At a casual meal on the weekend, I met a couple in town from Iqualit. The capital of Canada's northern Inuit territory of Nunavut is located on Frobisher Bay in southern Baffin Island.
They told me that when they left home in mid-December, the ice on Frobisher Bay was not frozen. I almost coughed up my food; that can't be possibly be typical for December. According to the visitors, the Bay is normally frozen a month or two, or more, before Christmas, allowing people to head out on the ice for hunting, celebrating, etc.
The upper chart is the ice thickness as of December 27th, according to the Canadian Ice Service (for all you sea ice junkies who follow the NSIDC's daily updates on the Arctic, CIS has a great and I suspect underused site). The southern half of Baffin Island is on the upper right. Frobisher Bay is the more southern of the two long bays on the right, the one that is entirely blue (i.e. water). Iqualit is at the very northwestern tip of the Bay.
The bottom chart shows the ice thickness "anomaly" - the departure from normal thickness (click on it for full size) - for mid-December. Normal is based on a multi-decade average. You can see that Frobisher Bay and the surrounding waters are all in the red - they are owed some ice. Some of the bay has frozen since these images were prepared.
The low ice thickness across the Arctic is part of a long-term trend. The current low in the SE Arctic has also been driven by the prevailing weather conditions over the past couple months. As was reported in the CBC News yesterday, a lingering high pressure system has held temperatures well above normal and limited ice formation. That is the same weather pattern that directed the cold Arctic air masses to east coast of North America and to western Europe and caused the huge early winter snowfalls. So when you hear scientists say that record snowfalls could be related in part to climate warming and the melting Arctic, this is what they mean.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Open waters around Baffin Island this New Year
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Protection in the tropics, conquest in the Arctic?
Apparently we were quibbling about sea ice trends, the fading Bush Administration was preparing for a fight over the spoils left by our disappearing cryosphere. According to the CBC News, the new "Arctic policy" is "forthright about U.S. intentions to protect its security and remain a major player in the Arctic without regard to Canadian or other international sensitivities." 4. The United States exercises authority in accordance with lawful claims of United States sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction in the Arctic region, including sovereignty within the territorial sea, sovereign rights and jurisdiction within the United States exclusive economic zone and on the continental shelf, and appropriate control in the United States contiguous zone. Seems reasonable. Grant each country has rights to its territorial seas. 5. Freedom of the seas is a top national priority. The Northwest Passage is a strait used for international navigation, and the Northern Sea Route includes straits used for international navigation; the regime of transit passage applies to passage through those straits. Preserving the rights and duties relating to navigation and overflight in the Arctic region supports our ability to exercise these rights throughout the world, including through strategic straits. Umm. Isn't most of the Northwest Passage within Canadian territorial seas? [feel free to correct me here] The Senate should act favorably on U.S. accession to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea promptly, to protect and advance U.S. interests, including with respect to the Arctic. Fair, logical. It's about time it signed the Law of the Sea. Joining will serve the national security interests of the United States, including the maritime mobility of our Armed Forces worldwide. It will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain. Accession will promote U.S. interests in the environmental health of the oceans. And it will give the United States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted. Continue to cooperate with other countries on Arctic issues through the United Nations (U.N.) and its specialized agencies, as well as through treaties such as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change,
That breeze you felt was the passing good will from the creation of the three new marine national monuments.
You can read the full policy on the White House website. There are some nice bits on encouraging conservation of the marine environment, working with indigenous peoples, scientific cooperation and working with existing international policies on the Arctic. Then again, there are these choice selections:
In carrying out this policy as it relates to international governance, the Secretary of State, in coordination with heads of other relevant executive departments and agencies, shall:
I'm not sure other countries can take much more US cooperation on the UNFCCC. But this document isn't really about governance and climate change, is it?
