Arctic sea ice growth has slowed dramatically in recent weeks, thanks in large part to abnormally warm air and water temperatures. Sea ice now sits at record low levels for mid-February.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, as of February 18, sea ice covered about 14.36 million square kilometers in the Arctic. The previous low on this date was 14.37 million square kilometers in 2006.
The main culprit — in addition to the overall trend of global warming — is likely the rash of warm temperatures. With the polar vortex bringing cold air down to the U.S. this winter, warmer temperatures have been the norm in the Arctic. From February 1-17, temperatures were 7.2° to 14.4°F above normal for much of the Arctic. Some areas have been even warmer.
A look atArctic sea ice extent. The gray line is average for 1981-2010 and the dashed line shows the extent for 2011-12, the years when a record-low summer minimum occurred. The blue line is this year through February 18.
Click the image to enlarge. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
“Right now, the Arctic is pretty warm everywhere. If I look at temperature anomalies, there’s a huge anomaly over the Barents Sea and Sea of Okhotsk of about 10°C (above normal) compared to 1981-2010,” said Julienne Stroeve, a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Stroeve also said that warm waters in the North Atlantic have slowed ice growth, which is part of a decades-long trend due to both natural variability and human influences.
The decline in sea ice is one of the key indicators of climate change. Sea ice in January, the last full month for which data is available, has declined 3.2 percent per decade since 1979 compared to the 1981-2012 average. That equals roughly 18,500 square miles in ice lost per decade, the same area as Vermont and New Hampshire combined. This past January ranked as the fourth-lowest year on record, with 2011 being the all-time record lowest.
Summer sea ice decline is even more precipitous, dropping 13.7 percent per decade over the same period according to the Arctic Report Card.
Record low ice extent in winter doesn’t directly translate into record low extent in the summer in a given year. Stroeve said low winter ice could affect some aspects of the melt season, though.
With more ocean exposed to the sun, melt season can get started sooner. That’s because the dark ocean water absorbs more incoming sunlight than ice. Stroeve recently published a paper showing this and that more heat being absorbed has pushed the autumn freeze later as well. Those two factors have contributed to Arctic sea ice melt season lengthening by a month since 1979, though there’s still considerable year-to-year variability.
Local weather patterns also have a great impact on the amount of ice that melts during the summer. When Arctic sea ice reached a record low minimum in 2012, a two-week period of stormy weather quickly broke up ice and kickstarted the melt season.
While predicting individual storms is near-impossible, starting the melt season with less ice lowers the margin for error said Malte Humpert, executive director of the Arctic Institute.
“One bad weather event might be enough (to cause extensive melting), but if you have more ice coming out of winter, it requires multiple variables,” he said.
Arctic sea ice usually peaks in mid to late March so colder temperatures in the next few weeks could help ice growth rebound. In 2005, sea ice extent was also significantly lower than normal in mid-February, but rebounded more than 190,000 square miles in less than a month. Despite the rapid growth, that year was still 550,000 square miles below the 1981-2010 average.
The quality of new ice isn’t the same as old sea ice, which tends to be thicker, harder, and more resilient to warmer temperatures. Ice at least 4 years old has declined from 26 percent of the Arctic’s ice pack at the end of winter in 1988 to 7 percent in 2013 according to climate.gov.
For the next week, temperatures look to remain at or above normal for much of the region, lowering the odds of a speedy increase in ice extent.
Arctic sea ice growth has slowed dramatically in recent weeks, thanks in large part to abnormally warm air and water temperatures. Sea ice now sits at record low levels for mid-February.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, as of February 18, sea ice covered about 14.36 million square kilometers in the Arctic. The previous low on this date was 14.37 million square kilometers in 2006.
The main culprit — in addition to the overall trend of global warming — is likely the rash of warm temperatures. With the polar vortex bringing cold air down to the U.S. this winter, warmer temperatures have been the norm in the Arctic. From February 1-17, temperatures were 7.2° to 14.4°F above normal for much of the Arctic. Some areas have been even warmer.
