Arctic Ice Cover Hits Second-Lowest Minimum In Recorded History

According to scientists, the Arctic is warming at almost double the global rate as a result of climate change fuelled by mankind’s burning of fossil fuels, a process that emits heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Canada’s southern Northwest Passage routes also appear to be open, although some ice was reported in Russia’s Northern Sea route, scientists said.

The extent in 2016 ranked only behind 2012, when the lowest extent was measured.

“It was a stormy, cloudy, and fairly cool summer”, said NSIDC director Mark Serreze.

“It really suggests that in the next few years, with more warm conditions, we will see further losses”, said Ted Scambos the ice centre’s lead scientist. That’s mostly because, after a record maximum low set in March, the weather slowed down the melt which usually peaks in June and July. Grist’s Amelia Urry compared the texture of sea ice near the North Pole to curdled milk or an exploded pillow (I’d go with broken glass personally, but to each their own).

The less sea ice there is, the warmer the oceans will get, resulting in even less sea ice each subsequent winter, Lieser said.

In some parts of the Arctic, bears spend the ice-free months on land, where they’ll scavenge for food items like carcasses and bird eggs, but they’re “largely fasting” during those months, she said.

The ice near Alaska in the Chukchi Sea is still holding up over an important walrus feeding area called Hanna Shoal.

All ten of the lowest summer extents in the satellite record have now occurred over the past 10 years, the NSIDC data show.

“When you think of the temperature records, it’s common to hear the statement that even when temperatures are increasing, you do expect a record cold here or there every once in a while”, said Claire Parkinson, main author of the study and a senior climate scientist at Goddard.

Sea ice might not have hit a record low this year, but it’s well on its way. “It’s just an incredible contrast”, she said.

That puts 2016 in second place for the lowest minimum on record-statistically tied with 2007, which was within the error bars of this year’s data. This year is nearly certain to surpass it.

But most studies of polar-bear habitat have focused on ice conditions in discrete regions or at specific times of year.

The loss of the ice creates a risky climate feedback as the loss of the bright, reflective surface, which bounces solar radiation back in to space, exposes the absorbent ocean. Sea ice monitoring began in 1978. Although the vagaries of storms and wind affect the amount of sea ice that survives summer melting, it is clear that increased warming in the region is responsible for most of the decline.