Thu Dec 6, 2012, 02:13 AM
OldDem2012 (3,526 posts)
From NOAA: "Arctic continues to break records in 2012....".....
Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
The Arctic region continued to break records in 2012—among them the loss of summer sea ice, spring snow cover, and melting of the Greenland ice sheet. This was true even though air temperatures in the Arctic were unremarkable relative to the last decade, according to a new report released today.
A record-breaking 141 authors from 15 countries contributed to the peer-reviewed report. Major findings of this year’s report include:
Snow cover: A new record low snow extent for the Northern Hemisphere was set in June 2012, and a new record low was reached in May over Eurasia.
Sea ice: Minimum Arctic sea ice extent in September 2012 set a new all-time record low, as measured by satellite since 1979.
Greenland ice sheet: There was a rare, nearly ice sheet-wide melt event on the Greenland ice sheet in July, covering about 97 percent of the ice sheet on a single day.
Vegetation: The tundra is getting greener and there’s more above-ground growth. During the period of 2003-2010, the length of the growing season increased through much of the Arctic.
Wildlife & food chain: In northernmost Europe, the Arctic fox is close to extinction and vulnerable to the encroaching Red fox. Additionally, recent measurements of massive phytoplankton blooms below the summer sea ice suggest that earlier estimates of biological production at the bottom of the marine food chain may have been ten times lower than was occurring.
Ocean: Sea surface temperatures in summer continue to be warmer than the long-term average at the growing ice-free margins, while upper ocean temperature and salinity show significant interannual variability with no clear trends.
Weather: Most of the notable weather activity in fall and winter occurred in the sub-Arctic due to a strong positive North Atlantic Oscillation, expressed as the atmospheric pressure difference between weather stations in the Azores and Iceland. There were three extreme weather events including an unusual cold spell in late January to early February 2012 across Eurasia, and two record storms characterized by very low central pressures and strong winds near western Alaska in November 2011 and north of Alaska in August 2012.
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Response to OldDem2012 (Original post)
Thu Dec 6, 2012, 04:23 AM
AverageJoe90 (10,745 posts)
1. Good info.
The bad news is, it does appear that the worst-case scenario for Arctic ice does indeed, at least for now, appear to be more accurate than the mainstream predictions.....but the good news is, the ice appears to have started a recovery, similar to 2008-09(which started in the fall of '07, btw):
If the current overall trend continues, we may indeed have another decade, or possibly a decade and a half or so, before the mininum of zero, or virtually zero, does finally get reached(OTOH, though, it's also possible it could still disappear by 2016-17 or so).