A look atArctic sea ice extent. The gray line is average for 1981-2010 and the dashed line shows the extent for 2011-12, the years when a record-low summer minimum occurred. The blue line is this year through February 18.
Click the image to enlarge. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
“Right now, the Arctic is pretty warm everywhere. If I look at temperature anomalies, there’s a huge anomaly over the Barents Sea and Sea of Okhotsk of about 10°C (above normal) compared to 1981-2010,” said Julienne Stroeve, a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Stroeve also said that warm waters in the North Atlantic have slowed ice growth, which is part of a decades-long trend due to both natural variability and human influences.
The decline in sea ice is one of the key indicators of climate change. Sea ice in January, the last full month for which data is available, has declined 3.2 percent per decade since 1979 compared to the 1981-2012 average. That equals roughly 18,500 square miles in ice lost per decade, the same area as Vermont and New Hampshire combined. This past January ranked as the fourth-lowest year on record, with 2011 being the all-time record lowest.
Summer sea ice decline is even more precipitous, dropping 13.7 percent per decade over the same period according to the Arctic Report Card.
Record low ice extent in winter doesn’t directly translate into record low extent in the summer in a given year. Stroeve said low winter ice could affect some aspects of the melt season, though.
With more ocean exposed to the sun, melt season can get started sooner. That’s because the dark ocean water absorbs more incoming sunlight than ice. Stroeve recently published a paper showing this and that more heat being absorbed has pushed the autumn freeze later as well. Those two factors have contributed to Arctic sea ice melt season lengthening by a month since 1979, though there’s still considerable year-to-year variability.
Local weather patterns also have a great impact on the amount of ice that melts during the summer. When Arctic sea ice reached a record low minimum in 2012, a two-week period of stormy weather quickly broke up ice and kickstarted the melt season.
While predicting individual storms is near-impossible, starting the melt season with less ice lowers the margin for error said Malte Humpert, executive director of the Arctic Institute.
“One bad weather event might be enough (to cause extensive melting), but if you have more ice coming out of winter, it requires multiple variables,” he said.
Arctic sea ice usually peaks in mid to late March so colder temperatures in the next few weeks could help ice growth rebound. In 2005, sea ice extent was also significantly lower than normal in mid-February, but rebounded more than 190,000 square miles in less than a month. Despite the rapid growth, that year was still 550,000 square miles below the 1981-2010 average.
The quality of new ice isn’t the same as old sea ice, which tends to be thicker, harder, and more resilient to warmer temperatures. Ice at least 4 years old has declined from 26 percent of the Arctic’s ice pack at the end of winter in 1988 to 7 percent in 2013 according to climate.gov.
For the next week, temperatures look to remain at or above normal for much of the region, lowering the odds of a speedy increase in ice extent.
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Russia dismisses intl tribunal ruling on Greenpeace"s Arctic Sunrise ship and crew
http://isbigbrotherwatchingyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2ad92__russia-dismisses-ruling-greenpeace.si.jpg
Russia is not going to comply with a maritime tribunal’s ruling to release the Greenpeace vessel as the issue does not fall within its jurisdiction, said a Kremlin official, accusing the activists of using ‘unsuitable means’ for implementing their idea.
“We have no plans to participate in the process”, Sergey Ivanov, the head of the Russian Presidential administration told journalists in St. Petersburg on Saturday. According to a 1982 convention Russia can ignore the findings of the Tribunal on the Law for the Sea if it concerns Russia’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction.
Ivanov was referring to the Friday’s ruling of the tribunal in Hamburg that ordered Russia to allow the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise vessel and the 30 activists who were onboard to leave the country for a bond of €3.6 million (about $ 5 million).
The vessel is currently moored in the Russian port of Murmansk while the international maritime court still has to rule on the legality of Russia seizing the ship.
Ivanov reaffirmed Russia’s dismissal of the ruling adding that the “question will be solved in a judicial, not political manner, [and] based on Russian legislation, not someone’s political wishes.”
“There’s a legal procedure and we’re observing it strictly,” he said adding that he believes the activists will leave Russia as soon as all legal issues are completed.
