Arctic radiation animation

Below a part-image from www.seaice.dk and originating from the NOAA Polar Orbiter satellite's measurements of radiated heat, which provides pictures of the sea ice, as well as water vapor.

December 1, 2011, part-image from www.seaice.dk and originating from NOAA Polar Orbiter

The animation further below uses many such images and starts with five daily images showing a red area in the bay off the coast of Tiksi starting November 1, 2011. The animation continues to February 16, 2012, i.e. the last date for which images were made available when this post was written.

Large red areas show up end 2011 (particularly from November 25 till December 6) off the coast of Siberia, matching up with the dates mentioned in the earlier post Abrupt release of methane in the Arctic in late 2011.

From the very end of 2011, red areas also show up in the North of Canada.

Since methane has a very high immediate greenhouse effect, the heat detected on the images could well originate from methane releases. Furthermore, one of the indirect effects of methane releases is production of water vapor, which also has a strong greenhouse effect. Therefore, the red areas could well be seen as indications of methane releases.

Matching images like this minute by minute with AIRS images of methane could give a valuable insight in the contribution of methane to warming in the Arctic.

Below is the animation. Click on Read more if you don't see it. Note that this is a 17.7 MB file. It may take some time for the animation to fully load. 

Temperature anomalies continue in the Arctic

Much of the Arctic is showing huge temperature anomalies at the moment. The image below shows the anomalies for February 24, 2012.  

Locations in the Arctic have been showing temperature anomalies of over 20 degrees Celsius since late 2011. 

As the above image illustrates, the anomalies are centered around the 60 degrees East longitude, and they are most prominent between latitudes 75 North and 80 North, i.e. the area between Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, as shown on the map below. 

Kara Sea

Not surprisingly, there's little sea ice in the area. The image below shows the sea ice as at January 15, 2012.

The animated image below, from U.S. Naval Research Lab showing the sea ice's thickness in February 2012, illustrates the retreat of the sea ice between Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land in February 2012. 

The animation also illustrates that much of the sea ice is moving along with the sea current, flowing out of the Arctic Ocean along the edges of Greenland into the Atlantic Ocean. Click on Read more if you don't see the animation. The animation is a 800 kb file that may take some time to fully load.