Arctic sea ice is photographed in 2011 during NASA's ICESCAPE mission, a shipborne investigation to study how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems. Kathryn Hansen / NASA
A recent Science Magazine feature blamed an underwater heat blob for exacerbating sea ice loss as it proclaimed what many Arctic scientists already know: Arctic sea ice is racing toward its demise.
<p>Even without the blob, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/earth-sea-ice-melt-study-2647072206.html" target="_self">ice levels were already catastrophically low</a>.</p><p>"There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth's ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming," UK scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London researching the massive ice loss wrote in their <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-232/" target="_blank">review paper,</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>One study from the University of Copenhagen determined that Arctic sea ice is melting faster than <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate</a> models had predicted because they use a "slow and steady" temperature increase model for the Arctic, but warming is actually happening at a more rapid pace, reported <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Barron's</a>. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-wildfires-climate-crisis-2646355896.html" target="_self">The Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe</a>, a different study found, and this is speeding sea ice loss.<span></span></p><p>"We have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice to disappear faster than we had anticipated," University of Copenhagen professor and researcher Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen told <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" target="_blank">Barron's</a>.</p>
<p>The last time the Arctic Ocean saw such unusually high temperatures was during the previous ice age, Barron's reported. Christensen warned that scientists had yet to realize the significance of this steep temperature rise, <a href="https://www.futurity.org/arctic-sea-ice-temperature-climate-change-2424682-2/" target="_blank">Futurity</a> reported.<br></p><p>"We have looked at the climate models analyzed and assessed by the UN Climate Panel. Only those models based on the worst-case scenario, with the highest carbon dioxide emissions, come close to what our temperature measurements show over the past 40 years, from 1979 to today," Christensen told Futurity.</p><p>A third set of researchers also recently determined that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html" target="_self">Greenland's ice sheet has reached the "point of no return,</a>" and that it would continue to shrink even if global warming were to end today, <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" target="_blank">Barron's</a> reported.</p><p>None of this bodes well for the sea ice. September is when the ice usually reaches its annual minimum, and this year's extent is scheduled to be among the lowest on record, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/growing-underwater-heat-blob-speeds-demise-arctic-sea-ice" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Science Magazine</a> reported. The sum of this evidence has led some <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-sea-ice-melt-2035-2646947902.html" target="_self">scientists to posture a total loss of Arctic sea ice by 2035</a>.</p>
<p>"It's definitely a when, not an if," Alek Petty, a polar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/growing-underwater-heat-blob-speeds-demise-arctic-sea-ice" target="_blank">Science Magazine</a>.<span></span></p><p>Unfortunately, many of these dire predictions do not take into account what's happening below the water's surface, where a heat blob is melting sea ice from below as the warmer climate assails it from above.<br></p><p>The Arctic Ocean enjoys an "unusual temperature inversion" where deeper water is warmer than surface waters, according to Science Magazine. Chilly winter air and buoyant, cold freshwater coming off the Eurasian continent help to keep the ice's surface cold and the underside from melting under the sun, Science Magazine explained.</p><p>The warmer, saltier Atlantic Ocean water congregates in a deep heat blob that was presumed "safely separated" from the sea ice, but a recent study published in the <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/33/18/8107/353233/Weakening-of-Cold-Halocline-Layer-Exposes-Sea-Ice" target="_blank">Journal of Climate</a> found that the blob is growing, migrating vertically, and melting the ice from below.</p>
<p>The study found that as brighter, reflective sea ice melts, darker water flows in to take its place. That water then absorbs more heat and sinks down to the blob, where it causes the blob to grow and warm even further.</p><p>Measurements indicated that the blob, usually found 150 meters below the sea ice or deeper, has moved up to within 80 meters of the surface. Water turbulence can then cause some of that blob heat to reach the sea ice and melt it, Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told Science Magazine.</p><p>"This heat has become, regionally, the key forcing for sea ice decay," Polyakov said.</p><p>Scientists now think the blob has enough heat to melt the Arctic's ice three to four times over, and estimate that it could "devour the ice from below" if the blob ever reaches the surface sea ice, Science Magazine reported.</p>
<p>The process is called "<a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL088036" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Atlantification,</a>" and has already been observed in the Barents Sea north of Norway, where warm Atlantic waters have risen up to melt sea ice from below, even during cold winter months, according to Science Magazine and a study published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0772-6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a>. Scientists expect Atlantification to continue to decimate sea ice throughout the Arctic as the heat blob grows and rises.</p><p>The downstream effect of this massive melt would be felt in ways that are still unknown. Previous studies have linked Arctic ice loss to a number of different global phenomena, such as <a href="https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-ice-melt-changing-major-ocean-current-beaufort-gyre" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">changing ocean currents</a> and <a href="https://sfist.com/2020/01/27/new-study-finds-direct-link-between-melting-arctic-ice-and-extreme-weather-in-california/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">extreme weather in California</a>.</p>
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Earth Lost Over 30 Trillion Tons of Ice in Under 30 Years, Scientists 'Stunned' by Landmark Study
24 August
Climate
Sea ice breaking up in Greenland. steve_is_on_holiday / E+ / Getty Images
The Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes (approximately 31 trillion U.S. tons) of ice in just 23 years, and the climate crisis is largely to blame.
<p>The finding comes in a <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-232/" target="_blank">review paper</a> published in The Cryosphere this month that used satellite data and numerical modelling to calculate all the ice that melted worldwide between 1994 and 2017.</p><p>"In the past researchers have studied individual areas – such as the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctic</a> or <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenland" target="_self">Greenland</a> – where ice is melting. But this is the first time anyone has looked at all the ice that is disappearing from the entire planet," study coauthor and director of Leeds University's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling Andy Shepherd told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "What we have found has stunned us."</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a>, Antarctic ice shelves, mountain <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" target="_self">glaciers</a>, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and Southern Ocean sea ice all lost mass during the study period, the researchers wrote. About 68 percent of those losses were caused by warmer air temperatures, while the remaining 32 percent were caused by warmer <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean" target="_self">ocean</a> water.</p><p>"There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth's ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming," the researchers wrote, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>In fact, the total ice loss recorded matches the worst-case scenario predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And it's likely to get worse. The researchers prognosticate a meter (approximately three feet) of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a> by 2100.</p><p>"To put that in context, every centimetre of sea level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands," Shepherd told The Guardian.</p><p>But sea level rise isn't the only consequence of ice melt. For one thing, the melting ice exposes darker ocean waters or soil, which absorb the sun's heat rather than reflect it, increasing global heating. The fresh water melting from ice sheets also disrupts Arctic and Antarctic ocean ecosystems, while the loss of mountain glaciers threatens the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" target="_self">drinking water</a> of several communities.</p><p>"What more can be said? What further evidence are we waiting for?" UK Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas tweeted in response to the news. "Feel so overwhelmingly sad - and so angry too. We can't say we didn't know. Are we really saying we just didn't care?"</p>
<div id="820ce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc5cc2d33d34204b11a78693091a1afe"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1297470664031588352" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">What more can be said? What further evidence are we waiting for?
