• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Sharon Guynup, Mongabay

    2022: Another consequential year for the melting Arctic

    September 27, 2022 By Wilson Center Staff
    BANNER-IMAGE-SHARON-GUYNUP-1200x727This article, by Sharon Guynup, originally appeared on Mongabay.

    In August, I traveled aboard the icebreaker Kinfish to the Svalbard archipelago, north of the Arctic Circle. Invited to the bridge as we cruised fjords near the 80th parallel, I was transfixed by towering blue glacier walls, but was confused by the map displayed on one of the ship’s screens. It showed our vessel sailing across a non-navigable frozen sheet.

    When I shared this story with Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, he didn’t seem surprised. “Things change fast there nowadays,” he said. So quickly, even polar ice mapping can’t keep pace.

    The 2022 spring/summer Arctic melt season, when the sun never sets and sea ice retreats, has now ended as the days quickly shorten, with the Far North heading back to full winter darkness. It wasn’t a record-breaking or news-making year for low ice extent — it ranked tenth­­, tying with 2017 and 2018 — but it has been yet another consequential melt season.

    z7-

    Latest daily Arctic sea ice extent (JAXA AMSR2) for 2022 (thick red line). Mean sea ice extents from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s decades are also shown by the dashed lines. A thin white line is shown for 2012. Yearly minimum extents (2002-2021) are shown by the scatter points with color in reference to the total sea ice extent.

    The last 16 consecutive years have been the lowest since 1979 when satellite tracking began, with the all-time low in 2012, says Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Overall, climate change is warming the Arctic nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet. But melt is not equal across the Arctic. The biggest overall factors impacting sea ice are air and sea temperatures, with winds and storms sometimes adding collateral damage.

    Across much of the planet, it was a burning hot summer, with record-breaking heatwaves from Hong Kong and India to much of Europe, and the U.S. — and on top of the world as well. Air temperatures over “a good chunk of the Arctic” exceeded the 30-year average, says Meier. Unprecedented heat in Greenland during September, up to 36° degrees F. (20 degrees C.) above normal, helped slightly prolong the melt season: the average sea ice nadir is September 14; it came this year on September 18.

    Back in July, Canada’s Northwest Territories broiled under extreme temperatures, which soared into the 90s, breaking all-time highs. That record warmth created countless melt ponds on Beaufort Sea ice, closely watched by scientists because it has retained substantial amounts of “old” thick ice, which is more resistant to melt. Those melt ponds erode ice from above.

    Continue Reading on Mongabay

    Lead Image Credit: Open ocean with some floating ice in August 2022 off of Svarlbard in the Arctic. Image by Sharon Guynup.

    Secondary Image Credit: Latest daily Arctic sea ice extent (JAXA AMSR2) for 2022 (thick red line). Mean sea ice extents from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s decades are also shown by the dashed lines. A thin white line is shown for 2012. Yearly minimum extents (2002-2021) are shown by the scatter points with color in reference to the total sea ice extent. Image courtesy of Zachary Labe/Princeton/NOAA GFDL.

    Topics: climate, climate change, environment, meta, polar

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • Rainforest destruction. Gold mining place in Guyana China’s Growing Environmental Footprint in the Caribbean
    ZingaZingaZingazoomzoom: US cleans up. China runs wild on free rein- A lack of international compliance mechanisms to hold...
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous souhaitons que le partenaire nous apporte son soutien technique et financier.
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous sommes une organisation féminine dénommée: Actions Communautaires pour le Développement de...

Related Stories

  • shutterstock_1862987254Arctic Security Redefined: Human Security Through an Arctic Urban Lens
  • Press,Conference,By,European,Commissioner,Virginijus,Sinkevicius,On,The,NewMore EU in the Arctic and More Arctic in the EU?
  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000