Ivanov noted that their ‘noble idea’ was implemented using ‘unsuitable means’ and described the actions of the activists who he called ‘environmentalists or pseudo environmentalists’ as ‘PR for profit.’
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Russian literary meeting in Moscow on Thursday said that the actions of the Greenpeace environmentalists threatened the lives of those who worked on the oil rig.
“When [somebody] is climbing on the platform, [they] are creating an emergency situation, the operator [of the rig] could have made more than one error. They are distracted from the ongoing work. Among other things, there were divers underwater and their life was in danger,” said Putin.
Thirty Arctic Sunrise activists including two journalists were detained after they scaled the Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the Pechora Sea in September in order to stop its operations. Twenty nine of them have been released on bail, however they face jail terms of up to seven years if found guilty of hooliganism and cannot leave Russia till the court proceedings are over.
The detention of the Arctic Thirty has sparked sharp criticism from the group’s supporters and human rights organizations.
Crewmembers of Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship, arrested in September during an oil rig protest in the Barents Sea, will be transferred from a pre-trial detention center in Russia’s Murmansk to St. Petersburg, Greenpeace says.
The lawyer for Greenpeace Russia, Khalimat Tekeyeva, told the Interfax agency that they are not aware of the reasons for the decision to relocate the arrested activists.
All the 30 crewmembers of the Arctic Sea were arrested on September 18, after they staged a protest action at Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya oil platform. All of them – from 18 different countries – have been placed in pre-trial detention in the city of Murmansk, northern Russia, till November 24.
Initially, the activists were held on piracy charges, which meant they could face up to 15 years in jail. However, last week Russian investigators softened the charges to hooliganism – a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 7 years.
I don’t blog. I work all the time, weaving together components of strategy for the people on the frontlines of Alaska who are facing down Big Oil and Mining Companies, and addressing Climate Change. I am also a full time mother, so I rarely have that extra moment to blog. But today I made time, so here it is.
So Shell Oil and the Arctic, hmmm well let’s start with what Shell does and is: This company operates around the world and their Industry standard is one of pressuring governments to allow exploration of oil and gas resources in a way that maximizes profits for them at the expense of the environment and human rights, in particular those of Indigenous peoples. Here in Alaska, We’ve seen nearly every large multi-national company come into our homelands. The problem with their presence here is that these big oil companies like Shell have a proven record of negligence and a legacy of pollution in Alaska. Shell itself is encumbered with their own appalling record of Indigenous rights violations, human rights abuses and a trail of broken promises within Indigenous territories in Canada, Nigeria, and Russia. Despite their own destructive record, they expect that Americans and the Inupiat among other Alaska Indigenous coastal tribes will trust them when it comes to offshore development of the Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas? The future of these Oceans and People are in their hands. A scary thought in itself.
First of all, the profit-at-all-cost mentality of corporations is the primary threat to Inupiat and the ecosystem that sustains their way of life. Indigenous peoples subsistence rights are intrinsic to the environment due to the intimate connection we have in relation to our physical nourishment, health, cultural practices, spirituality, and social systems. The reality is, the ecosystem, when left intact, is the greatest assurance that subsistence rights will remain intact. Therefore when there is discussion of ensuring subsistence rights in the terms of development it is an absolute contradiction.
This week members of the Native Village of Point Hope, Alaska and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) attended the Royal Dutch Shell AGM to confront the Chairman and Board over Shell’s decision to pursue highly risky ‘extreme energy’ projects without adequate consultation and accommodation of Indigenous communities. Projects such as Arctic offshore drilling and tar sands will have little long-term benefit for the company, and expose it to reputational damage, political and financial risk, including litigation.
Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL) sent Mae Hank, Inupiat from Point Hope Alaska to be our representative at the Shell AGM to address the Chairman, Board and Shareholders on behalf of her community. We wanted to show Shell that their risky Alaska offshore plans for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas impact Indigenous Peoples, the Inupiat of Alaska directly and all Indigenous coastal communities down the western coastline of Alaska indirectly. Sending Mae was a tactic to put a human face to their drilling projects. We felt that they needed a reality check, to be confronted with the human element, not just a financial statistic of their endeavours. They also need to realize that there is a large majority of Inupiat that oppose Shell’s offshore plans and they should not buy the company line “Inupiat support offshore development” Shell lies.