Feel so overwhelmingly sad - and so angry too
W… https://t.co/cvYV9ore53</div> — Caroline Lucas (@Caroline Lucas)<a href="https://twitter.com/CarolineLucas/statuses/1297470664031588352">1598176086.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>This has been a bad summer for ice news. Another study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html" target="_self">published this month</a> found that Greenland's ice sheet had reached the "point of no return" and would continue to melt even if the climate crisis were halted. A <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-melt-2019-2647049163.html" target="_self">third study</a> found that Greenland lost a record amount of ice in 2019.</p>
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Arctic sea ice in the Denmark Strait on the east coast of Greenland. NASA
The records of Greenland's ice melt date back to 1948 and nothing in that record compares to what happened in 2019. The amount of ice lost was more than double what it has been any year since 2013. The net ice loss in 2019 clocked in at more than 530 billion metric tons for 2019. To put that in context, that's as if seven Olympic-sized swimming pools were dumped into the ocean every second of the year, according to The Guardian.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The new study, which used NASA satellite data to measure the size of Greenland's ice, found that in July alone, Greenland lost 223 billion tons of ice. That means for that one month, it lost what it normally loses in an entire year, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/climate/greenland-ice-loss-climate-change.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>The study was published Thursday in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-0010-1,"><em>Communications Earth and Environment</em></a>. It follows a trend of troubling news coming out of Greenland. Another new study published in the same journal found that even if the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> stopped today, Greenland's ice sheet is so diminished it will never recover, as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html">EcoWatch</a> reported earlier this week. That study found the ice is retreating in rapid bursts and may portend an ominous revision of predictions of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise">sea level rise</a>.</p>
<p>This new study also spells trouble for coastal cities as it may force scientists to revise their predictions to match the accelerated pace of ice melt, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-arctic/greenlands-ice-sheet-saw-record-mass-loss-in-2019-study-finds-idUSKBN25G1RM" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported. The island's ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by 20 feet, or six meters, if it were to melt away completely.</p><p>"We are likely on the path of accelerated sea level rise," said Ingo Sasgen, a glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and co-author of the study, to Reuters. "More melting of the ice sheet is not compensated by periods when we have extreme snowfall.</p><p>"What this shows is that the ice sheet is not only out of balance but it's increasingly likely to produce more and more extreme loss years," he added, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/weather/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-climate-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>Sasgen noted that 2010 and 2012 were also years with massive amounts of melting and he expects more are in the not-too-distant future.</p>
<p>"The real message is that the ice sheet is strongly out of balance," Sasgen said, as The Guardian reported. "If we look at the record melt years, the top five occurred in the last 10 years, and that is a concern. But we know what to do about it: reduce CO2 emissions."</p><p>Greenland's ice sheet is the second largest in the world, behind Antarctica's. CNN notes that the amount of ice it loses everywhere will start to increase sea level beyond the one millimeter it adds annually, pointing out that planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions are the culprit. And all that warming is creating a dangerous feedback loop.</p><p>"This extreme melt kicks off feedbacks that may accelerate the mass loss. This is what is worrying, the extremes are increasing and we understand too little about how the ice sheet will respond to more extreme climate variability," Sasgen said, as CNN reported.</p>
<p>The amount of melting that's happening means trouble for the hundreds of millions of people that live along coastlines, but there is still time for them to retreat inland. The ice sheet will likely not melt entirely since the rate of melt tends to slow down as the ice retreats from warmer <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans">ocean</a> waters. Furthermore, the centuries it will take to melt completely gives us some time to reverse course on emissions, according to The Guardian.</p><p>"If we reduce CO2, we will reduce Arctic warming and we will therefore also reduce the sea level rise contribution from the Greenland ice sheet," Sasgen said, as The Guardian reported. "So even though it might eventually disappear in large part, it happens much slower, which would be better as it would allow more time for the 600 million people living near coasts to move away."</p>
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Researchers on the ICESCAPE mission, funded by NASA, examine melt ponds and their surrounding ice in 2011 to see how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the biological and chemical makeup of the ocean. NASA / Flickr
By Alex Kirby
The temperature of the Arctic matters to the entire world: it helps to keep the global climate fairly cool. Scientists now say that by 2035 there could be an end to Arctic sea ice.
