Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low

If you are measuring for only 35 years, a 35 year low does not mean only 35 years. It means at least 35 years.

But take a look at the data. It looks like a death spiral. The trend from the data is undeniable. Calling the current extent a record low sort of misses the point because the current amount of ice is a tiny fraction of what it was two decades ago.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-paper-finds-deep-arctic-ocean-was.html
New paper finds deep Arctic Ocean from 50,000 to 11,000 years ago was 1?2C warmer than modern temperatures
A new paper published in Nature Geoscience finds "From about 50,000 to 11,000 years ago, the central Arctic Basin from 1,000 to 2,500 meters deep was... 1?2C warmer than modern Arctic Intermediate Water." This finding is particularly surprising because it occurred during the last major ice age.

Deep Arctic Ocean warming during the last glacial cycle

T. M. Cronin, G. S. Dwyer, J. Farmer, H. A. Bauch, R. F.
Spielhagen, M. Jakobsson, J. Nilsson, W. M. Briggs Jr &
A. Stepanova

Nature Geoscience (2012) doi:10.1038/ngeo1557

In the Arctic Ocean, the cold and relatively fresh water
beneath the sea ice is separated from the underlying warmer
and saltier Atlantic Layer by a halocline. Ongoing sea ice
loss and warming in the Arctic Ocean have
demonstrated the instability of the halocline, with
implications for further sea ice loss. The stability of the
halocline through past climate variations is unclear.
Here we estimate intermediate water temperatures over the
past 50,000 years from the Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca values of
ostracods from 31 Arctic sediment cores. From about 50 to
11 [thousand years] ago, the central Arctic Basin from
1,000 to 2,500m was occupied by a water mass we call
Glacial Arctic Intermediate Water. This water mass was
1?2C warmer than modern Arctic Intermediate Water,
with temperatures
peaking during or just before millennial-scale Heinrich cold
events and the Younger Dryas cold interval. We use
numerical modelling to show that the intermediate depth
warming could result from the expected decrease in the flux
of fresh water to the Arctic Ocean during glacial conditions,
which would cause the halocline to deepen and push the
warm Atlantic Layer into intermediate depths. Although not
modelled, the reduced formation of cold, deep waters due to
the exposure of the Arctic continental shelf could also
contribute to the intermediate depth warming.

Paper finds Arctic sea ice extent 8,000 years ago was less than half of the 'record' low 2007 level
A paper published in Science finds summer Arctic Sea Ice extent during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago was "less than half of the record low 2007 level." The paper finds a "general buildup of sea ice from ~ 6,000 years before the present" which reached a maximum during the Little Ice Age and "attained its present (year 2000) extent at 4,000 years before the present"

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/08/paper-finds-arctic-sea-ice-extent-8000.html
A 10,000-Year Record of Arctic Ocean Sea-Ice Variability?View from the Beach
Svend Funder1,*, Hugues Goosse2, Hans Jepsen1, Eigil Kaas3, Kurt H. Kj?r1, Niels J. Korsgaard1, Nicolaj K. Larsen4, Hans Linderson5, Astrid Lys?6, Per M?ller5, Jesper Olsen7, Eske Willerslev1
+
ABSTRACT

We present a sea-ice record from northern Greenland covering the past 10,000 years. Multiyear sea ice reached a minimum between ~8500 and 6000 years ago, when the limit of year-round sea ice at the coast of Greenland was located ~1000 kilometers to the north of its present position. The subsequent increase in multiyear sea ice culminated during the past 2500 years and is linked to an increase in ice export from the western Arctic and higher variability of ice-drift routes. When the ice was at its minimum in northern Greenland, it greatly increased at El

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/eOhEqQ3Vv1o/arctic-sea-ice-hits-record-low

michael robinson joe paterno memorial service taco bell breakfast menu ener1 national chocolate cake day epstein joshua komisarjevsky