If it seems like we ’ve been here before , then that ’s because regrettably we have . As climate records persist in to be blast in horrifying regularity , this week saw yet another add to the listing . The total extent of Arctic sea ice this winter reach its eyeshade at 14.52 million square kilometers ( 5.607 million square miles ) , which isthe lowest it has ever beenduring winter since orbiter platter lead off in 1979 , just beating the premature book low rig only last class .
Depressingly , this news is not actually that surprising . It ’s been predictedthat this will likely be the causa since early on in the year , as global mean temperature record book have cover to tumble . February clocked in asthe hottest on record – the third month in a row to do so – and by an unprecedented amount . And as the world warms , the Arctic faces the brunt of the heat as it warm twice as fast as the residual of the planet . “ I ’ve never seen such a warm , crazy winter in the Arctic,”saidthe director of the National Snow & Ice Data Center ( NSIDC ) , Mark Serreze . “ The heat was relentless . ”
This relentless heat has intend that ocean ice has not been forming as it should , with the extent below average across the entire Arctic , apart from the Labrador Sea , Baffin Bay , and Hudson Bay . The reason are threefold , partly due to air temperature over the Arctic Ocean between December and February being 2 to 6 ° deoxycytidine monophosphate ( 4 to 11 ° F)above averagein almost every part , but also due to warming sea temperatures , which can have even more striking impacts on sea ice growth .
The Arctic sea ice halt cycle from the last summertime minimal extent to March 24 , when it attain its wintertime maximal extent : the low maximal extent in the satellite phonograph recording . NASA Goddard ’s Scientific Visualization Studio / C. Starr
“ It is potential that we ’re going to keep seeing small wintertime utmost in the future because in addition to a warmer atmosphere , the ocean has also warm up up,”explainedWalt Meier , a ocean meth scientist from NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center , and phallus of the NSIDA analysis team . “ That warmer sea will not get the ice edge spread out as far in the south as it used to . Although the maximal reach of the sea ice can diverge a slew each year depending on wintertime weather conditions , we ’re run into a significant downward drift , and that ’s at last relate to the thaw atmosphere and oceans . ”
How this will interpret to summer sea ice extent is not 100 percent clear , as that depends on the onset of the melting , in plus to other atmospheric experimental condition . Typically , ice extent will be at its entire low in September , with 2012 so far give the phonograph record minimum ocean ice cover version . Yet some arealready predictingthat this tendency of continually shrinking ocean ice is now “ locked in ” and inevitably will get smaller and small-scale , potentially leading to completely ice free Arctic summers within 20 to 30 long time . How this will affect the wildlife and indigenous communities who calculate on the sea ice is yet to be seen .
