{"id":15543,"date":"2023-10-05T19:33:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T16:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=15543"},"modified":"2023-10-05T19:33:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T16:33:53","slug":"the-bipolar-climate-crisis-is-coming-out-of-the-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=15543","title":{"rendered":"The\u2026 bipolar climate crisis is coming out of the “ice”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Along with greenhouse gases, sea level rise and ocean temperature, sea ice extent is one of the key indicators used by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in its reports on the state of the planet’s climate. It is now shrinking at unprecedented rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antarctic sea ice has declined to unprecedented levels, based on records since the 1970s. Last February it broke all previous negative records. For the first time, the ice has completely disappeared from coastal areas of the southernmost continent of the planet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These have already been peaked by the already significant loss of ice in the Arctic. Scientists are now talking about a steady pattern of decay in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1979 to 2000, the annual mean low of sea ice extent around the North Pole was 7 million square kilometers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, at the end of September, this area was reduced to just 3.4 million square kilometers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is still a negative record. It may soon be shot down. For now, the measurement curve is at its lowest level in two years (Arctic Sea Ice Extent Graph<\/a>), at 4.3 million square kilometers of sea ice.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Arctic\u2026 on the boil<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Average temperatures this summer were the hottest on record. Now 2023 is headed – with an “impulse” also from El Ni\u00f1o – to become the warmest year in world history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new study meanwhile shows (“The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979<\/a>“) that the human-made greenhouse effect has warmed the Arctic almost four times more than the global average over the past 43 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Observations show that during the period 1979-2021 a large part of the Arctic Ocean warmed faster than 0.75 degrees Celsius per decade,” report its authors, researchers from Norway and Finland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This practically means that the average temperature in the region has increased by 3 degrees since 1980. But there are worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Eurasian sector of the Arctic Ocean, they point out, “the temperature trend over the period 1979-2021 locally exceeds 1.25 degrees Celsius per decade”\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, another study by the University of Cambridge (“Sea-ice-free Arctic during the Last Interglacial supports fast future loss<\/a>“) concludes that the North Pole could experience ice-free summers as early as the mid-2030s.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Meanwhile, as the melting of Arctic sea ice accelerates, its thinning means that solar radiation reaches deeper into the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which in turn could soon lead to more frequent food shortages for zooplankton, underlines a report by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (“Due to sea-ice retreat, zooplankton could remain in the deep longer<\/a>“).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a domino effect, he observes, the effects are expected to be particularly negative for marine species such as whales and seals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SOS for Antarctica<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While scientists have long been sounding the alarm about the North Pole, in the South the ice formation process has also been disrupted at dangerous points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2022 was a year of negative records. This year the situation is set to be even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of the so-called “Antarctic summer” – which lasts from October to February, when the sun never sets – only 1.79 million square kilometers of sea ice remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the smallest during the summer period in the 45 years of satellite records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as the South Pole headed into this winter, the replenishment of the melted ice was not happening at the expected rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By mid-July, ice formation was well below normal levels for the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to the winter season average during 1981-2010, about 2.6 million square kilometers were missing. Almost as much as Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the middle of September and while summer is approaching again in Antarctica, the South Pole is missing 1 million sq. km compared to last year and about 1.5 million sq. km compared to the period 1981-2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We seem to be seeing the decline in sea ice long predicted by climate models, outlining a nightmarish new ‘normal’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially when sea ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate, reflecting sunlight into space and fueling ocean currents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Along with greenhouse gases, sea level rise and ocean temperature, sea ice extent is one of the key indicators used by the World Meteorological…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2810,1168],"tags":[3362,954,2737,3024,4738],"class_list":["post-15543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate_environment","category-science-technology","tag-antarctica","tag-arctic","tag-climate","tag-environment","tag-sea-ice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15551,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15543\/revisions\/15551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}