2019 Arctic Sea Ice Minimal Tied for Second Lowest on File
From NASA International Local weather Change
2019 Arctic Sea Ice Minimal Tied for Second Lowest on File
Arctic sea ice seemingly reached its 2019 minimal extent on Sept. 18. At 1.60 million sq. miles (four.15 million sq. kilometers), this 12 months’s summertime extent is successfully tied for the second within the satellite tv for pc document, in accordance with NASA and the Nationwide Snow and Ice Information Middle. Credit score: NASA/Trent Schindler
By Maria-José Viñas,
NASA’s Earth Science Information Staff
The extent of Arctic sea ice on the finish of this summer time was successfully tied with 2007 and 2016 for second lowest since trendy document retaining started within the late 1970s. An evaluation of satellite tv for pc knowledge by NASA and the Nationwide Snow and Ice Information Middle (NSIDC) on the College of Colorado Boulder exhibits that the 2019 minimal extent, which was seemingly reached on Sept. 18, measured 1.60 million sq. miles (four.15 million sq. kilometers).
Arctic sea ice seemingly reached its 2019 minimal extent on Sept. 18. At 1.60 million sq. miles (four.15 million sq. kilometers), this 12 months’s summertime extent is successfully tied for the second within the satellite tv for pc document, in accordance with NASA and the Nationwide Snow and Ice Information Middle. Credit score: NASA/Trent Schindler. This video might be downloaded at NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
The Arctic sea ice cap is an expanse of frozen seawater floating on prime of the Arctic Ocean and neighboring seas. Yearly, it expands and thickens through the fall and winter and grows smaller and thinner through the spring and summer time. However up to now many years, growing temperatures have prompted marked decreases within the Arctic sea ice extents in all seasons, with notably speedy reductions within the minimal end-of-summer ice extent.
Modifications in Arctic sea ice cowl have wide-ranging impacts. The ocean ice impacts native ecosystems, regional and international climate patterns, and the circulation of the oceans.
“This 12 months’s minimal sea ice extent exhibits that there isn’t any signal that the ocean ice cowl is rebounding,” mentioned Claire Parkinson, a local weather change senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The long-term development for Arctic sea ice extent has been definitively downward. However lately, the extent is low sufficient that climate situations can both make that exact 12 months’s extent into a brand new document low or hold it inside the group of the bottom.”
A gap within the sea ice cowl north of Greenland is partially crammed in by a lot smaller sea ice rubble and floes, as seen throughout an Operation IceBridge flight on Sept. 9, 2019. Credit score: NASA/Linette Boisvert
The soften season began with a really low sea ice extent, adopted by a really speedy ice loss in July that slowed down significantly after mid-August. Microwave devices onboard United States Division of Protection’s meteorological satellites monitored the modifications from house.
“This was an fascinating soften season,” mentioned Walt Meier, a sea ice researcher at NSIDC. “Originally of August we had been at document low ice ranges for that point of the 12 months, so a brand new minimal document low might have been within the providing.
”However not like 2012, the 12 months with the bottom ice extent on document, which skilled a strong August cyclone that smashed the ice cowl and accelerated its decline, the 2019 soften season didn’t see any excessive climate occasions. Though it was a heat summer time within the Arctic, with common temperatures 7 to 9 levels Fahrenheit (four to five levels Celsius) above what’s regular for the central Arctic, occasions equivalent to this 12 months’s extreme Arctic wildfire season or European warmth wave ended up not having a lot affect on the ocean ice soften.
“By the point the Siberian fires kicked into excessive gear in late July, the Solar was already getting low within the Arctic, so the impact of the soot from the fires darkening the ocean ice floor wasn’t that enormous,” Meier mentioned. “As for the European warmth wave, it undoubtedly affected land ice loss in Greenland and likewise prompted a spike in soften alongside Greenland’s east coast, however that’s an space the place sea ice is being transported down the coast and melting pretty rapidly anyway.”
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