Using Envisat radar altimeter data, scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London (UCL) measured sea
ice thickness over the Arctic from 2002 to 2008 and found that it had been fairly constant until the record loss of ice in the summer of 2007.
At Twitter Kirye posted an excellent GIF animation to compare Arctic sea
ice thickness over the past 10 years:
Along with a more than 42 % decrease in multiyear (MY) ice coverage since 2005, there was a remarkable thinning of ∼ 0.6 m in
MY ice thickness over 4 years.
Not exact matches
Set the
ice cream on one wafer press down gently with a second wafer to spread the
ice cream
over the whole wafer to a
thickness of about 1/2 -3 / 4 inch.
Developing an understanding of how
ice sheets are changing
over time requires precise measurements of the
thickness of the
ice sheets and accurate mapping of the bedrock below.
The
thickness of the
ice, and its overall volume, may be a more important measure of what is happening in the Arctic
over the long term, even though it is not as simple to measure, said Overland.
But, as the
thickness of the
ice over the volcano (between 100 and 400 meters) and the volume of lava are both unknown, it's also unclear whether an eruption will break through the
ice, or whether it will remain subglacial.
Together with his AWI colleague Dr Stefan Hendricks, they evaluated the sea
ice thickness measurements taken
over the past five winters by the CyroSat - 2 satellite for their sea
ice projection.
«It may even be possible to predict sea
ice cover a year in advance with high - quality observations of sea
ice thickness and snow cover
over the whole Arctic,» said Cecilia Bitz, co-author and professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.
Previous observations of the
thickness of Antarctic sea
ice produced a mean draught — the depth between the waterline and the bottom of the
ice sheet — of around 1 meter; the new work gives a mean draught of
over 3 meters.
For their work Maksym and co-investigators Guy Williams from the University of Hobart, Tasmania and Jeremy Wilkinson of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, used a robot known as an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to cruise under
ice in three regions near the coast and measure the
thickness directly
over a much larger area.
Hu's experiments, for example, show everything from the
thickness of
ice as it flows
over a wing, the heat transfer of individual water droplets as they freeze, the irregular speed of freezing droplets on a wing or blade and the finger - like patterns of
ice formation.
While bristling
over the personal nature of Greenberg's attack, he insists that he is far from dogmatic on the issue of
ice thickness.
From an altitude of just
over 700 km, CryoSat will precisely monitor changes in the
thickness of sea
ice and variations in the
thickness of the
ice sheets on land.
A new study led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego researchers has revealed that the
thickness of Antarctica's floating
ice shelves has recently decreased by as much as 18 percent in certain areas
over...
These attempted to determine how
ice thicknesses, temperatures and gas - hydrate stability likely changed
over tens of thousands of years.
10 - 43761 D.Young, D.Blankenship, S.Kempf, E.Quartini, G.Muldoon, E.Powell
Ice thickness and related data
over central Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica (GIMBLE)
Progress towards establishing
ice thickness records from satellite (ICESat, Envisat, and CryoSat - 2) will change this
over time, but these sources won't yield a record before these measurements began and satellite retrievals of
ice thickness have their own issues.
We find a consistent decreasing trend in Arctic Ocean sea
ice thickness since 1979, and a steady decline in the Eastern Arctic Ocean
over the full 40 - year period of comparison that accelerated after 1980, but the predictions of Western Arctic Ocean sea
ice thickness between 1962 and 1980 differ substantially.
But the
thickness and melting of the
ice is not uniform
over the whole Arctic, so some residual
ice will probably remain north of Greenland and around some of the islands.
Some commentators have made much of longer - term trends in
ice thickness, but there, too, winds and patterns of atmospheric pressure have played a powerful role
over longer time spans.
IceBridge data are collected from aircraft that fly
over the
ice cover carrying a suite of instruments, including altimeters that can directly measure
ice thickness above the surface.
Although the Arctic Ocean is typically mostly covered by
ice, both the
thickness and extent of summer sea
ice in the Arctic have shown a dramatic decline
over the past thirty years, satellite measurements have found.
The
thickness of Arctic sea
ice has also been on a steady decline
over the last several decades.
An editorial in The Time magazine on June 24, 1974, quoted concerned scientists as voicing alarm
over the atmosphere «growing gradually cooler for the past three decades», «the unexpected persistence and
thickness of pack
ice in the waters around Iceland,» and other harbingers of an
ice age that could prove «catastrophic.»
Over the sea
ice field the observations include: sea
ice freeboard height and hence sea
ice thickness from radar altimetry; sea
ice surface temperature and sea
ice drift from respectively infrared radiometer and imaging spectrometer under cloud free conditions.