<p>The northern polar ocean's sea ice is a crucial element in the Earth system: because it is highly reflective, it sends solar radiation back out into space. Once it's melted, there's no longer any protection for the darker water and rock beneath, and nothing to prevent them absorbing the incoming heat.</p><p>High temperatures in the Arctic during the last <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Interglacial%20Cycles" target="_blank">interglacial – the warm period around 127,000 years ago</a> – have puzzled scientists for decades.</p><p>Now the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/organisations-and-reports/met-office-hadley-centre/index" target="_blank">UK Met Office's Hadley Centre</a> climate model has enabled an international research team to compare Arctic sea ice conditions during the last interglacial with the present day. Their findings are important for improving predictions of future sea ice change.</p>
<p>What is striking about the latest research is the date it suggests for a possible total melt − 2035. Many studies <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-ocean-ice-free-mid-century/" target="_blank">have thought a mid-century crisis likely</a>, with another even <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-11-arctic-ocean-ice-free-year.html" target="_blank">carefully specifying 2044 as the year to watch</a>. So a breathing space of only 15 years may surprise some experts.</p><p>During spring and early summer shallow pools of water form on the surface of the Arctic sea ice. These "melt ponds" help to determine how much sunlight is absorbed by the ice and how much is reflected back into space. The new Hadley Centre model is the UK's most advanced physical representation of the Earth's climate and a critical tool for climate research, and it incorporates sea ice and melt ponds.</p><p>The researchers report their findings in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0865-2" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a>. Using the model to look at Arctic sea ice during the last interglacial, they concluded that the impact of intense springtime sunshine created many melt ponds, which played a crucial role in sea ice melt. A simulation of the future using the same model indicates that the Arctic may become sea ice-free by 2035.</p>
<p>The joint lead author of the team is <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/marino/" target="_blank">Dr Maria Vittoria Guarino, an earth system modeller at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge</a>. She says: "High temperatures in the Arctic have puzzled scientists for decades. Unravelling this mystery was technically and scientifically challenging. For the first time, we can begin to see how the Arctic became sea ice-free during the last interglacial.</p><p>"The advances made in climate modeling mean that we can create a more accurate simulation of the Earth's past climate which, in turn, gives us greater confidence in model predictions for the future."</p><p><a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/lsim/" target="_blank">Dr. Louise Sime, the group head of the palaeoclimate group and joint lead author at BAS</a>, says, "We know the Arctic is undergoing significant changes as our planet warms. By understanding what happened during Earth's last warm period we are in a better position to understand what will happen in the future.</p>
Melt Ponds Crucial
<p>"The prospect of loss of sea ice by 2035 should really be focusing all our minds on achieving a low-carbon world as soon as humanly feasible."</p><p><a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/search/search-staff-details.aspx?id=10813" target="_blank">Dr. David Schroeder from the University of Reading</a>, UK, who co-led the implementation of the melt pond scheme in the climate model, says, "This shows just how important sea ice processes like melt ponds are in the Arctic, and why it is crucial that they are incorporated into climate models."</p><p>The extent of the areas <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/formation.html" target="_blank">sea ice</a> covers varies between summer and winter. If more solar energy is absorbed at the surface, and temperatures rise further, a cycle of warming and melting occurs during summer months.</p><p>When the ice forms, the ocean water beneath becomes saltier and denser than the surrounding ocean. Saltier water sinks and moves along the ocean bottom towards the equator, while warm water from mid-depths to the surface travels from the equator towards the poles.</p><p>Scientists refer to this process as the ocean's global "conveyor-belt." Changes to the volume of sea ice can disrupt normal ocean circulation, with consequences for global climate. </p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Canada's Last Intact Ice Shelf the Size of Manhattan Collapses Due to Global Warming
10 August
Oceans
Eureka Sound on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic taken by NASA's Operation IceBridge in 2014. NASA / Michael Studinger / Flickr / CC by 2.0
A 4,000-year-old ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed into the sea, leaving Canada without any fully intact ice shelves, Reuters reported. The Milne Ice Shelf lost more than 40 percent of its area in just two days at the end of July, said researchers who monitored its collapse.
<p>Unlike glaciers, ice shelves are part of the ocean.</p><p>The Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory fell into the Arctic Sea and started to drift before breaking into two large chunks. The Copernicus Sentinel satellite captured the entire event, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/08/weather/canada-ice-shelf-collapse-milne-manhattan/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>Time-lapse photos on <a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/status/1290740808170307584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1290740808170307584%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2020%2F08%2F08%2Fweather%2Fcanada-ice-shelf-collapse-milne-manhattan%2Findex.html" target="_blank">Twitter</a> show the satellite animation between July 30 and August 4, as the ice shelf lost approximately 43 percent of its area. When the fallen pieces split in two, the larger one formed an iceberg roughly the size of Manhattan, according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/canada-last-fully-intact-ice-shelf-suddenly-collapsed-2020-8" target="_blank">Business Insider</a>. </p>
<div id="3f778" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="26a7b2ea20a9cef68bf0d6e1c029fe5d"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1290740808170307584" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Satellite animation, from July 30 to August 4, shows the collapse of the last fully intact #iceshelf in #Canada. Th… https://t.co/n35ctDfmRh</div> — ECCC Canadian Ice Service (@ECCC Canadian Ice Service)<a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/statuses/1290740808170307584">1596571564.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br>The massive break was first noticed by ice analyst Adrienne White of the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/ice-forecasts-observations/latest-conditions.html" target="_blank">Canadian Ice Service</a>, the <a href="https://apnews.com/8077f82701c655ddebc6aafbb3dd453e" target="_blank">AP</a> reported.</p><p>"This is a huge, huge block of ice," White told the AP. "If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there's nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig."</p><p>The break resulted from polar amplification, which causes the Arctic to warm faster than the rest of the world, Business Insider reported. For example, today's polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s.</p><p>"Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up," the Canadian Ice Service said on <a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/status/1290045576692658176" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, according to Reuters.</p>
<div id="48af7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a601f615c13348682918cf9a52f9593b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1290045576692658176" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">A huge section of the Milne #IceShelf has collapsed into the #Arctic Ocean producing a ~79 km2 ice island. Above no… https://t.co/RLLl5NjFy9</div> — ECCC Canadian Ice Service (@ECCC Canadian Ice Service)<a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/statuses/1290045576692658176">1596405808.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice," said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa and part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf. He told Reuters that this summer the Canadian Arctic experienced temperatures about 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the 30-year average.</p><p>"Without a doubt, it's climate change," Copland told the AP, adding that the ice shelf is melting from both hotter air above and warmer water below. "The Milne was very special. It's an amazingly pretty location."</p><p>According to Business Insider, a research camp was lost when the shelf broke apart, as was the Northern Hemisphere's last known epishelf — a freshwater lake contained by an ice shelf.</p><p>"It is lucky that we were not on the ice shelf when this happened, our camp area and instruments were all destroyed in this event," Derek Mueller, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, said in a <a href="https://wirl.carleton.ca/milne-ice-shelf-calving-event/" target="_blank">blog post</a>, CNN reported. His team's trip had been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>Now that a large chunk of the ice shelf has collapsed into the ocean, there is the potential for additional cracking and movement, the Water and Ice Research Laboratory (WIRL) said in a<a href="https://wirl.carleton.ca/research/ice/ice-shelves/calving-2020/" target="_blank"> press release</a>. The ice shelf is still unstable and further ice breaks are possible in the coming days and weeks, WIRL warned.</p><p>Ice shelves can help limit rising sea levels since they act like a dam, CNN reported. </p>
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The Qamutik cargo ship on July 28, 2020 in Canada's Nunavut province, where two ice caps have disappeared completely. Fiona Paton / Flickr
Three years ago, scientists predicted it would happen. Now, new NASA satellite imagery confirms it's true: two ice caps in Canada's Nunavut province have disappeared completely, providing more visual evidence of the rapid warming happening near the poles, as CTV News in Canada reported.
