Both the sea ice thickness and sea ice area have fallen to new record lows for this time of the year (22.11.2015), even surpassing all of the worst previous years.
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| From Naval Research Laboratory image - view animation |
The normal sea ice area for this time of year is 9,625,000 km2, whereas the sea ice covers currently just 8,415,890 km2,, which makes that 1,209,120 km2 sea ice is missing from the normal (22.11) sea ice area.
The combination image below shows the jet stream (November 23, 2015, left panel) and surface wind (November 24, 2015, right panel).
Jet stream is wavy and strong, showing speeds as high as 219 mph or 352 km/h (at location marked by the green circle). Right panel shows cyclonic winds between Norway and Greenland speeding up movement of sea ice into the North Atlantic.Forecasts indicate that conditions could continue. The 5-day forecast on the right shows strong winds in the North Atlantic. Note also the cyclonic winds outside the Bering Strait.
Temperatures over the Arctic are forecast to remain much higher than they used to be, with anomalies at the far end of the scale over a large part of the Arctic Ocean showing up on the 5-day temperature anomaly forecast below.
[ further updates will follow ]
Americans remains blissfullly unaware of the extreme danger that lies ahead. "Climate" means "weather" to them - and since most of us are able to weather out the storms we're now seeing, "everything is still okay", "no reason to be alarmed".
ReplyDeleteWhile this is ignorant and short-sighted, it's also highly ubiquitous in American society. There is little concern, the extreme weather events the country is experiencing are not considered alarming, there is a wide perspective that it's just a little bump in the road.
Except it's not. It's going to get much, much worse, and far quicker then people seem to realize. Every single data point now being collected indicates that our "weather" will be quite extreme (whiplash) with new highs, new lows and extreme storms and events. I see extremely little evidence that Americans are preparing for any of this too. Which makes no sense considering how this is going to affect us all.
Keep up the good work - no idea how many read this site but it's going to increase. I just hope the warning start translating in changed human behavior (one can always hope, right?).
This is fascinating. Can I ask that updates on this situation are posted regularly?
ReplyDeleteWe are three months off the winter maximum. Events like these push us to new record lows in ice extent and volume and demonstrate very clearly the fragility of the remaining ice. Strong wind events at any time of the year now seems detrimental to the remaining ice.