About last week’s storm
-Storm area 1 million square kilometers
-Wave height of 2 to 3 meters broke apart ice into smaller chunks, increasing surface area and thus melting
-Storm mixed fresh water at surface (from melted ice) with deeper warmer saltier water from below increasing melting rate
-Storm agitated water to depths of 500 meters (where water is much warmer) bringing it to surface increasing melt rate
-Low pressure of storm center sucked up water level by 0.3 meters, causing warm water to flow into Arctic Ocean from Pacific Ocean via Bering Strait and from Atlantic Ocean, increasing melting
-Storm rotation (counterclockwise) spread out ice over larger area and pushed ice towards open ocean (on Atlantic Ocean side)Julienne Stroeve NSIDC
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
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Thank you for your comment about the storm.
You show that air temperature is only one of the possible causes of the decreasing Ice Cap size.
It appears that warmer water is the true cause of melting with wind aiding the process.
The warmer salty water is always present below the ice. The early winter storm brought it to the surface this year.
Yup a testament of what a single WEATHER event can do to ice cover extent.
The air temperature is simply not warm enough to have melted all that ice each year therefore something else comes into play is causing the downsizing of the ice cover and that is warmer water and wind.
An Internet search for this storm and you get headlines with Unusual or Rare in them.
But, “NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., estimates that there have only been about eight similarly strong August storms in the last 34 years … “
Or on average once in 4.25 years. If this storm is classified as a rare or an unusual event, other things that occur every four years must also be rare or unusual. Is a leap year a rare event? Are the Olympics unusual? The World Soccer Cup?
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/10/unusual-summer-storm-blasts-the-arctic/
NASA needs a dictionary, or at least few folks familiar with the English language.
Steven:
I guess that is her way of admitting that you are correct about a major wind storm was needed to reduce the amount of sea ice in the Arctic this year. 😉
Is this similar to what happened in 2007?
No it was very different from 2007. A warm southerly wind pushed the edge back. This year it was an early winter storm, which is what makes the comparisons a joke.