Cryocide. Like bycatch. Like civilians killed in a drone raid. It's happening now, unintentionally, because no one important cares enough to do something. We have been warned repeatedly by polar scientists of catastrophic Arctic warming. In 2007 when Arctic sea ice levels collapsed, when polar bears neared starvation after long swims, a global alarm of was raised by scientists and environmentalists that all the models had woefully underestimated the rate of collapse of polar ice and the Arctic ecosystem.
But one one important cared enough to do something. They had wars to fight. They had deals to make and checks to take. They had crises to create. Now they are focused like laser beams on the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid checks of widows and orphans.
The lords of Wall Street demand tribute.
This year CO2 levels are higher than ever and rising rapidly as polar bears swim hundreds of miles for their lives. This summer the rate of collapse of sea ice in the Arctic is shocking experts. They are using new words to describe it.
Cryocide.
Sea ice concentration & extent images by University of Bremen.
The darkest red areas began melting 2 months earlier than the the 1979-2000 average
For the past 3 months the bottom half of the atmosphere has been much warmer than normal over the north pole, bringing warm high pressure and bright sun to the polar ice surface. These bright sunny conditions are thinning the ice at record rates as well as reducing sea ice extent to the lowest levels ever measured for mid-July.
To date in July, air temperatures over the North Pole (at the 925 millibar level, or roughly 1,000 meters or 3,000 feet above the surface) were 6 to 8 degrees Celsius (11 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal, while temperatures along the coasts of the Laptev and East Siberian seas were 3 to 5 degrees Celsius (5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average.
Now, in the last 10 days of July storms are entering the Siberian side of the Arctic ocean as high pressure retreats to the Canadian side of the Arctic. This pattern called the Arctic dipole creates a strong wind field that blows ice out of the Arctic into the north Atlantic ocean Along the coast of Greenland through the Fram Strait. This stormy pattern in the western Siberian seas will bring cool cloudy weather to the already melted seas while bringing warmth to the Beaufort sea north of Alaska. Over the first few days of this pattern, melting rates may slow but as ice gets pushed into the Atlantic it will melt rapidly as it mixes with warm, salty Atlantic ocean water.
The Arctic ice is surrounded by rapidly warming oceans and seas to the south. It's like the last few ice cubes in a cold drink on a hot summer day.
I suspect the algorithm used to make this Mercator Ocean image may be overestimating the warming around the Arctic, but other images also show much above normal sea surface temperatures in the northern seas and in the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans.
Warm water is rapidly entering the Arctic from both the Pacific and the Atlantic as the ice is blown out the Fram strait.
Cryocide.