Arctic ice hits another nadir

OTTAWA—Arctic ice cover has reached another nadir, melting to its lowest point in recent history.
Scientists say the summer thaw climaxed yesterday and now will begin to turn with the coming of colder weather.

But the speed and extent of the melt this year has prompted them to revisit their projections for ice-free summers and for global warming more generally.
“It didn’t just beat the 2007 minimum, it beat it by a whole lot,” noted Julienne Stroeve, a scientist from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre.
She was aboard a Greenpeace ship in the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland on a trip to observe first-hand the melting of the ice she has studied mainly through satellite data.
She and other scientists say they were taken by surprise by the pace of the melt this year.
An area of sea ice bigger than the province of Alberta disappeared over the summer—clobbering previous records and prompting concerns about the effects on climate change.
In mid-September, Arctic ice covered 3.41 million square km, down dramatically from the previous low in 2007, when it measured 4.17 million square km, Stroeve’s agency reported.
“The record is unbelievable,” said Andrew Weaver, a climate modeller in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
“This is a stunning loss of ice,” he stressed. “To say that it is anything less than stunning would be an underestimate.”
Federal Environment minister Peter Kent said he’s not exactly shocked but definitely is perturbed—mainly about how the ice will reform, throwing off navigation patterns.
“It is a concern and it is not going to be reversed any time soon,” he conceded in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“We realize that climate change is a significant contributing factor and we have to adapt.”
That’s why Ottawa is bolstering its ice monitoring and Arctic meteorological services, Kent said. And it’s why Canada is pushing for countries with large emission levels to join a global pact on climate change.
“If we do reduce [emissions], we do believe we can slow [the pace of the melt],” Kent remarked.
What alarmed Stroeve is that her on-the-scene observations suggest the satellite images have underestimated the speed of the melt.
Clouds and fog frequently obscured the pictures, leading researchers to believe that solid ice was present.
But, in fact, Stroeve has had a hard time finding large ice floes and instead is seeing many small floes that only look like solid ice from a distance.
“There’s quite a bit of open water between them,” Stroeve said in an interview by satellite phone.
“What’s surprised me is how much open water there is,” she said. “And how small the floes are. They’re not large.
“We’ve been looking for floes that were at least 100 metres in length or width. And there’s very few large floes.
“That surprised me. They’re really broken up,” she added.
Stroeve has been taking daily measurements of the ice, recording its thickness every hour or two and making hourly observations from the ship’s deck.
She hopes to augment her satellite data with these numbers to gauge how much the satellite findings underestimate the problem.
Darker ice-free waters and thinner patches of ice absorb more heat from the sun than the glistening, white sea ice.
That accelerates global warming in a process that is next-to-impossible to reverse.
Stroeve now estimates the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by around 2030, contrary to other formal estimates that have set that date at around 2050.
“Obviously there is huge climate impact,” she explained. “The sea ice now helps keep our planet cool by reflecting most of the sun’s energy.
“And so by removing the ice, then the ocean’s going to absorb all that heat during the summertime,” she warned.
In the Canadian Arctic, government researchers also say they have seen a historic low for the ice this summer.
Using satellite data, senior ice forecaster Trudy Wohlleben at the Canadian Ice Service has found that just 12 percent of the region is frozen this season, compared with a normal 30-35 percent.
With the summer ice now at its low point for the season, Wohlleben said the 2012 level is far below any level measured in Canada since record-keeping began in 1971.
“For the Canadian Ice Service, it means we’re busier than ever because more and more ships want to go to the Arctic,” she noted.
“Boats are popping up everywhere.”
In the past, the Arctic summer saw only the coast guard and supply ships travel north to help remote communities stock up for the winter.
Now, there are sailboats, motor yachts, and cruise ships of all shapes and sizes.
What Weaver fears is that the federal government, instead of taking steps to mitigate the climate damage and slow the melting of the ice, will encourage oil and gas exploration in the region and the use of the Arctic as a trade route.
Activists are asking the world to declare the area around the Pole a global sanctuary and prohibit drilling.