Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Loss of Multi-year Arctic Sea Ice Animation

The loss of thick, multi-year sea ice is the big non-story of the Arctic that should be THE climate story. While the extent each summer is important, very important, because it allows sunlight to get to the water and leave it warmer than before, if the thick ice stayed each year the extent wouldn't matter so much because there would be no way for the ice extent to fall very far, or, at least it would take a lot longer to melt out completely.

Imagine a punch bowl filled with ice. The temp is very cold in the room, say 35 degrees. Now imagine every 30 minutes you alternate adding a cup of 40 degree water or a 3/4 cup of 35 degree water. Imagine how long it would take for the ice to melt.

Now imagine the same punch bowl filled with ice. The temp is 35 degrees. Now imagine every 30 minutes you alternate adding a cup of 40 degree water or a 3/4 cup of 35 degree water, but this time take out the half of the biggest ice cubes and replace them with the same number of ice cubes, but the same size as the smallest ice cubes in the bowl. Imagine how long it would take for the ice to melt now. How long before the water temperature edges closer to 40 than 35?

That's the effect of losing the multi-year ice.

To understand the loss of multi-year ice and the added energy from the sun, when you add the water, add 1/10 of a degree in temp each round to both cups of water.

As the Arctic goes, so goes the planet. It really is that simple. Hope and pray that the winds blow in every and any direction that doesn't push sea ice out of the Arctic Sea, because that's the only thing that's going to slow this train, and possibly even allow some re-growth of thicker ice. A few anomalously cold summers would help, too.

Whew... anyone got a kerchief? It's getting hot in here...

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