Friday, June 28, 2013

Arctic Ice to Shrink to New Low






The evidence to date does not show this but we also know that modeling has been improved hugely over the past several years. Area is adjusted heavily by wind and current. So it is very brave to predict a five percent drop this September.

Regardless the delta heat that has been applied to the Arctic of the past forty years continues to be sustained and the majority of multiyear ice is now long gone. The trend has not obviously been reversed.

I would like to see a fleet of container ships make the North West Passage. Of course, they would have to be double hulled and have a reinforced bow to brush off small ice floes. However, they could do the passage in convoy with a icebreaker in attendence.

Scientists: Arctic sea ice to shrink to record low this summer

June 21, 2013

The white areas in this graphic show the predicted sea ice coverage areas in the Arctic Ocean for this summer. The inner curve shows the Sept. 11 ice contour averaged over a decade from 2003 through 2012, whereas the outer curve shows the Sept. 11 ice contour averaged over a decade from 1993 through 2002. (Provided by Noriaki Kimura)



In a sign of continued global warming, the Arctic sea ice this summer will shrink to a new low, 5 percent smaller than the previous minimum of last summer, scientists in Japan said.

A group of researchers led by Hajime Yamaguchi, a professor of ocean information systems with the University of Tokyo, said their predictions are based on satellite data on movements of ice from winter through spring.

The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center has said the Arctic sea ice shrank to 3.41 million square kilometers on Sept. 16, 2012, the smallest since satellite monitoring began in 1979. Yamaguchi and colleagues predict the area will be 160,000 square km smaller than that in early September 2013.

Research associate Noriaki Kimura said the thaw started from the Russian coasts this year. He added that ice north of Russia will be completely melted around July 21 and north of Canada around Aug. 6, opening sea routes in the respective areas.

The Arctic sea ice averaged 6.71 million square km between 1979 and 2000. This summer's minimum prediction is less than half that figure.


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