<p>According to <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/a-pair-of-canadian-ice-caps-has-disappeared-completely-1844592208" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) <a href="https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/st-patrick-bay-ice-caps-canada-have-completely-disappeared" target="_blank">said</a> last week that the St. Patrick Bay ice caps in the northeastern Ellesmere Island are nowhere to be seen on satellite imagery. The revelation that the ice caps have disappeared came sooner than scientists had expected.</p><p>"I can't say I was terribly surprised because we knew they were going, but it has happened really fast," Mark Serreze, director of NSIDC in Colorado, told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/weather/st-patrick-bay-ice-caps-climate-change-trnd-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. Serreze co-authored a <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/11/169/2017/" target="_blank">paper</a> in 2017 estimating the ice caps would be gone within five years.</p>
<p>"When I first visited those ice caps, they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape," said Serreze, in a <a href="https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/st-patrick-bay-ice-caps-canada-have-completely-disappeared" target="_blank">statement</a>. "To watch them die in less than 40 years just blows me away."<br></p><p>The very hot temperatures in the summer of 2015 reduced the longevity of the St. Patrick's Bay ice caps. "You could really see they got hit. But that heat has really just not stopped. It's just getting too warm," Serreze told CNN.</p>
<p>This year has been especially tough on the region. Recent months have been plagued by heatwaves and wildfires across the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic">Arctic</a>, as Gizmodo reported. The extreme heat likely contributed to the melting of the ice caps. Research has found that summers in the region haven't been this warm in 115,000 years.</p><p>According to CNN, the nearby glaciers that sit at a higher elevation have been shrinking significantly as well.</p><p>"I'll make another prediction that they're gone in a decade," Serreze said to CNN.</p><p>Similar to scientists who <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/icelandic-glacier-monument-2639301498.html" target="_self">mourned a lost glacier in Iceland</a> and a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/swiss-alps-pizol-glacier-funeral-2640547054.html" target="_self">funeral in Switzerland</a> held for a glacier, Serreze has felt the impact of losing these two ice caps.</p><p>"We've long known that as climate change takes hold, the effects would be especially pronounced in the Arctic," Serreze explained, as CTV News reported. "But the death of those two little caps that I once knew so well has made climate change very personal. All that's left are some photographs and a lot of memories."</p><p>Serreze first visited the ice caps in 1982 and has been studying them ever since, according to Gizmodo.</p>
<p>The melted ice caps were one half of a group of small ice caps on the Hazen Plateau, which formed during the Little Ice Age several centuries ago, according to the NSIDC.<br></p><p>Serreze told CNN that the small ice caps in the Arctic are clear indicators of the effects of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>"There's something called 'Arctic amplification,' which refers to the observation – not the theory – that the Arctic is warming up at a much faster rate than the rest of the globe, anywhere from two to four times faster," Serreze said.</p><p>Hotter heat waves and cold waves that are not as cold as they were in the past are contributing factors.</p><p>"We are starting to see all these things come together." Serreze told CNN, adding that the disappearance of the St. Patrick's Bay ice caps is "an exclamation point of what's happening in the Arctic."</p>
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The Wildlife from Space project uses satellite technology to identify, count and monitor species such as emperor penguins in Antarctica. British Antarctic Survey / YouTube
New satellite images have revealed 11 new throngs of emperor penguin colonies, lifting the number of known emperor penguin colonies by 20 percent and their total population by 5 to 10 percent, according to The Guardian.
<p>"The [new colonies] are an exciting discovery," said Peter Fretwell, at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who led the research, according to The Guardian. "Whilst this is good news, the colonies are small and so only take the overall population count up to just over half a million penguins."</p><p>While that may sound like great news for penguins, the truth is these penguins are just as threatened as the rest of their flightless feathered friends, according to <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/satellite-images-reveal-new-penguin-colonies-in-melting-1844609508" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</p><p>The 11 new colonies bring the total number up to 61 colonies spread across the continent. Now, the newly discovered birds will act as "canaries in the coalmine" when it comes to studying the impact of global warming, experts have said, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/world/penguins-antarctica-satellite-scn-scli-intl/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p>
<p>The study, which used satellite mapping technology, will "provide an important benchmark for monitoring the impact of environmental change on the population of this iconic bird," researchers said, according to CNN.</p><p>The study was published in <em><a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20563485/0/0" target="_blank">Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation</a></em> on Wednesday. The findings help shed light on just how threatened the emperor penguins really are. While the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> is rapidly altering the surface of Earth, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica">Antarctica</a> is running ahead of most of the world. It is warming three times faster than the most of the planet. With all that warmth comes the loss of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice">sea ice</a>, which is devastating to emperor penguins since they breed on the ice and need it to be stable, as Gizmodo reported.</p><p>"Emperor penguins are vulnerable to climate change, particularly the breakup of the sea ice on which they breed," said study author Peter Fretwell, a researcher with the British Antarctic Survey, in an email to Gizmodo. "Finding more penguins and studying their movements and distribution will be important if we are to understand their struggle to survive in the warming Antarctic environment."</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53549299" target="_blank">BBC</a> noted, the emperors' whole life cycle is centered on the availability of sea ice, and if this is diminished in the decades ahead, as climate models project, then the animals' numbers will suffer. Some models predict that penguin colonies will drop by 90 percent, according to The Guardian.</p><p>The discoveries were made by spotting the distinctive red-brown guano patches the birds leave on the ice, according to The Guardian. The findings were made possible by higher-resolution images from a new satellite, as previous scans were unable to pick up smaller colonies.</p><p>The European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite was launched in June 2015 and has a resolution of 10 meters. This enabled a search for the smaller penguin colonies. Emperor penguins were expected to be present at fairly regular intervals around the coast of Antarctica, so the search was targeted in areas where none were known. "In every gap where we thought there might be a colony, we found one," said Fretwell, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>The European Space Agency makes these images available online, so the team was able to analyze images from 2016, 2018 and 2019. By searching the images for "small areas of brown pixels," or clumps of penguin guano, and targeting their searches by looking at areas near known colonies and breeding habitat, the researchers were able to find these new communities, according to Gizmodo.</p><p>The next step is to direct satellites with very high, 30cm-resolution cameras over the colonies to enable the penguins to be counted. "It is dark at the moment in Antarctica, so we can't count them yet," said Fretwell, as The Guardian reported. "The sun will come up either later this month or next month in most of these locations, and then we will start."</p>
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A polar bear with two playful cubs. Jennie Gosché
By Jennie Gosché
In late 2019, before the world was completely upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was presented a last-minute chance to photograph polar bears outside one of the northernmost villages in the United States — Kaktovik, Alaska. It was an opportunity I couldn't refuse, and as the COVID-19 pandemic now stretches into summer 2020, I'm grateful I accepted.
