Arctic Sea Ice Yet to Freeze: Climate Change
As climate change and global warming rise, it is affecting our environment drastically. Scientists report a record; Arctic sea ice is yet to freeze!
For the first time in history, the main nursery of the Arctic sea ice in Siberia is yet to freeze, even though it is late October, and usually, around this time, the sea is completely frozen.
The delay in the Laptev Sea ice freezing is probably because of a sudden rise in warmth in Northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, according to the scientists who are concerned about its effects on the polar region.
Ocean temperatures in the region have risen more than 5C above the average, following the unusually high heatwave and the quick decline in the previous season’s Arctic sea ice. As experts say that the heat that got trapped in the sea will take time to disperse into the atmosphere, regardless of the fact the regions barely get one to two hours of sun now.
The previous graphs of the Laptev sea displayed a healthy seasonal pulse; however, they have now seemed to have flat-lined. Due to which there is a record amount of open seawater instead of Arctic sea ice.
“The lack of freeze-up so far this fall is unprecedented in the Siberian Arctic region,” said Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. “2020 is another year that is consistent with a rapidly changing Arctic sea. Without a systematic reduction in greenhouse gases, the likelihood of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will continue to increase by the mid-21st century,” he further added.
Moreover, they say that this year’s Siberian heatwave was at least 600 times more likely because of the industrial and agricultural emissions. This warmer air temperature is not the only factor that is contributing to the slow formation of Arctic sea ice; a more major contributor is climate change. It is pushing the warmer Atlantic currents into the Arctic region and causing a mix between warm deep waters and the cold surfaces that are making it difficult for Arctic sea ice to form.
“This continues a streak of very low extents. The last 14 years, 2007 to 2020, are the lowest 14 years in the satellite record starting in 1979,” said Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. He said much of the old Arctic sea ice in the region is now disappearing, leaving thinner seasonal ice. Overall, the average thickness is half what it was in the 1980s.
The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this will occur between 2030 and 2050. “It’s a matter of when not if,” he added.
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