Energy development in the Arctic region will play an important role in meeting growing global energy demand as the area is thought to contain a substantial portion of the world's undiscovered energy resources. The United States seeks to ensure that energy development throughout the Arctic occurs in an environmentally sound manner, taking into account the interests of indigenous and local communities, as well as open and transparent market principles. The United States seeks to balance access to, and development of, energy and other natural resources with the protection of the Arctic environment by ensuring that continental shelf resources are managed in a responsible manner and by continuing to work closely with other Arctic nations.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Watching the cryosphere
The Arctic sea ice appears to have reached the minimum extent for this season, short of last year's record. If you just can't wait another eight or nine months for more news about the shrinking cryosphere, never fear. There a several sites monitoring the movement of mountain glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet.
The Extreme Ice Survey has some fantastic still (and time lapse photos) from cameras set up on a few mountain glaciers and in Greenland. And I just got a note from someone at Sermitsiaq, a Greenlandic newspaper about a new web cam that offers the opportunity to "watch as Greenland melts". Be sure to get yourself a comfortable seat, the melting may take a while.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The complexity of ice melt
Over the past few months, the science media and those of us in the echo-chamber known as the blogosphere has been following the Arctic sea ice melt season with a fervour normally reserved for only for the hurricane season, and that arguably should also be applied to the summer fire season.
If you want a simple climate-ice connection, try a small temperate lake.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Franklin rises from the grave
"Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage,
to find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea."
Oh, if only John Franklin or Stan Rogers were still alive. The European Space Agency reported this weekend that ice-free passage from Europe to Asia is possible, causing all manner of excitement among climate change junkies, shipping companies, oil companies and sea kayakers.
I wouldn't blow your money on an Arctic sun cruise just yet. The Northwest Passage will probably freeze up or become blocked again in a matter of days or weeks. The real question is what happens next year, and in the years after that.
If you've got a hunch, lay down a bet with William Connolley.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Ice melt in Greenland
There's been plenty of discussion here and elsewhere about the current record lows for sea ice in the Arctic. A few days ago, the Guardian reported about evidence for rapid melting in Greenland as well this summer. The article reminded me of this picture I took in July of this meltwater pool on the slope of a east-flowing glacier in SE Greenland.
The IPCC's method for estimating of sea level rise do not account some of the processes that are now being observed and described in the article, particularly how meltwaters appear to be flowing to the bottom of the ice, effectively lubricating the path to the sea. There's a big push afoot to incorporate these more complex ice melt processes into global climate models. In a few years, the model predictions for sea level rise over the next century could be quite different.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Arctic sea ice continues to set records
Traveling from the tropics back to the poles:
The extent of sea ice in the Arctic continues set records. This map from the National Snow and Ice Data Center from Sept 3rd shows the sea ice at 4.42 million square kilometers, already far below the lowest recorded value of 5.32 million square kilometers from Sept 20-21, 2005. The pink line on the map is the median extent.
Just incredible. If you're looking for just one sign of dramatic climate change, one that follows from our basic understanding of the climate system and the exchange of heat between the planet's surface and the atmosphere, and one that may be out-pacing all of our predictions, skip all the complicated questions about hurricane frequency and intensity, and look at the precipitous drop in the extent of Arctic sea ice. May the flag planting continue...
Monday, August 13, 2007
Arctic sea ice about to set record / Photo of the week
In case you missed it, William Chapman of the University of Illinois reported last week (on his site Cryosphere Today) that Arctic sea ice has, or will very soon, reach an all-time low, breaking the previous record low in 2005. 
Skeptics are awaiting the results of the sea ice's blood test.
The news reminded me of this photo of the east coast Greenland I took a few weeks ago. This is well south of the sea ice limit, but as you can see, there are plenty of icebergs (leftovers from winter ice? Products of calving ice shelves / land ice on the coast?)
The National Snow and Ice Data Center disagrees Chapman's exact data - it uses a different averaging method - but concurs that the sea ice will reach a record minimum before the melt season is over. The Center even started a news site devoted entirely to covering the finer points of the ice melt season. It's a climate junkies dream: not only can you track the bleaching of corals and tropical storms online every day of the week, you can now watch the ice melt too. I'm waiting for the all global warming cable channel, with the 24-7 climate news ticker.
