2016 Closes Out With Global Sea Ice At Record Low Levels

[hatrack]

Thursday, January 5, 2017, 5:51 PM - With 2016 soon to rank as the warmest year on the books, it took its toll on sea ice around the world, leaving global and Arctic extents at their lowest yearly levels ever recorded and with absolutely no help from the Antarctic. Agencies around are in the midst of tallying 2016 weather records, and they are already finding that the year was the hottest on record, by quite a wide margin over previous years.

One way the year took its toll on the planet was with sea ice, not just in the Arctic, but everywhere. Sea ice extent across the Arctic reached the lowest winter maximum extent on record, on March 2, 2016, which did not bode well for the rest of the year.


Arctic sea ice extent, 1979-2016. 2016 is highlighted for clarity. Credit: NSIDC/Scott Sutherland

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n the Antarctic

The Arctic and Antarctic are very different regions of the planet, and thus respond to climate change in different ways. With little to directly replenish it other than simply the onset of cold winter weather, sea ice has been declining rapidly in the north. In the south, with glaciers melting on the coastlines of Antarctica, this has been feeding cold, fresh water into the surface layer of the ocean around the continent, promoting the development of fresh sea ice. This, coupled with stronger winds and possibly with the addition of changing ocean currents, has resulted in higher than average sea ice extents in the southern ocean.

This year has been quite different, however. Antarctic sea ice extent ran at average to slightly below-average levels for much of the year, and then starting in October, sea ice extent dipped to record lows and stayed there for the rest of the year.


Antarctic sea ice extent, 1979-2016. 2016 is highlighted for clarity. Credit: NSIDC/Scott Sutherland

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Globally

Taken together, the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extents for the year have resulted in the lowest global annual average sea ice extent on record.


Annual average global sea ice extents, in millions of square kilometres, from 1979 to 2016. Data from NSIDC. Credit: Scott Sutherland

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https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/global-sea-ice-closes-out-2016-at-new-record-low-level/77828

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Record low for December Arctic sea ice volume and thickness too

December 2016 sea ice volume was 11,200 km3 , nearly 1000 km3 below the previous record for December in 2012. This record is in part the result of anomalously high temperatures throughout the Arctic for November and end of December discussed here and here. 2016 December volume was 52% below the maximum December ice volume in 1979, 39% below the 1979-2015 mean, and about 1.3 standard deviations below the long term trend line.

Average ice thickness in December 2016 over the PIOMAS domain is the lowest on record (Fig 4.) Note that the interpretation of average ice thickness needs to take into account that only areas with ice thickness less than 15 cm are included so that years with less total volume can have a greater ice thickness.

Fig 6. Shows the the anomaly for December 2016 relative to the 2000-2015 base period. Sea ice is thinner almost everywhere except for a small area reaching from the North Pole to Fram Strait. Sea ice is particularly thin in an area north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island that typically features the thickest ice in the Arctic. This is likely due to anomalous winds driving the sea ice away from the Northern Greenland Coast.

http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/