Peter Wadhams, President of the International Association on Sea
Ice and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group / Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, says: «It is quite urgent that we recognize what is going on... the ice has been getting thinner over the last 40 years since I have been measuring it, and it has lost about one - half of its thickness... five years ago the shrinkage started to accelera
Ice and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group / Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, says: «It is quite urgent that we recognize what is going on... the
ice has been getting thinner over the last 40 years since I have been measuring it, and it has lost about one - half of its thickness... five years ago the shrinkage started to accelera
ice has been getting thinner
over the last 40 years since I have been measuring it, and it has lost about one - half of its
thickness... five years ago the shrinkage started to accelerate.
Aerial
thickness surveys and ground - based sampling in the western Beaufort and eastern Chukchi Sea in April this year indicate that level
ice in the region is well
over 3 m thick and strong (due to low salt content; www.sizonet.org).
On page 16 here: https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/sea-
ice-physical-processes.pdf There is the «Annual cycle of net surface heat flux for various
ice thicknesses» Roughly interpolating the no sea
ice flux I got an average of — 310 Wm2
over the course of a year.
That situation changed during recent weeks when two scientific papers broke the news that some of West Antarctica's glaciers had lost upwards of a half a kilometer of
ice thickness due to contact with warm ocean waters
over the past decade.
Therefore, due to entirely natural variations in spring snow conditions
over sea
ice (and
thickness of the
ice), 2 polar bear population sizes can vary by region.
Poitou & Bréon do not explain why the
ice pack volume would be relevant for the albedo; according to Haas (2005)[47] the changes of the
thickness of the sea
ice are small since they are correctly measured by an airborne radio apparatus, only
over the Arctic.
These in turn suggest that decreases in
ice thickness of < 30 cm may be attributable to this flux, rather than to the supposed consequence of a warming atmosphere
over the Arctic Ocean.
In response to your question I would refer you to my comment above Dave Wendt (14:39:39): where I discuss the Rigor and Wallace paper of 2004 which demonstrated that the decline in sea
ice age and
thickness began with a shift in state in Beaufort Gyre and the TransPolar Drift in 1989 which resulted in multiyear
ice declining from
over 80 % of the Arctic to 30 % in about one year and that the persistence of that pattern has been responsible for the continuing decline.
April 1, 2009 Sea
ice cover
over the Arctic Ocean typically reaches its maximum geographic extent and
thickness just as spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere.
The agency's six - year Operation IceBridge mission conducts flights
over the Arctic to measure
ice thickness using laser instruments.
Most of the Arctic Ocean is
over 1000 m deep and is continuously covered with
ice whose
thickness varies between 1 - 10 m.
Data also show that the
ice pack
over the entire Arctic Ocean has in recent decades been shrinking in area and
thickness.
According to scientific measurements, both the
thickness and extent of summer sea
ice in the Arctic have shown a dramatic decline
over the past thirty years.
It is very difficult to assess
ice cover or
ice thickness changes
over a longer period, before 1978.
In addition, records from Russian coastal stations show the extent and
thickness of sea
ice has varied greatly
over 60 - to 80 - year periods during the last 125 years.
There is a lot of
ice in Antarctica; in some places the
ice thickness reaches well
over 4 km.
Based on the understanding of both the physical processes that control key climate feedbacks (see Section 8.6.3), and also the origin of inter-model differences in the simulation of feedbacks (see Section 8.6.2), the following climate characteristics appear to be particularly important: (i) for the water vapour and lapse rate feedbacks, the response of upper - tropospheric RH and lapse rate to interannual or decadal changes in climate; (ii) for cloud feedbacks, the response of boundary - layer clouds and anvil clouds to a change in surface or atmospheric conditions and the change in cloud radiative properties associated with a change in extratropical synoptic weather systems; (iii) for snow albedo feedbacks, the relationship between surface air temperature and snow melt
over northern land areas during spring and (iv) for sea
ice feedbacks, the simulation of sea
ice thickness.
NASA satellites have seen the minimum summertime sea
ice coverage decline by 13 percent
over the last three decades, along with a decline in sea
ice thickness.
The Arctic coastal regions of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas generally are covered with shore - fast
ice for about eight months, but
over the past two decades, sea
ice extent and
thickness have diminished.
Recall the long - term military submarine record of decreasing seasonal Arctic sea
ice thickness that was kept secret for
over a decade?
The research, reported in Geophysical Research Letters, showed that last winter the average
thickness of sea
ice over the whole Arctic fell by 26 cm (10 %) compared with the average
thickness of the previous five winters, but sea
ice in the western Arctic lost around 49 cm of
thickness.
The team, including Dr Seymour Laxon and Andy Ridout, was the first to measure
ice thickness throughout the Arctic winter, from October to March,
over more than half of the Arctic.
And scientists from NASA recently flew a series of missions
over the Arctic during the IceBridge project, to study details of Arctic sea
ice thickness as well as changing glaciers in Greenland.
Last winter the average
thickness of sea
ice over the whole Arctic fell by 26 cm (10 %) compared with the average
thickness of the previous five winters, but sea
ice in the western Arctic lost around 49 cm of
thickness.