Another Trip Down Memory Lane To August 22nds Past At The North Pole - U Of Illinois

[hatrack]

August 22nd, 1987



August 22nd, 1990



August 22nd, 1995



August 22nd, 2000



August 22nd, 2005



http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

August 22nd, 2007

(Note - this will update automatically daily).

[XemaSab]

1. There's still another two weeks of melting to go

:popcorn:

[phantom power]

2. Everything red will disappear before the melting is finished. So says me.

And maybe a bunch of that purple stuff too.

[XemaSab]

7. This is a real education.

I never knew Arctic ice was all colored like that! :o

























:P

(and on edit, even if the ice refreezes over the winter, first year ice is generally weaker than multiple year ice. Same time next year? :popcorn: )

[tom_paine]

3. The might be a very oversimplified and incorrect assessment, but

I swear it looks like the axis of the icecap is actually shifting away from the pole and towards the Greenland Ice Sheet, which maybe as it's melting throws up fog which protects the ice from solar radiation...

...I don't know, I'm no climatologist.

If someone with some level of knowledge about arctic climatology should see this, please evaluate my hypothesis?

Is it nonsense? If so, why?

[hatrack]

4. That's exactly what I've seen - no scientist here, but simply an amazed onlooker

NSIDC has a very cool multi-year graphic which shows pretty much the same thing, with particular attention to the overall path and trend of old pack ice.

The color scale is on the right-hand side of the graphic. This covers data from 1982-2007, and each "pulse" of blue outward marks the onset of winter.



In case this screws up or anybody has trouble with their browser, you can also link directly to the page at NSIDC - it's down near the bottom.

http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html

[KingofNewOrleans]

6. It has to do with the Arctic Sea currents

The Eurasian side has a dominate current that flows from Siberia across the pole and out of the Arctic along East Greenland. The North American side is dominated by the Beaufort gyre which pushes the sea ice in a loop from the Canadian Archipelago along the North Alaskan Coast and back up towards the Pole and back around to Western Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago again. It makes the ice in the Western Arctic much thicker because it has survived several melt seasons. Computer models predict that the last area to be free of ice in the Arctic will be the area NW of Greenland and along the Canadian Archipelago. The animation that hatrack linked demonstrates this circulation nicely.

[XemaSab]

8. Read the excellent explanation in post #6.

good times.

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. Wow. K&R

I see why the elite are salivating at the prospect of one last spasm of resource depletion once the ice is gone.

[XemaSab]

9. I really dig this thread

:kick:

[XemaSab]

10. I just want this glued to the top of the forum

:popcorn:

[XemaSab]

11. Word

:popcorn: