LONDON: As folks across much of the central and eastern US shivered and shoveled through a cold, snowy winter, the unusual chill didn’t extend to the far north, where Arctic ice is at record low levels so far for the winter.
While no one in their right mind would describe the Arctic’s weather this past winter as warm or even remotely mild, a large portion of the region did see warmer-than-average temperatures, according to Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre.
The warmth in the Arctic — where some spots were as much as 7 to 11 degrees above average in February — contributed to the lack of sea ice there. The average wintertime temperatures near the North Pole are about minus 22 to minus 31.
Sea ice is frozen ocean water that melts each summer and refreezes each winter. It typically reaches its smallest “extent” in September and largest in March of each year, and is tracked by the data center located in Boulder, Colorado.
As of the most recent measurement, the extent of the sea ice so far this month is the smallest on record, about 600,000 square miles less than historic (1981-2010) levels.
“If the current pattern of below-average extent continues, Arctic sea ice extent may set a new lowest winter maximum,” the Snow and Ice Data Centre reported earlier this month. The previous record low for March was in 2011. Records go back to the late 1970s.
Why do we care about sea ice? Because it affects wildlife as well as people who live in the Arctic, the centre said. It also influences weather here in the US. Some recent research suggests the warm Arctic may have played a role in the crazy extremes of eastern cold and western warmth the states have received the past few winters.
The amount of sea ice in the Arctic has been steadily shrinking over the past few decades due to man-made global warming, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Globally, even though Antarctic sea ice has gotten larger, sea ice has declined overall.
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