Arc­tic ice deve­lo­p­ment in 2013

New data about the arc­tic ice loss in 2013: A danish report gives new figu­res about the ice loss from the Green­land inland ice and sea ice in the Arc­tic Oce­an. Accor­ding to the report, ice loss was signi­fi­cant in 2013, but slight­ly less dra­ma­tic than in 2012 both for land and sea ice.

The con­tri­bu­ti­on of the Green­land inland ice to glo­bal sea level rise in 2013 is 1.2 mm. The time frame con­side­red is from Octo­ber 2012 to Sep­tem­ber 2013, to include one win­ter and one sum­mer sea­son (gla­cio­lo­gi­cal year). This sea level rise is the value that cor­re­sponds to the total net­to ice loss of 430 Gt (1 Gt = 1 Giga­tonn = 1 bil­li­on tonns). The lar­gest ice volu­me lost within 24 hours was on July 25, when an incre­di­ble 12 Gt eit­her mel­ted or bro­ke off as ice­berg! In 2012, howe­ver, the cor­re­spon­ding value is an even more incre­di­ble 20 Gt. The nega­ti­ve trend of the Green­land inland ice’s mass balan­ce is accor­din­gly con­tin­ued in 2013, even though it is slight­ly less rapid than in 2012, regar­ding some important key figu­res.

The gla­cier move­ments were more or less nor­mal in 2013. At least, no dra­ma­tic events were recor­ded as in 2012, when the lar­ge Peter­mann Gla­cier in wes­tern north Green­land show­ed some dra­ma­ti­cal­ly huge cal­ving.

The trend of the sea ice in the Arc­tic Oce­an seems to be rough­ly com­pa­ra­ble. During spring, the time of the lar­gest ice cover, the­re was at least more ice than during the past 5-8 years on avera­ge, but this is hard­ly good enough to relax con­side­ring the series of recent nega­ti­ve records. The ice loss con­ti­nues, even if it is slight­ly less rapid then in the nega­ti­ve record year of 2012. The annu­al ice mini­mum is num­ber six on the list of years of the smal­lest sea ice cover sin­ce 1979. An important reason is belie­ved to be in the rela­tively calm wind con­di­ti­ons of the Arc­tic Oce­an, which pushed less ice out through the Fram Strait bet­ween Green­land and Spits­ber­gen into the Atlan­tic than in pre­vious years.

Polar­por­tal is an infor­ma­ti­on platt­form run by seve­ral Danish rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons, inclu­ding DMI (the Danish Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te) and GEUS (Danish Geo­lo­gi­cal Ser­vice) to publish their results.

Source: Polar­por­tal

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