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDg0NDEyOX0.ducqI5scB-Y8YGfBjJy8MH782PWfHnMc3M2N5yrh9dE/img.jpg?width=980" id="86ac9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="99cd2f84506e478d8022f6c9a3064b44" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Polar bears adorn the sign leading into Kaktovik. Jennie Gosché
<p>Kaktovik is an Inupiat native village of around 250 people on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, located on barrier islands at the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. My first trip there took place in September 2016, and I traveled with the purpose to photograph the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/news/southern-beaufort-sea-polar-bear-population-declined-2000s#:~:text=The%20polar%20bear%20was%20listed,ice%20loss%20on%20their%20populations." target="_blank">threatened Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population</a>. The coastal region of the Arctic Refuge in fall is a special place to photograph these magnificent animals, as they congregate on dirt and sand spits of land waiting for the winter ice of the Beaufort Sea to make its way to the Alaska shore.</p><p>During the late summer and early fall, Inupiat boat owners from Kaktovik guide "tourist" photographers out to view polar bears from a safe distance in the placid lagoon adjacent to the raging waves of the Beaufort Sea. I joined one such group of photographers led by <a href="https://hughrosephotography.com/" target="_blank">Hugh Rose</a>, a professional photographer and geologist who lives in Fairbanks, and we took a short charter flight from Deadhorse to Kaktovik, landing in a morning snowstorm. But by afternoon, the sun was out and we had three and a half days of sunshine that combined with the ice and snow to create great conditions in which to photograph polar bears.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDE1ODE5M30.wlTpUch74PsdZbvOOVmlJLlEfOS3UHI9S1yb1orCbf4/img.jpg?width=980" id="f9de2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="57baaf66d893539215aba68cdae72e8c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The welcome sign at the Waldo Arms Hotel. Jeff Stamer / www.firefallphotography.com
<p>We were out in the lagoon twice a day, breaking only for lunch at our hotel, the modest but welcoming <a href="http://www.waldoarmshotel.net/" target="_blank">Waldo Arms Hotel</a> owned by Walt "Waldo" Audi and Merlyn Trainer — one of only two options for places to stay in Kaktovik when visiting. The boat guides are skilled, and they have to be, because knowledge and awareness of depths in the lagoon is critical to prevent a boat from getting stuck in shallow water.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDM3NTQ1NH0.erl1bkwyRS9tYzJTVnPD5FL4eUk4e7EMLnv7bKmcQmI/img.jpg?width=980" id="e1274" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="28ddc335167786f68044d07a092f1d82" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Polar bear viewing is done by boat for the safety of both people and polar bears. Jennie Gosché
<p>This trip we were in a boat with a heated cabin, a perk since we were there later in the season. Our boat driver, however, told us that at that very same time the previous year, the lagoon was completely frozen over. He shared this as we floated on the lagoon in open water, though ice was visible in places and we occasionally heard pieces rubbing against the hull of the metal boat.</p><p>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________</p><p>With rapidly rising temperatures, <a href="http://forestry.alaska.gov/Assets/pdfs/firestats/2019%20Alaska%20Fire%20Statistics.pdf" target="_blank">increases in wildfires</a>, thawing permafrost, receding glaciers, <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/11/21/new-report-sheds-more-light-on-climate-change-impacts-to-alaska-native-villages/" target="_blank">eroding coastlines</a> and disappearing sea ice, <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/whats-become-of-arctic.php" target="_blank">Alaska and the Arctic are on the front lines of climate change</a>. It has hit Alaska's rural communities and <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/11/21/new-report-sheds-more-light-on-climate-change-impacts-to-alaska-native-villages/" target="_blank">Alaska Native villages especially hard</a>, including villages like <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/25/changes-in-climate-make-alaskas-traditional-ice-cellars-unreliable/" target="_blank">Kaktovik</a>. Warming waters and the disappearing Arctic ice cap are also impacting ocean life, from plankton to <a href="https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Polar-bears-face-swimming-to-land-or-ecological-trap-as-sea-ice-diminishes-567243261.html" target="_blank">polar bears</a> to whales. And the decline in sea ice is making it <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/environment/indigenous_impacts.html" target="_blank">increasingly unsafe for humans and wildlife to travel across it</a> to hunt marine mammals like seals, walrus and bowhead whales.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODkyMzUyMH0.yboTwh7hnlLyKF3hiJn3JAF_ClTFFXjxSx0bFMDvLLM/img.jpg?width=980" id="7fcbc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dd629612d9e0b2b3d95ca96a1fafe6d3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Coastal erosion is causing permafrost to thaw and break off, here along the Arctic coastal plain in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area of the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska. Brandt Meixell, U.S.Geological Survey
<p>The Inupiat are primarily subsistence hunters and whalers, harvesting whales each summer (in addition to caribou and other wildlife), the meat from which is shared by the entire village. It is a staple of their diet and has been for thousands of years, but as temperatures warm, the lack of ice combined with changes in whale migration patterns and timing could make hunting progressively more difficult.</p><p>The Inupiat <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/pbcommunity.html" target="_blank">share their whale meat with the polar bears</a>, something they have done for many years. This gesture provides much needed food for polar bears, especially as they spend longer periods of time on land due to the receding sea ice. When I visited Kaktovik in 2016, my most memorable photo is of a cub on top of whale bones, shaking what looks like animal skin in its mouth.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU3MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MDg0OTE0N30.0_0GgJUfWyM96OOfooius3AoGASWNwoUjBk40SVeES4/img.jpg?width=980" id="f176f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="babdb9d27ca6834212bc276596e92df3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Bears have learned to scavenge whale carcasses left over from successful whaling hunts. Jennie Gosché
<p>As I returned to the village in late 2019, however, they had moved the bone pile away from the lagoon to an area off-limits to tourists. I was told the bone pile now only stays on land for a short time, and then the bones are pushed into the ocean. Eventually, this change could affect the overall health of the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears, as many of them increasingly den on land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and utilize the shared whale meat for sustenance during the summer and early fall before they enter their maternal birthing dens in November.<br>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________</p><p>Which brings me back to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as wild a place as any other on Earth but one also under threat of oil and gas development. While in Kaktovik I learned that there is not a consensus in the village on the question of allowing oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Climate change and impacts to wildlife are serious concerns, so much so that more than 60 village residents <a href="https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/12/13/those-who-would-open-anwr-do-not-speak-for-kaktovik/" target="_blank">signed a petition in 2017 opposing drilling on the Arctic Refuge coastal plain</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU3My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzY1Mzk4OH0.mbTdFW-RUFS12gFR5cnUKtB7aERaAYyfBpAo7FpL6EU/img.jpg?width=980" id="a986f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a69634ab2a4cb7218e73571fb67e8825" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil production facilities dominate the region around Prudhoe Bay, to the West of the Arctic Refuge. Florian Schulz / www.florianschulz.org
