much smaller extent of sea ice this January so far.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.