Shell must understand the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of the Arctic Ocean are critical to the Indigenous people of Alaska’s Arctic Slope, the Inupiat and their subsistence way of life, which is interdependent with the marine ecosystem of the Arctic Oceans. The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas provide critical habitat for the endangered bowhead whale, beluga whales, gray whales, walruses, seals and polar bears as well as staging and molting areas for migratory birds among them threatened spectacled and Steller’s eiders. The Inupiat call the ocean their garden. It provides for all their physical, spiritual, cultural and social needs. The relationship of the people to the ocean runs deep.
Since 2007, Royal Dutch Shell has been trying to rush through risky exploration drilling proposals for the Beaufort, and Chukchi seas of the Arctic Ocean in Alaska. Litigation, has helped slow this rush to drill there, along with several other events. This year on Feb. 27, 2013 Royal Dutch Shell announced that it has suspended plans for oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean for 2013 due to a year of mishaps. Crazy mishaps, almost like a running cartoon…Last summer a massive sheet of ice halted their drilling program, and their oil spill containment dome — to cap a blowout in an emergency in Arctic operations — failed miserably in tests. The dome “breached like a whale” after malfunctioning, and then sank 120 feet. When they recovered the 20-foot-tall containment dome, it had “crushed like a beer can” under pressure, this year the Kulluk drill rig ran aground on New Year’s Eve, and the Noble Discoverer drill ship is the subject of a criminal investigation over safety and pollution-related violations among other events. Umm yeah, they are “Arctic Ready” aha sure.
In spite of the inundation of substantial problems throughout and after the drilling season, Shell plans to continue it’s efforts for exploratory drilling in 2014 in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The massive drilling plans project an estimated 174 exploratory and extraction wells within critical habitats of culturally sensitive marine mammals. Shell Oil and associated agencies lack huge gaps of information of the harsh conditions, current and tidal systems, ever changing and unpredictable ice, and dangers of the Arctic Ocean; in turn, which could potentially lead to a very large oil spill. An oil spill in the remote Arctic ecosystem would be devastating – currently, there is no effective way to clean up an oil spill in Arctic conditions, and there is a lack of infrastructure in the region to support an adequately safe drilling or cleanup program.
The company has spent $ 4.5bn securing permits to drill in Arctic waters, however they have been proven incapable of operating here. Shell’s experiences should serve as a reality check as decisions are made about whether to authorize these activities in the future. This is why we sent Mae Hank to the Shell AGM, to assert that Shell should not move forward with Arctic Drilling! After the Shell AGM, Mae spoke eloquently about the experience:
“Shell has stated that despite their current ‘pause’ in their Arctic offshore Alaska activities, the company is committed to drill there again in the future,” she said. “As an Inupiat Mother and Grandmother, I strongly oppose this plan, as do a majority of Inupiat. There is still no viable spill plan in place not only for cleaning up spills but how the company will compensate our community for the loss of food and food security. I asked the Chairman and the Board to explain how they would compensate our community’s food security and needs when the next major oil spill disaster happens. The Chairman and the board simply danced around the question and did nothing to quell my concerns.”
In this author’s humble opinion, when it comes to offshore drilling in Alaska the risks outweigh the benefits in this case, and there is absolutely no way that shell can operate safely in the Arctic environment under the cover of darkness, severe cold weather, perilous storms and broken ice conditions. When we take a look at the ridiculous mishaps that occurred with their Arctic Activity last year, this is very clear. To date there is still no viable spill plan in place. If drilling offshore in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas resumes we could be left with another spill like the deepwater horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the destruction of one of our planet’s most vital ecosystems.
I don’t blog. I work all the time, weaving together components of strategy for the people on the frontlines of Alaska who are facing down Big Oil and Mining Companies, and addressing Climate Change. I am also a full time mother, so I rarely have that extra moment to blog. But today I made time, so here it is.
