Things in the middle of the Arctic are getting really strange

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In the deep middle of the remote Arctic Ocean, things are amiss.

With the passage of summer, the ice — diminished by the warm season — is expected to regrow as frigid temperatures envelope the Arctic. 

But, this year, it’s not. 

Specifically, sea ice in the Central Arctic basin — a massive region of ocean some 4.5 million square kilometers in size — hasn’t started its usual rapid expansion, and unusually warm temperatures in both the air and the ocean are largely to blame. 

“For the most part, Arctic sea ice normally begins rapidly refreezing this time of year,” Zack Labe, a climate scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of California Irvine, said over email. Read more…

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An appreciation of the persistently grim tweets from the Norway Ice Service

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Monday through Friday of each week, the Norwegian Ice Service, a government agency within the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, tweets out rather dismal news about the state of the thawing Arctic.

But these tweets aren’t intended to be grim. They’re simply an objective account of the modern Arctic reality. Each morning, the agency puts the current sea ice cover over a large swath of ocean between Norway and the North Pole into an emotionless, historical perspective. 

Take, for instance, a post from August 22, 2018:

This is the lowest area for this day of the year in our records dating back to 1967.

— Norway Ice Service (@Istjenesten) August 22, 2018 Read more…

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Researchers hit back at climate change deniers twisting polar bear science

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Most polar bear populations are in okay shape today, and this comes with a problem: Climate change deniers, often in the form of bloggers, employ this fleeting reality to promote skepticism about the idea that the planet is warming.

The broad argument is that if polar bears — who largely depend on Arctic sea ice to find food — are doing okay, then there must be doubt about the effect that fossil fuel emissions have on the global climate. 

Yet, observable evidence of human-caused global warming’s impact is abounding, especially when it comes to Arctic sea ice. The last four winters have seen the four lowest maximum sea ice extents on recordRead more…

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More ambitious pollution cuts could save Arctic sea ice and the species that depend on it

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The loss of Arctic sea ice is one of the clearest signs of human-caused climate change, and there’s been nothing but blinking red alarms coming from the top of the world lately. The past four winters have seen such anemic sea ice growth that they’ve been the lowest four maximum sea ice extents since 1979. 

At the same time, the region’s climate has seen temperatures increase at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, with record-shattering seasons becoming more common.

During the summer, you can now take a luxury cruise ship through the Northwest Passage, and even in the winter, ice is failing to show up in places where it’s normally so thick that it groans.  Read more…

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Thawing chunks of Arctic sea ice trapped and sunk boats in the Atlantic Ocean

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In the spring of 2017, a thick-hulled icebreaking research vessel, the Amundsen, had left its Quebec port en route to a research cruise in Hudson Bay. But the scientists aboard never made it to their destination: The Amundsen was diverted to rescue unsuspecting ships that had become entrapped by Arctic ice floes that moved into North Atlantic Ocean shipping lanes.

In past years, these masses of Arctic ice had mostly stayed put in their proper ocean — the Arctic — but increasing temperatures caused ice to melt, unclogging the channels connecting the Arctic to the north Atlantic, thus allowing massive surges of ice to flow freely south.   Read more…

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4th nor’easter this month takes aim at East Coast with jet stream stuck on repeat

The calendar may say it’s the first day of spring, but it will seem more like the movie Groundhog Day along the East Coast on Tuesday. The fourth nor’easter in just three weeks will begin to take shape across the Mid-Atlantic, as the first of two wav…

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Gas-filled vessel barrels solo through pathetic Arctic sea ice during dead of winter

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The massive vessel Eduard Toll, loaded with liquified natural gas from Siberia, successfully traversed through an icy Arctic sea route in January without any help from icebreaking ships — robust vessels that typically break through masses of ice to clear a path ahead. 

This is a first for this time of year, when sea ice should be too thick for non-icebreakers to get through unaided. Instead, Arctic sea ice has been hovering near record low levels throughout the winter so far.

The tanker company that operates the Eduard Toll, Teekay, posted a video of the voyage through the Northern Sea Route — one of the main passages ships use to bring Arctic commodities to global ports. This route runs along the northern coast of Siberia and Russia, and to the north of Scandinavia. It affords access to both the North Atlantic and North Pacific sides of the Arctic. The Eduard Toll first discharged bounties of gas in the far more pleasant climes of Montoir, France. Read more…

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The polar bear in this video is dying from starvation. Fortunately, most aren’t…yet

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After landing on Baffin Island, Canada, wildlife photographer and environmental activist Paul Nicklen captured video of a frail polar bear — dying and foaming from the mouth — as the weak animal collapsed to the ground. The bear will soon be dead — if it isn’t already. 

On Dec. 5, Nicklen posted the grim video to his Instagram account, and since then, it’s been stirring  emotions around the web. Polar bears are, for better or worse, a symbolic species when it comes to global warming, and many are seeing this video as a new warning sign. 

Fortunately, however, the condition of this bear is not representative of most polar bear populations — at least not yet.  Read more…

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View More The polar bear in this video is dying from starvation. Fortunately, most aren’t…yet