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Thin ice: Study on polar amplification paints a grim picture

A new joint study by NASA and the University of Washington in Seattle spanning several years paints a grim picture that a phenomenon known to climatologist as polar amplification is well underway at the top of the world:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice. The amount of ice replaced in the winter hasn’t been enough in recent years to compensate for the loss in the summer, which leads to more open water, which in turn absorbs heat, warming the ocean and further melting the ice, the researchers said.

The physics are uncomfortably familiar in the middle of July to anyone whose car has a dark interior. Dark material soaks up sunlight and heats up. Removing the ice is like taking away the shiny sunscreen that shields a car from the noonday sun. In the Arctic, warmer global temperatures melt more ice which exposes the darker, underlying land and sea. The darker surfaces heat up and raise the surrounding temperature, melting more ice. The process feeds back geometrically, ruthlessly, amplifying any average increase in global temperature is amplified by a factor of two or three and, eventually, a North Pole free of ice.

 

There are those who hope that an ice free Arctic will open up new reserves of oil and gas – not exactly what the planet needs – give rise to great herds of cattle grazing peacefully where frigid desert once ruled, or waves of golden grain and tropical fruit orchards thriving in the upper Midwest and Canada. But this rosy view ignores that our agricultural processing and transportation infrastructure was built slowly at considerable expense where food is produced now, not where it might be in fifty years.

 

The fact is we don’t know what an ice free Arctic means to the rest of the world. The best we can do is make educated guesses based on the changes we see already occurring. Climate change for the northern Great Plains probably means instability, and based on trends already in progress that could spell drought and floods, dust bowls and heat waves. All over Canada, Alaska, and Siberia ancient stores of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent that carbon dioxide, are being released as the previously frozen tundra melts into vast mushy insect breeding grounds, radically changing what species live there. Migration routes, roads and railroads, and energy facilities from producing wells to the pipelines that carry oil and gas are already threatened and could be swallowed by growing swamps, lakes, and sinkholes.

 

What's even less clear is how retreating ice will affect the marine food chains. Animals like seals, walruses, or polar bears that depend on permanent ice cover will continue to suffer, some may disappear. Initially, indigenous species of phytoplankton will probably bloom earlier across the wider, ice free areas. All well and good for shell fish, fisheries, and whales. But the changes in salinity, turnover, and oxygen content that accompany warmer water will almost certainly invite other, invasive species, including some that upset the base of the delicate Arctic food pyramid and others that could directly attack or poison it. 

 

 

Anything that threatens our domestic energy and food production regions ought to be given serious consideration. As unpredictable as all that is, a much larger and truly planet changing version could unfold at the South Pole over the next couple of hundred years. If Antarctica follows suit, the consequences will be dire, like taking the shiny sunscreen out of the planet's windshield on a hot summer day. It is the hope of climate researchers and science writers alike that those events do not transpire, that the Antarctic resists polar amplification and helps keep global warming in check. But early signs, like the thinning Arctic ice, give cause for worry.