How large of a role has ocean warming been playing in the rapid loss
of sea ice volume there?
Indeed, the lowest amount
of sea ice volume, or minimum, was reached a few weeks ago.
Scientists are less sure of the trends in
sea ice volume in the southern hemisphere than in the north, given the difficultly satellites have in distinguishing sea ice from the snow that has accumulated on it, for instance.
Rennie, 4.1 (± 0.2), Heuristic This estimate is primarily based on the distribution of the April PIOMAS
sea ice volume estimate taking into account the extent of ice represented by various thicknesses.
In the end,
total sea ice volume grew by 373 km3 during April, which is the largest increase in the 2007 - 2018 period, almost 200 km3 above average.
They found that 2017 tied 2012 for the lowest measured Arctic
sea ice volume on record, though 2012 remains the year with the lowest summer minimum volume.
The Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) project provides estimates of
sea ice volume since 1979, shown in the figure below.
His new study shows that stronger westerly winds swirling around the South Pole can explain 80 percent of the increase in
Antarctic sea ice volume in the past three decades.
Arctic
sea ice volume by month in cubic kilometers (with simple quadratic trend lines projecting to zero volume, details here).
PIOMAS has been used in a wide range of applications but arguably the most popular product has been the time series of total Arctic
sea ice volume which we have been putting out since March 2010 (see also Fig 1).
Average sea ice volume in November was 7,880 cubic km, beating the previous record of 8,276 cubic km, set in November 2012.
Again one must look at mirror causations, the biggest one is the shrinking Cryosphere, This heat wave is the reflection of
sea ice volume disappearance.
After the maximum was reached, the trend line flattened, with
sea ice volume going down by a meagre 91 km3 from the 16th to the end of the month, which can clearly be seen on Wipneus» version of the PIOMAS graph:
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic
sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:
«In fact, the
September sea ice volume is already down 75 % with a trend to zero by September 2016, suggests that the Arctic is heading for complete meltdown, which would be a planetary catastrophe,» Ibid.
Climate change has already removed at least 75 percent of Arctic
summer sea ice volume at rates never before experienced in human history.
The volume of sea ice left at the end of the summer melt season seems to vary more from year to year than had perhaps been previously appreciated; after declining for several years,
sea ice volume shot up after the unusually cool summer of 2013, the data revealed.
However, you may want to read some of the responses on the Arctic
sea ice volume thread, which discusses this issue in depth.
Sea ice volume varies a whole lot less than the temperature record and is more something to consider before claiming that there has been a lull in warming.
The Arctic wasn't just relatively hot last year — beating the previous record set in 2010 by 0.17 degrees Celsius (0.3 degrees Fahrenheit)-- it also experienced the lowest
sea ice volume yet recorded, and the second - lowest extent.