Records show Arctic sea ice in October was at its lowest and isn't recovering as fast find new study

The extent of sea ice in the Arctic was at record lows for October, Danish researchers said Wednesday, adding the unusually warm season meant it was not recovering as fast as normal.

"The October Arctic sea ice extent is going to be the lowest on record and the sea ice growth rate is slower than normal," Rasmus Tonboe, a scientist at the Danish Meteorogical Institute (DMI), told AFP, noting that records went back to 1979.

After a summer of warming, the edge of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean reaches a minimum each September and gradually increases to its maximum extent in March the following year. Image credit: NASA

Already in September researchers noted the second-lowest extent of sea ice recorded in the Arctic, though not quite hitting the levels recorded in 2012.

But warmer-than-normal seawater slowed the formation of new ice in October.

Water temperatures in the eastern part of the Arctic, north of Siberia, was two to four degrees warmer than normal, and in the Baffin Bay, it was one to two degrees warmer, DMI said in a statement.

The institute said this was following a trend observed in recent years, which was described as a "vicious spiral."

"It's a trend we’ve been seeing the past years, with a longer open water season making the sun warm the sea for a longer time, resulting in shorter winters so the ice doesn't grow as thick as it used to," Tonboe said.



from Firstpost Tech Latest News https://ift.tt/2HzSGuZ

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elon Musk’s bid spotlights Twitter’s unique role in public discourse – and what changes might be in store

Twitter has been in the news a lot lately, albeit for the wrong reasons. Its stock growth has languished and the platform itself has largely remained the same since its founding in 2006. On April 14, 2022, Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, made an offer to buy Twitter and take the public company private. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission , Musk stated, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” As a researcher of social media platforms , I find that Musk’s potential ownership of Twitter and his stated reasons for buying the company raise important issues. Those issues stem from the nature of the social media platform and what sets it apart from others. What makes Twitter unique Twitter occupies a unique niche. Its short chunks of text and threading foster real-time conversations among thousands of people, which
Read more

To reach net-zero emissions and remove CO2 from the air, scientists drawn up six priorities

Image
To reach net-zero emissions by 2050, global emissions must be cut faster and deeper than the world has yet managed. But even then, some hard-to-treat sources of pollution – in aviation, agriculture and cement making – may linger for longer than we would like. It will take time for clean alternatives to arrive and replace them. That means the world also needs to find and ramp up ways of taking CO₂ out of the atmosphere to stabilise the climate. Just meeting the UK’s net-zero target is likely to require the removal of 100 million tonnes of CO₂ a year , similar in size to current emissions from the country’s largest-emitting sector, road transport, but in reverse. The UK government’s announcement of £31.5 million (US$44.7 million) in support for research and development of carbon removal is welcome. And while trials of new tech will help, there are many social issues that need to be tackled if removing greenhouse gases is to succeed. Done right, carbon removal could be the perfect a
Read more

NASA is planning to partner with SpaceX to reboost the Hubble Telescope and extend its life

Image
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most important scientific achievements of the human species that has helped us understand space. It has been in orbit for over 30 years and has been feeding some of the most vital streams of information that has not only helped us steer our space exploration efforts, but also solve some of the more deep mysteries of the universe . NASA would love to extend its usable life for as long as possible. Unfortunately, for some years now, Hubble Space Telescope has been slipping out of its orbit. That is why, NASA is planning to team up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and place it into a higher much more stable orbit. NASA, SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut with the Polaris Program, hosted a media teleconference on Thursday to announce a feasibility study that will look into sending a commercial Dragon spacecraft to reboost the Hubble Space Telescope . This will, in effect place the telescope into a higher and more stable orbit than it’s curren
Read more