<p>Helping to prevent development in the <a href="https://www.alaskawild.org/places-we-protect/arctic-refuge/" target="_blank">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a> — a place that supports the greatest variety of plant and animal life in the entire circumpolar north — is very important to me, not least of all because the <a href="https://www.alaskawild.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/USGS-wildlife-report-statement-1-26-2018-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">U.S. government has admitted</a> it simply doesn't have enough information about the impacts of oil and gas development on the coastal plain to protect its wildlife and other values. Oil drilling <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2019/11/20/477495/trumps-energy-policies-put-alaska-climate-crosshairs/" target="_blank">will compound the devastating climate impacts</a> already being felt by villages in the region, increasing carbon emissions, worsening climate pollution and further harming front line communities.</p><p>Especially now, in the midst of an uncertain present and looking forward to an uncertain future, we need to press pause on Arctic Refuge development. Instead of recklessly rushing ahead, more research over extended periods of time is needed so that we can fully understand the potential impact oil drilling will have on local villages, our climate and wildlife like the majestic polar bear.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU3NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjY0MDg3NX0.dZU0z5o9B6w9N7iMkL0RIC1EL86kfp1CX8QoksRnTkM/img.jpg?width=980" id="5c491" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="00847007e12c1478891865721f7dc0c6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A mother nurses her cubs. Jennie Gosché
<p><em>Jennie Gosché has traveled to the Arctic seven times to photograph polar bears. Having visited the five countries where polar bears are found (Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Russia, the United States and Canada), Kaktovik, Alaska, has become her favorite place to photograph them. Jennie's photography has been exhibited in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and Maryland. She is a member of Alaska Wilderness League.</em></p>
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A polar bear stands on sea ice on the North Pole. Arterra / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
If world governments don't act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most polar bear populations will not survive the century, a new study has found.
<p>Polar bears, who rely on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a> to hunt for seals, have long been a symbol of the impacts of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>. As the ice melts, they lose the ability to sustain themselves.</p><p>"Polar bears are already sitting at the top of the world; if the ice goes, they have no place to go," lead study author and University of Toronto Scarborough biologist Péter Molnár told <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-53474445" target="_blank">BBC News</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">When will polar bear populations collapse? The answer is up to us. <a href="https://t.co/Ln0XxboXL1">https://t.co/Ln0XxboXL1</a><a href="https://twitter.com/nresearchnews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nresearchnews</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/polarbearresearch?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#polarbearresearch</a></p>— Polar Bears International (@PolarBears) <a href="https://twitter.com/PolarBears/status/1285297991360720896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 20, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>But the study, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0818-9" target="_blank"><em>Nature Climate Change</em></a> Monday, is the first to predict when and where Arctic warming will threaten the bears' survival, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/20/most-polar-bears-to-disappear-by-2100-study-predicts-aoe" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>"It's been clear for some time that polar bears are going to suffer under climate change," Molnár told The Guardian. "But what was not fully clear was when we would expect major declines in the survival and reproduction of polar bears that could ultimately lead to their extirpation."</p><p>To answer this question, scientists looked at two emissions scenarios: business as usual and a more moderate option in which emissions peak in 2040 before starting to fall, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/climate/polar-bear-extinction.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. Under the business-as-usual model, all populations of polar bears would be wiped out by 2100, except for the bears living in Canada's northernmost Queen Elizabeth Islands, The Guardian reported. But even under the moderate scenario, most populations were likely to suffer reproductive failure by 2080, the study found.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">For the first time, scientists have answered the critical question of 'when' the persistence of polar bear populations across the Arctic will be threatened due to sea ice loss from global warming.<a href="https://t.co/NW2vf3QbPx">https://t.co/NW2vf3QbPx</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/nresearchnews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nresearchnews</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/climateactionnow?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#climateactionnow</a> <a href="https://t.co/6c8V2nYhzy">pic.twitter.com/6c8V2nYhzy</a></p>— Polar Bears International (@PolarBears) <a href="https://twitter.com/PolarBears/status/1285333085031141377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 20, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>"The study shows clearly that polar bears are going to do better with less warming," University of Alberta polar bear expert Andrew Derocher, who was not involved with the study, told The New York Times. "But no matter which scenario you look at, there are serious concerns about <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> of the species."</p><p>Polar bears can fast for months at a time when sea ice melts in the spring and summer. The researchers made their predictions based on how long male bears could reasonably fast and survive and how long females could reasonably fast and raise their young compared with how long different parts of the Arctic are projected to be ice free through 2100.</p><p>They assessed 13 of 19 polar bear populations, or around 80 percent of the roughly 25,000 bears remaining. Bears in Canada's Archipelago ecoregion were not assessed because it is hard to estimate future sea ice in the area's islands and channels, according to The Guardian.</p>
<p>If nothing is done to reduce emissions, bears in Canada's southern Hudson Bay and Davis Strait could fail to reproduce by 2040 while most bears in Alaska and Russia could be at risk by 2080. The polar bear population in western Hudson Bay has already shrunk around 30 percent since 1987.</p><p>"Showing how imminent the threat is for different polar bear populations is another reminder that we must act now to head off the worst of future problems faced by us all," study coauthor and chief scientist of <a href="https://polarbearsinternational.org/" target="_blank">Polar Bears International</a> Dr. Steven Amstrup told BBC News. "The trajectory we're on now is not a good one, but if society gets its act together, we have time to save polar bears. And if we do, we will benefit the rest of life on Earth, including ourselves."</p>
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A forest fire in Yakutsk in eastern Siberia on June 2, 2020. Yevgeny Sofroneyev / TASS via Getty Images
Once thought too frozen to burn, Siberia is now on fire and spewing carbon after enduring its warmest June ever, according to CNN.
