The pace of Arctic warming continues to catch scientists off guard. Photo: Bloomberg
Written by Danielle Bochove
Antarctica’s annual sea ice extent this year tied for the second lowest on record. It was no shame that last year’s record low, continuing what scientists fear is a trend caused by climate change.
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Ice covered 17.16 million square kilometers (6.63 million square miles) of Antarctica at an estimated rate on September 19, according to preliminary figures released Thursday by the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Last year’s low, at 16.96 million square kilometers, broke the previous record set in 1986.
Calling the decline over the past two years “amazing,” Ted Scambos, senior research scientist at the university’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, said in a statement that it “points more than ever to the effects of a warming ocean.” ” in a hot spot.
In the Antarctic, sea ice usually covers most of the ocean at some point in September. After that, it begins to melt slowly in the summer of the southern hemisphere, and the most open water is usually seen in early March. A similar process occurs in the Arctic, but the maximum and minimum times are reversed.
Scientists are now expecting a long-term decline in Arctic sea ice. But for a long time the Antarctic appears to be stable, leading researchers to wonder how long that might last, said Cecilia Bitz, a professor of atmospheric and climate science at the University of Washington.
“Now the Antarctic seems to be booming,” he said.
A year or two of low ice numbers can be explained by natural variability, but there have been enough weak years in the last decade to suggest a pattern, Bitz said: “I think we can say that the Antarctic is now showing a decline.”
The National Snow and Ice Data Center last month released the latest summer snow cover estimates for the other side of the planet. Sea ice covers only 4.28 million square kilometers of the Arctic Ocean at a low level. That is the seventh lowest amount of snow on record. The 18 lowest Arctic sea ice extents occurred in the last 18 years.
The pace of Arctic warming continues to catch scientists off guard. “The models don’t work,” said Bitz.
Antarctica’s ice cap is so large that the impact on sea level rise would be significant if it melted. Arctic warming also has major effects on the planet, including the loss of light ice that helps protect Earth from solar radiation and the melting of permafrost that releases greenhouse gases.
Reducing carbon pollution to limit global warming can reduce the loss of sea ice, although more loss is inevitable even if the world emits carbon rapidly. Some scientists are researching other ways to preserve ice, such as pumping water into the ice to freeze it, covering the ice with reflective geotextiles and seeding clouds to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet’s surface.
First published: October 04 2024 | 8:10 AM IST