No laughing matter: Arctic sea ice continues to shrink

A new report put together by NASA scientists and fellow researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder shows that, this year, summer ice cover in the Arctic shrunk just enough to reach its fourth lowest extent on record.

Commenting on the news that the Arctic sea ice has reached its annual minimum extent for 2015 and is the fourth lowest extent on record, Greenpeace international Spokesperson Ben Ayliffe said: “2015 is the hottest year ever recorded and the Arctic is vanishing before our eyes”.

Summer minimum sea ice has shrunk since satellites started measuring in 1979. Since the late 1970s, its minimum summertime extent, which occurs at the end of the melt season, has been decreasing due to warming temperatures.

Matthew Alford, also from Scripps, says the Arctic Ocean in general contains waters that exhibit an upside-down temperature profile from other areas, with cold, fresh water at the surface, and warmer, saltier water down below. According to the release, September 11th marked the fourth lowest record of Arctic sea ice over a period of just nine years.

“The sea ice minimum measurement is a devastating reminder of how fast we’re hurtling towards an unstoppable climate crisis”, said Mary Nicol of Greenpeace USA in a statement released Tuesday. The ten smallest have all been recorded within the last 11 years. In fact, Meier said, sea ice is becoming less and less resilient. Sea levels are expected to rise by as much as 3 feet by 2100.

There still weren’t any ice-watcher satellites during the summer minimum of 1969, when the 100,000-ton supertanker Manhattan – at the time the largest merchant vessel on the US registry – transited the Northwest Passage. Scientists believe it is one of the most tangible results of an overall warming Earth.

While the Arctic sea ice is declining, Antarctic sea ice is growing. The ocean could only attack it from the sides.

But the Northern Sea Route north of Russia and most of the Beaufort and Chuckchi seas experienced high melt rates and are completely ice free.

“Historically, the Arctic had a thicker, more rigid sea ice that covered more of the Arctic basin, so it was difficult to tell whether El Niño had any effect on it”, said Richard Cullather, a climate modeler at Goddard.

“The ArcticMix voyage is right on top of what the NSIDC has called ‘a striking feature of the late 2015 melt season”, said Scripps’s Jennifer MacKinnon, chief scientist aboard R/V Sikuliaq. By March, the Arctic ice volume is usually at its peak.

The five years between 1979 and 1983 averaged 2.76 million square miles during the summer minimum.

“Instead of using data like the sea ice minimum as a clear warning sign to take bold action”, Nicol continued, “our leaders are allowing Shell to drill for oil in the melting Arctic ice”.