This story is original Appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic Sea ice in Siberia has begun to stabilize in late October.
The delayed annual stagnation in the Laptev Sea has been caused by reckless prolonged warmth in northern Russia and the infiltration of Atlantic waters, say meteorologists warning of a possible knock-effect in the polar region.
Ocean temperatures in the area recently reached above 5C on average, following record-breaking temperatures and an unusually early drop in sea ice last winter.
Trapped heat takes a long time to absorb into the atmosphere, even at this time of year, when the sun spreads over the horizon for just over an hour or two every day.
Graphs of sea-ice extent in the Leptev Sea, showing a generally healthy seasonal pulse, Appears deftly. As a result, the Arctic has a record amount of open sea.
“The lack of stability so far in the Siberian Arctic region is unprecedented,” said Zachary Lab, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. He says this is in line with the expected impact of change in the human-dependent environment.
“2020 is the second year that is consistent with the rapidly changing Arctic. Without a systematic reduction in greenhouse gases, the prospect of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will increase by the middle of the 21st century, “he wrote in an email. The Guardian.
Earlier this year, Siberian heat waves were at least 600 times more likely to be caused by industrial and agricultural emissions, according to a previous study.
Warm air temperature is not the only factor slowing down the formation of ice. Climate change is forcing more picturesque Atlantic currents in the Arctic and breaking the normal stratification between warm cold water and cold surfaces. This also makes ice formation difficult.
“It simply came to our notice then. U.S. “The last 14 years, from 2007 to 2020, 1979, are the shortest 14 years on record,” said Walt Meyer, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. He said much older ice in the Arctic is now disappearing, leaving thin seasonal ice. The overall average thickness is half of what it was in the 1980s.
The downward trend will continue until the Arctic’s first ice-free summer arrives, Meyer said. Data and model models suggest that this will happen between 2030 and 2050. “It’s a matter of when,” he added. ”
Scientists are concerned that delayed freezes could expand feedback that accelerates the decline of ice caps. It is already known that a small sheet of ice means that there is less of a white area to reflect the sun’s heat back into space. But this is not the only reason the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average.
The Laptev Sea is known as the birthplace of ice, which forms on the coast there in early winter, then carries nutrients to the Arctic to the west before spring breaks in the Frame Strait between Greenland and Svalbard. If ice forms late in the leptav, it will thin out and thus be more likely to melt before reaching the frame straight. This could mean fewer nutrients for Arctic plankton, which would reduce the ability to draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
A more open sea means more instability in the upper layers of the Arctic Ocean, which draws more warm water from ths depths.
Stephen Hendrix, a sea ice physics expert at the Alfred Wagner Institute, said the trend of sea ice is frightening but not surprising. “It’s more frustrating than shocking. This has been predicted for a long time, but has not received a significant response from decision makers. “
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