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Of: Daniel Bergholm
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The climate threat continues to increase against Arctic ice. Researchers have found a new threat, coming from below.
The water in the Arctic Sea warms as it deepens, forming a colossus of hot salt water that melts the ice below.
– This thermal colossus has become the key factor in the decomposition of ice, writes Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
An ever-growing chunk of salty water is melting the ice below in the Arctic. Researchers have begun to investigate the rate at which the lump increases. This colossus must have risen from 150 meters to 80 meters below the surface for several decades. The warm salt water of the Atlantic ends in the colossus that grows and warms up. It constantly moves upward, causing the ice to melt on both sides.
– It’s a question of when the ice melts, not of, says Alek Petty, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Photo: Advanced Science
The image shows the level of heat in the Arctic Ocean from 1987 to 2017.
Previously, this saltwater colossus was safely separated from the surface, but now it turns out that it no longer applies. The colossus is moving upward at an alarming rate, while also possessing heat that has the potential to melt Arctic ice three or four times.
Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT
The peaks of the Three Crowns Mountains with the names Svea, Dana and Nora on Svalbard in the Arctic. Stock Photography.
A time bomb
Michael Tjernström, a professor at Stockholm University, talks about the process called “Atlantification”, where hot water coming from the Caribbean is the contributing cause.
– When the water reaches the Arctic, it is still very warm but also very salty, which is a big difference from the fresh water that already exists in the Arctic. There is a film of freshwater underneath the sea ice that prevents the Arctic ice from melting away from the warm Atlantic water. This is a time bomb and has been for so long.
Photo: MSTYSLAV CHERNOV / TT
Stock Photography.
International researchers are concerned that we may have ice-free summers in the Arctic as early as 2035. Michael Tjernström is not so pessimistic.
– I guess mid-century. But there will not be a summer when you are suddenly free of ice, it will happen gradually.
One problem that exists is that the researchers using satellite images had a good view of the extent of the ice but did not have the same control of the thickness, something that has now thinned faster than the researchers thought.
– Thickness cannot be easily measured and has made research difficult over time. This colossus is probably one of the main reasons why the volume has decreased as much as it has, concludes Tjernström.
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