So the ice slowed down for a couple days but then...

[XemaSab]

Day 210 we were at 4.23587.

On day 213 we're at 3.7872.

That's 448,670 square kilometers gone in three days, or almost 150,000 square kilometers a day.

For a while it looked like the record might not even be broken, but now it's again looking like it might be a decisive record. We've already dipped below the low for every year prior to 2007.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

I'm going to make a not-so-bold prediction and say that in 6 weeks it's going to look like 2007 up there. All that yellow area is hosed.



Time is marching on....

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[XemaSab]

2. The only year in recent memory that has a similar drop this late is 2008

On day 210 the ice was at 5.11656, and by day 215 it had gone to 4.37505 for a total drop of 740,510 and an average of 148,000 per day. The ice that year bottomed out at around 3.00356 on day 252, so between day 210 and day 252, the ice lost 2.113 million square kilometers.

If we were to lose a similar amount of ice this year, we'd be left with 2.12287 million square kilometers, or roughly a third less than the all time low. (Not to mention slightly more than a third of the ice that we had up there in the summer of 1980.)

I'm not saying that it's GOING to happen, but it totally COULD happen.

[doohnibor]

3. The McClure strait is open

Last edited Sat Aug 4, 2012, 08:45 AM - Edit history (1)

Used to be it NEVER opened. Stayed clogged with 4-5 foot thick ice because of the Beaufort gyre pushing multiyear ice in from the west. No ship trying to do the northwest passage would ever try going over the top of Banks island and instead had to thread their way through narrower channels and go south of Victoria island. But take a look: Banks island is going to be surrounded by open water this year for the first time in human civilization.

[Systematic Chaos]

4. It's a shame that the strait and island you mentioned aren't labeled on that map.

I'll try and find them on Google Earth or something, though.

[doohnibor]

5. It's on Google

Banks island is the one furthest west in the Arctic ocean on that map. The McClure (sometimes written M'Clure) channel is the channel to the north. That was where the Franklin expedition got stuck in the ice and perished.

[Systematic Chaos]

6. Okay, I can see that now. Thanks!

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Just on a historical note, the Franklin ships weren't in the McClure Strait

partly because it never looked like opening up for them. They attempted to go south of Victoria Island (not that it was fully mapped at that time), but got stuck west of King William Island - the one to the south east of Victoria Island. It was McClure who got trapped in the strait named after him (while searching for Franklin), entering it in the Investigator from the west, and then being rescued by sledge parties from the east (thus allowing him to claim a technical 'completion' of the North West Passage, though everyone agrees it doesn't really count).

[doohnibor]

8. I stand corrected

It was McClure's ship, HMS Investigator, that was crushed in the ice north of Banks island and recently discovered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Investigator_%281848%29

[hatrack]

9. Wow, they found it? Very cool!

I remember when they exhumed one of Franklin's crew members buried on Beechey Island.

He'd died of natural causes the winter before the expedition vanished, though they found a lot of lead and crap in his system from poorly soldered canned foods.

[XemaSab]

10. "Holiest of holy crap, things are going fast right now."

Thus spake Neven.

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/2012-lower-than-all-minimums-before-2007.html