Arctic sea ice shrinks to third lowest area on record

Karin Zeitvogel Yahoo News 16 Sep 10;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Arctic sea ice melted over the summer to cover the third smallest area on record, US researchers said Wednesday, warning global warming could leave the region ice free in the month of September 2030.

Last week, at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in the Arctic, sea ice covered 4.76 million square kilometers (1.84 million square miles), the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center said in an annual report.

"This is only the third time in the satellite record that ice extent has fallen below five million square kilometers (1.93 million square miles), and all those occurrences have been within the past four years," the report said.

A separate report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that in August, too, Arctic sea ice coverage was down sharply, covering an average of six million square kilometers (2.3 million square miles), or 22 percent below the average extent from 1979 to 2000.

The August coverage was the second lowest for Arctic sea ice since records began in 1979. Only 2007 saw a smaller area of the northern sea covered in ice in August, NOAA said.

The record low for Arctic sea ice cover at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in September, was also in 2007, when ice covered just 4.13 million square kilometers (1.595 million square miles).

Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC, said climate-change skeptics might seize the fact that Arctic sea ice did not hit a record-low extent this year, but said they would be barking up the wrong tree if they claimed the shrinkage had been stopped.

"Only the third lowest? It didn't set a new record? Well, right. It didn't set a new record but we're still headed down. We're not looking at any kind of recovery here," he told AFP.

In fact, Serreze said, Arctic sea ice cover is shrinking year-round, with more ice melting in the spring and summer months and less ice forming in the fall and winter.

"The Arctic, like the globe as a whole, is warming up and warming up quickly, and we're starting to see the sea ice respond to that. Really, in all months, the sea ice cover is shrinking -- there's an overall downward trend," Serreze told AFP.

"The extent of Arctic ice is dropping at something like 11 percent per decade -- very quickly, in other words.

"Our thinking is that by 2030 or so, if you went out to the Arctic on the first of September, you probably won't see any ice at all. It will look like a blue ocean, we're losing it that quickly," he said.

Losing sea ice cover in the Arctic would affect everything from the obvious, such as people who live in the far north and polar bears, to global weather patterns, said Serreze.

"The Arctic acts as a sort of refrigerator of the northern hemisphere. As we lose the ice cover, we start to change the nature of that refrigerator, and what happens up there affects what happens down here in the middle latitudes," he said.

"We might have less cold outbreaks, which you might say is a good thing, but it's not such a good thing in regions that depend on snowfall for their water supply."

NOAA noted in its report that the first eight months of 2010 were in equal first place with the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperatures on record worldwide, and the summer months were the second warmest on record globally, after 1998.

2010 tied for warmest year; walruses flee ice melt
* Arctic sea ice drops to third-lowest level
* Vanishing Arctic ice forces walruses onto land
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters AlertNet 15 Sep 10;

WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - So far, 2010 is tied for the warmest year on record, and Arctic sea ice reached its third-lowest level, prompting thousands of walruses to haul themselves out of ice-starved waters, U.S. scientists said on Wednesday.

The first eight months of the year match the record set for the same period in 1998 for the highest combined land and ocean surface temperatures worldwide, at 58.5 degrees F (14.7 C), 1.21 degrees F (0.67 degrees C) above the 20th century average, the U.S. National Climatic Data Center said in a statement.

Temperatures for the northern hemisphere summer -- June through August -- were the second-warmest globally, after 1998, the center said.

Most parts of the globe were hotter than average, with the most prominent warmth in eastern Europe, eastern Canada and parts of eastern Asia. Australia, central Russia and southern South America were cooler than average.

Britain had its coolest August since 1993, according to the U.K. Met Office, while China was 2 degrees F (1.1 degree C) above the 1971-2000 average, the warmest August since 1961, the Beijing Climate Center reported.

In the Arctic, sea ice cover appeared to hit its lowest point for the year on September 10, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

This year's Arctic ice cover is the third-lowest since satellites started measuring in 1979, the center said in a statement. This is less ice than at 2009's low point, but above the amount seen in 2008 and 2007.

That's still less than the long-term average and well outside the range of natural variability, the center said.

WALRUSES ON SHORE

At its lowest level, Arctic sea ice covered 1.84 million square miles (4.76 million square kilometres), about 240,000 square miles (630,000 square kilometres) above the record low of 2007.

This is only the third time satellites have shown Arctic ice extent dropping below 1.93 million square miles (5 million square kilometres).

The loss of Arctic sea ice has caused thousands of Pacific walruses to come up onto land, the conservation group World Wildlife Fund said, citing U.S. Geological Survey observations.

An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 walruses gathered onshore in Alaska in recent days, said Geoff York, an Arctic biologist with World Wildlife Fund.

"When these animals get to shore, they're normally spread out across a pretty vast area of sea ice so they're not piled up in the 10s or 20 thousands of animals that we see happening now," York said by telephone.

Under normal conditions, walruses eat bottom-dwelling creatures in shallow water on the continental shelf, using sea ice as fishing platforms. Recently, sea ice has retreated past the shelf into areas of deep water, where walruses can't fish.

Risks include the long swim to land, sometimes as much as 400 miles (643.7 km); trampling in walrus stampedes -- they spook easily, like deer or cattle, York said -- and the threat of predation by polar bears.

However, having many walruses on shore may make it easier to get an accurate population estimate, said Chad Jay of the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center.

The current estimate, based on a 2006 aerial survey, is 130,000, but Jay said this is probably low because the survey skipped some areas. (Additional reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Editing by Jerry Norton)