<p>The most immediate impacts of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a> are in the nether-regions world of the world where temperatures are extreme and inhospitable. One of the most alarming examples is playing out in Siberia, which just saw temperatures reach triple digits as it endured its warmest month ever. That June heatwave in Siberia has led to some staggering numbers, according to scientists, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/weather/siberia-arctic-temperature-wildfires-intl/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_self">wildfires</a> in Siberia started much earlier in the spring than ever before, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/rapid-arctic-meltdown-in-siberia-alarms-scientists/2020/07/03/4c1bd6a6-bbaa-11ea-bdaf-a129f921026f_story.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>. Permafrost is thawing, infrastructure is crumbling, and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a> is dramatically vanishing.</p><p>"We always expected the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic">Arctic</a> to change faster than the rest of the globe," said Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to The Washington Post. "But I don't think anyone expected the changes to happen as fast as we are seeing them happen."</p>
<p>The wildfires released an estimated 59 megatonnes of carbon dioxide across Siberia in June, according to scientists at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). This spate of fires on landscapes that are typically too cold, wet, and icy to burn is raising alarms for ecologists and climate scientists, according to <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/heat-wave-thawed-siberia-now-on-fire/" target="_blank">National Geographic</a>. They fear the rash of blazes is another sign that the Arctic is undergoing rapid changes that could set off a series of consequences on a global scale.</p><p>The fires can be a double whammy for the Siberian ecosystem. If they become a regular occurrence, it could cause new species to colonize the area, which would set the stage for more fires. Also, the increased intensity and duration of the fires may accelerate the climate crisis by thawing the ground and releasing trapped carbon that has accumulated in frozen organic matter, as National Geographic reported.</p><p>"By how big they are and how hot they are, I would say there's no way they're not burning down," said Amber Soja, an associate research fellow with the National Institute of Aerospace and an expert on Siberian wildfires, to National Geographic.</p>
<p>Already, the area's carbon dioxide emissions for June were its highest in the 18 years of the CAMS dataset, surpassing the record of 53 megatonnes set just one year ago in June 2019.</p><p>"Higher temperatures and drier surface conditions are providing ideal conditions for these fires to burn and to persist for so long over such a large area," said CAMS senior scientist Mark Parrington, as CNN reported.</p><p>"We have seen very similar patterns in the fire activity and soil moisture anomalies across the region in our fire monitoring activities over the last few years."</p><p>Siberia also had a warmer than average winter. CAMS said that the warm winter meant that "zombie" blazes were able to smolder through the winter and may have reignited this spring, according to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-07-warmest-june-globally-siberia-sizzles.html" target="_blank">Phys.org</a>.</p>
<p>Globally, June 2020 was more than half a degree Celsius warmer than the 1981-2010 average for the same month, and on a par with June 2019 as the warmest ever registered. Siberia, which is larger than the U.S. and Mexico combined, was more than 5 degrees Celsius above normal for June, according to Copernicus Climate Change Services satellite data, as Phys.org reported.</p><p>Some parts of Siberia had an average temperature that was 10 degrees Celsius, or 18 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than average. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet through a process known as Arctic amplification, as CNN reported. Arctic ice melt has accelerated, which leads to seasonal snow cover that isn't as white and absorbs more sunlight, which leads to more warming, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.</p><p>"To me what's really shocking is how warm it's been relative to average for so many weeks and months," said <a href="https://twitter.com/ZLabe" target="_blank">Zack Labe</a>, a climate scientist at Colorado State University, as National Geographic reported.</p>
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The new model predicts the growth of small ponds on arctic ice sheets. Scientific Visualization Studio / NASA
By Anurag Papolu
To better predict climate change, scientists need accurate models which predict the behavior of many natural processes. One of these is the melting of Arctic sea ice, which requires expensive and difficult data collection in the Arctic.
<p>
Physicist Ivan Sudakov at the University of Dayton and his colleagues have developed a new method to understand the growth of small ponds on sea ice. They developed a model which borrows ideas from the 100-year-old Ising model that simulates the behavior of ferromagnetic materials.
</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/GstRfQnFPRA" target="_blank">This video</a> shows how these small ponds form on the ice, and how the model can be used to understand the process more efficiently.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6fb1a8eae8087a1ce6dc424fa7413561"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GstRfQnFPRA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p><em>Anurag worked as a graphic designer, photographer, documentary video editor, and motion graphics artist before joining The Conversation. He earned his Master's in Journalism from the CUNY J-School and Bachelor's in Photography & Design from RIT.</em></p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/video-how-simple-math-can-help-predict-the-melting-of-sea-ice-140682" target="_blank">The Conversation</a></em><em>.</em>
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Icebergs and sea ice in the waters off the Australian Antarctic Division on Jan.17, 2008. Fairfax Media via Getty Images
For the first time, microscopic plastic pollution has been found in Antarctic sea ice samples collected more than a decade ago, suggesting that microplastic concentrations in Southern Sea ice may be higher than previously believed.
