Arctic Sea Ice Update - Breakup Under Way Near Pole - 85-86 N

[hatrack]

Your orientation in this image is looking down from space on the top of the world. The center of the image is the North Pole, and the larger circle which extends beyond the edges of the color image is the 83N line. Melted areas appear to be as close as 250-300 miles from the Pole, though it's hard to tell at this scale:



This is the portion of the Arctic Ocean to the west of the Canadian Arctic archipelago: from the lower left of the map, your first stop south would be far eastern Siberia, from the center (where the ice is thinnest), Alaska and from the lower right, Canada:



This is to the left of the Arctic Basin map provided by the National Ice Center and the broad side of the image faces northern Siberia: thinning areas here approach (but don't quite reach) 83N.



On edit: fixed title, added basic map from National Ice Center:

[nam78_two]

1. kick :( /nt

[thecrow]

2. got a link? nt

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Easier-to-view graphics

You have to get used to the color coding, because the free-water area (black) doesn't tell the whole story. Anything that isn't white or purple is "bad", especially the red (50-65%) areas, though they are tougher to see clearly. Purple indicates >75% ice coverage. The purple area is smaller this year -- much smaller than any year in the 1990s, especially with the brief cooling in the early 1990s caused by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

But also keep in mind that without having looked at a few ice maps from the late 50s or mid 80s (warm periods) and late 70s (a very cold period), you won't have much of a perspective. I keep telling myself, one of these days I'm going to organize all my links and post several representative years, but never get around to doing it. Tracing some of Hatrack's graphics links will take you to the appropriate educational, governmental, and military ice-monitoring services.



(NOTE: This graphic was originally posted around 3AM EDT on 2006-08-25. It updates automatically.)

Hatrack posted this graphic a week or so ago in OP Large Hole Opening In Arctic Sea Ice Above Alaska (Around 75-76 North). The rest of the thread is also worth reading, especially Hatrack's comments.

The low point of the ice extent is usually around September 5th, so in about two weeks, we should start seeing these holes closing up again. But as far as I can tell, this is either the lowest or second-lowest northern ice extent ever recorded, and the Canadians have been measuring for most of the past century.

--p!
Long-Neglected Caveat: Corrections to mistaken statements of fact (so-called) are always welcome.

[bananas]

4. and a reminder

since these images constantly change,
you can upload the pic to www.tinypic.com
after saving it on your hard drive.