Analysts See ‘Simply Incredible’ Shrinking of Floating Ice in the Arctic

Source: NY Times

The area of floating ice in the Arctic has shrunk more this summer than in any other summer since satellite tracking began in 1979, and it has reached that record point a month before the annual ice pullback typically peaks, experts said yesterday.

The Big Melt A series describing the effects of warming on the environment and the people of the Arctic.
Postcards From the Arctic Andrew C. Revkin's three Arctic multimedia reports. The cause is probably a mix of natural fluctuations, like unusually sunny conditions in June and July, and long-term warming from heat-trapping greenhouse gases and sooty particles accumulating in the air, according to several scientists.

William L. Chapman, who monitors the region at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and posted a Web report on the ice retreat yesterday, said that only an abrupt change in conditions could prevent far more melting before the 24-hour sun of the boreal summer set in September. “The melting rate during June and July this year was simply incredible,” Mr. Chapman said. “And then you’ve got this exposed black ocean soaking up sunlight and you wonder what, if anything, could cause it to reverse course.”

Mark Serreze, a sea-ice expert at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., said his center’s estimates differed somewhat from those of the Illinois team, and by the ice center’s reckoning the retreat had not surpassed the satellite-era record set in 2005. But it was close even by the center’s calculations, he said, adding that it is almost certain that by September, there will be more open water in the Arctic than has been seen for a long time. Ice experts at NASA and the University of Washington echoed his assessment.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/science/earth/10arctic.html

"So who gives a flying fig? You little people can worry about this fact-based science crap, but since it isn't mentioned in the Bible, and since it won't affect my vacation at the Imperial Pig Farm Upon Crawford, then I take it as just more liberal whining. Smirk, smirk, smirk."

- Commander AWOL

We must bring democracy to the Arctic basin!

and the 'experts' will use such stories as a crutch to explain why they downgraded the heavy,active hurrican season forcast.

Is there any information on whether a more open Arctic Ocean is causing more precipitation over Canada north of the Arctic Circle?

At present, the eastern part is particularly arid -- maybe 5 cm per year -- so a glacier cannot form.

Possibly an open Arctic Ocean is a prerequisite for increased Canadian precipitation and the reemergence of a Laurentide Ice Sheet.

The first half of the summer was very rainy, almost tropical. Then it was like someone switched a broiler on with hot temps and a high pressure system sitting over us. We used to have this heat the whole summer. I've also heard that tropical species of plants are surviving a little further north down here.

It was almost constant rain from May through July.

Now it's a typical August.. hot and not much rain.
I'm lovin it.