The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder released its report on the monthly Arctic sea ice extent on Tuesday, saying that November set a record low, the seventh month this year to set a record low.
Arctic sea ice extent averaged 9.08 million square kilometers (3.51 million square miles) for November. This was 1.95 million square kilometers (753,000 square miles) below the previous record low set in November 2006. This is a difference that would be about the size of the state of Texas.
Actually, for the planet as a whole, the NSIDC says sea ice cover was “exceptionally low.” ABC News quoted Rutgers University marine scientist Jennifer Francis. In response to the report, she said, “There’s crazy stuff going on up there. It’s bad.”
“It looks like a triple whammy — a warm ocean, a warm atmosphere and a wind pattern all working against the ice in the Arctic,” said NSIDC director Mark Serreze, reports Phys.Org.
As Digital Journal reported in November, scientists are alarmed at the unusually high temperatures over the Arctic, the warmer than normal ocean temperatures and the persistent flow of winds from the South.
The sea ice extent was most evident in the Barents Sea, an area of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway, Finland and Eastern Russia, where sea ice shrank by 19,300 square miles (50,000 square kilometers). This area is particularly important because recent changes in extreme weather in the lower Northern Latitudes have been linked to record low sea ice extent by some scientists.
The record low level of sea ice seen in the Arctic has not been observed since satellite monitoring began in the region in 1979. Air temperatures across the Arctic are running about 18 degrees warmer (10 degrees Celsius) than average, while seawater has been running around 7.0 degrees Fahrenheit (4.0 degrees Celsius) above normal.
As for the Antarctic, higher than average temperatures and a shift in the winds that circle the southern polar region have caused a sudden rapid decline in sea ice. Several large areas of open water are now evident in the eastern Weddell and along the Amundsen Sea and the Ross Sea coasts, according to the NSIDC.
NSIDC affiliate scientist Walt Meier said, “The Arctic has typically been where the most interest lies, but this month, the Antarctic has flipped the script and it is southern sea ice that is surprising us.”
