Arctic ice redux

[andygates]

The autumn freeze is under way in the Arctic and analysis of the summer melt is getting under way.  You'll recall that the ice area didn't beat 2007's startling minimum, coming a mere second-worst-since-humans-evolved.

Yay.

It's not all roses though (if that qualifies as roses, and frankly, if that does qualify as roses then I want what you're taking).

This NSIDC map shows the ice age at the melt minimum.  Red is first-year ice, stuff that froze in the winter of 2007-8.  Orange is two-year ice, yellow is three years or older (white is where there isn't enough ice to tell - patchy, grobbly stuff the satellite can't get a bead on).

The North Pole is just about where the old ice that's shoved up against Greenland ends and the one-year ice in the middle of the 2008 picture begins.

New ice is thin, old ice is thick.  So while the area isn't less, the volume of ice in the Arctic is less: like the NSIDC boffins say, "no recovery at all" and it "strongly reinforces the downward trend".

Comments

[despaer.livejournal.com]

To be honest, that bears out the theory that it will all go in about 5 summers. The ice drifts from the Laptev sea over to north Greenland (i.e. top to bottom on your pic) so that suggests that all the ice that is old is drifting to a point where it will all melt in a summer or two. Bugger...

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Certainly does. The models that point to a melt by 2012 are supported by this evidence. I sense Santa / Noah confusion in the minds of kids with playsets.