<p>A total of 96 microplastic particles from 14 different types of polymer were discovered in an ice core sample collected from Casey Station located in East <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica">Antarctica</a> in 2009. As ice freezes in the region, scientists believe that small pieces of plastic may become trapped in ice, which acts as a reservoir for pollution until it is released again by ice melt.</p>
<p>"The remoteness of the Southern Ocean has not been enough to protect it from plastic pollution, which is now pervasive across the world's <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">oceans</a>," <a href="https://www.imas.utas.edu.au/news/news-items/microplastic-pollution-recorded-for-first-time-in-antarctic-sea-ice" target="_blank">said</a> lead study author Anna Kelly who published her findings in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111130" target="_blank"><em>Marine Pollution Bulletin</em></a>.</em></p><p>Plastic particles measuring less than 5 millimeters have become common in remote marine habitats, from nearly every corner of the world to the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/plastics-deep-sea-fish-2536726086.html" target="_self">bellies of the world's most remote organisms</a>. Since researchers began tracing microplastics six years ago, they have found plastic pollution in Antarctic <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308738818_Microplastics_in_the_Southern_Ocean" target="_blank">surface waters</a> and sediments as well as in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> sea ice. Though these regions are remote, concentrations of microplastics have been found to rival those found in more urban settings.</p>
<p>"Forming from seawater, around 80 percent of Antarctic sea ice melts and reforms each year, providing seasonal opportunities for microplastics on the sea surface to become trapped in the ice," said Kelly, who worked with a team of scientists from the <a href="file:///C:/Users/admin/Desktop/Madison%20Dap,%20LLC/Ecowatch/imas.utas.edu.au" target="_blank">Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies</a> and the <a href="http://www.antarctica.gov.au/" target="_blank">Australian Antarctic Division</a>. Researchers wore a Tyvek suit both when collecting the ice core and when processing it, and a cotton lab coat was worn 11 years later to prevent potential cross-contamination.</p><p>An average of nearly 12 particles of microplastic were found in every examined liter of coastal land-fast sea ice, which is sea ice "fastened" to the coastline, according to the <a href="http://psc.apl.washington.edu/nonwp_projects/landfast_ice/about.php" target="_blank">Polar Science Center</a>. This number is slightly lower than what previous studies in polar regions have detected, but the overall size of each was larger, which indicate that the pollution came from local sources as it had "less time to break down into smaller fibers than if transported long distances on ocean currents."</p><p>"Local sources could include clothing and equipment used by tourists and researchers, while the fact that we also identified fibers of varnish and plastics commonly used in the fishing industry suggests a maritime source," Kelly said.</p>
<p>It could be that tourists or scientific researchers visiting the continent contribute microplastic pollution from their clothing fibers and other equipment, especially considering that the ice core sample was collected near a research facility that sees a steady stream of visitors. Microplastics trapped in ice rather than sinking to the deep ocean allows the pollutants to "persist for longer near the surface," making them more likely to be consumed by small marine organisms like krill who mistake it for food. Additionally, the findings suggest that sea ice could serve as a reservoir for microplastic debris in the Southern Ocean, posing potential biogeochemistry consequences.</p><p>"It is worth noting that plastic contamination of West Antarctic sea ice may be even greater than in our ice core from the East, as the Antarctic Peninsula hosts the bulk of the continent's tourism, research stations and marine traffic," said Kelly.</p><p>The researchers conclude that the findings present a "crucial need for stringent methods" when it comes to both to recovering and measuring microplastic particles from polar regions.</p>
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An iceberg melts off of Greenland. Danita Delimont / Getty Images
The polar ice caps are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s, the most comprehensive look at the data to date has found.
<p>That data, compiled and analyzed by the <a href="http://imbie.org/" target="_blank">Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (IMBIE)</a>, puts the melting of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenland" target="_self">Greenland</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctica</a>'s ice sheets on track with the worst-case-scenario prediction from the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/" target="_blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> (IPCC). If this trend continues, it could put 400 million people at risk from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a> by 2100.</p><p>"That's not a good news story," professor Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51846468" target="_blank">told BBC News</a>.</p><p>Shepherd helped lead an international team of 89 polar scientists who analyzed ice loss at both poles using 26 surveys and 11 satellite missions between 1992 and 2018, according to a <a href="https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4561/six-fold_increase_in_polar_ice_losses_since_the_1990s" target="_blank">University of Leeds press release</a>.</p><p>They found that Greenland and Antarctica together lost 6.4 trillion tonnes (approximately 7.1 trillion U.S. tons) of ice between 1992 and 2017, raising global sea levels by 17.8 millimeters (approximately .7 inches). Not only that, but the rate of loss accelerated. The ice sheets lost 81 billion tonnes (approximately 89 billion U.S. tons) a year in the 1990s and 475 billion tonnes (approximately 524 billion U.S. tons) a year in the 2010s. This means they are now contributing much more to sea level rise.</p>
<p>"Today, the ice sheets contribute about a third of all sea-level rise, whereas in the 1990s, their contribution was actually pretty small at about 5%. This has important implications for the future, for coastal flooding and erosion," Shepherd told BBC News.</p><p>The Antarctica figures were published in Nature in 2018, while the Greenland figures were published in Nature this week.</p><p>The two polar regions have responded slightly differently, according to the press release. Ice melt in Antarctica has contributed 40 percent of the combined total sea level rise and is driven by warm ocean water melting its glaciers. Ice melt in Greenland, which accounts for 60 percent of the sea level rise, is driven partly by ocean water but partly by warmer air temperatures melting the surface of its ice sheet.</p>
<p>In both cases, the extent of the ice loss is clear evidence of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, research leader Erik Ivins of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/11/polar-ice-caps-melting-six-times-faster-than-in-1990s?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR3w692OeS1yczfedxzhxo_JzFQvO7m-yJZwgc5F9UpoxwG8xoCNVY1USRY" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>"The satellite measurements provide prima facie, rather irrefutable, evidence," he said.</p><p>The findings have serious consequences for the future. The IPCC most recently predicted sea levels would rise 53 centimeters (approximately 21 inches) by 2100, putting 360 million people at risk from coastal flooding every year. But, the new data puts sea levels on track to rise an additional 17 centimeters (approximately 6.7 inches). This would increase the number of people at risk from yearly coastal flooding by 2100 to 400 million.</p><p>"These are not unlikely events with small impacts; they are already underway and will be devastating for coastal communities," Shepherd said in the press release.</p><p>However, this future is not inevitable. While Shepherd told The Guardian that the ice caps would melt for another 30 years even if greenhouse gas emissions ceased today, there is still time to limit the amount of melting.</p><p>"We can offset some of that [sea level rise] if we stop heating the planet," he said.</p>
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