So Shell Oil and the Arctic, hmmm well let’s start with what Shell does and is: This company operates around the world and their Industry standard is one of pressuring governments to allow exploration of oil and gas resources in a way that maximizes profits for them at the expense of the environment and human rights, in particular those of Indigenous peoples. Here in Alaska, We’ve seen nearly every large multi-national company come into our homelands. The problem with their presence here is that these big oil companies like Shell have a proven record of negligence and a legacy of pollution in Alaska. Shell itself is encumbered with their own appalling record of Indigenous rights violations, human rights abuses and a trail of broken promises within Indigenous territories in Canada, Nigeria, and Russia. Despite their own destructive record, they expect that Americans and the Inupiat among other Alaska Indigenous coastal tribes will trust them when it comes to offshore development of the Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas? The future of these Oceans and People are in their hands. A scary thought in itself.
First of all, the profit-at-all-cost mentality of corporations is the primary threat to Inupiat and the ecosystem that sustains their way of life. Indigenous peoples subsistence rights are intrinsic to the environment due to the intimate connection we have in relation to our physical nourishment, health, cultural practices, spirituality, and social systems. The reality is, the ecosystem, when left intact, is the greatest assurance that subsistence rights will remain intact. Therefore when there is discussion of ensuring subsistence rights in the terms of development it is an absolute contradiction.
This week members of the Native Village of Point Hope, Alaska and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) attended the Royal Dutch Shell AGM to confront the Chairman and Board over Shell’s decision to pursue highly risky ‘extreme energy’ projects without adequate consultation and accommodation of Indigenous communities. Projects such as Arctic offshore drilling and tar sands will have little long-term benefit for the company, and expose it to reputational damage, political and financial risk, including litigation.
Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL) sent Mae Hank, Inupiat from Point Hope Alaska to be our representative at the Shell AGM to address the Chairman, Board and Shareholders on behalf of her community. We wanted to show Shell that their risky Alaska offshore plans for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas impact Indigenous Peoples, the Inupiat of Alaska directly and all Indigenous coastal communities down the western coastline of Alaska indirectly. Sending Mae was a tactic to put a human face to their drilling projects. We felt that they needed a reality check, to be confronted with the human element, not just a financial statistic of their endeavours. They also need to realize that there is a large majority of Inupiat that oppose Shell’s offshore plans and they should not buy the company line “Inupiat support offshore development” Shell lies.
Shell must understand the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of the Arctic Ocean are critical to the Indigenous people of Alaska’s Arctic Slope, the Inupiat and their subsistence way of life, which is interdependent with the marine ecosystem of the Arctic Oceans. The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas provide critical habitat for the endangered bowhead whale, beluga whales, gray whales, walruses, seals and polar bears as well as staging and molting areas for migratory birds among them threatened spectacled and Steller’s eiders. The Inupiat call the ocean their garden. It provides for all their physical, spiritual, cultural and social needs. The relationship of the people to the ocean runs deep.
Since 2007, Royal Dutch Shell has been trying to rush through risky exploration drilling proposals for the Beaufort, and Chukchi seas of the Arctic Ocean in Alaska. Litigation, has helped slow this rush to drill there, along with several other events. This year on Feb. 27, 2013 Royal Dutch Shell announced that it has suspended plans for oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean for 2013 due to a year of mishaps. Crazy mishaps, almost like a running cartoon…Last summer a massive sheet of ice halted their drilling program, and their oil spill containment dome — to cap a blowout in an emergency in Arctic operations — failed miserably in tests. The dome “breached like a whale” after malfunctioning, and then sank 120 feet. When they recovered the 20-foot-tall containment dome, it had “crushed like a beer can” under pressure, this year the Kulluk drill rig ran aground on New Year’s Eve, and the Noble Discoverer drill ship is the subject of a criminal investigation over safety and pollution-related violations among other events. Umm yeah, they are “Arctic Ready” aha sure.
In spite of the inundation of substantial problems throughout and after the drilling season, Shell plans to continue it’s efforts for exploratory drilling in 2014 in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The massive drilling plans project an estimated 174 exploratory and extraction wells within critical habitats of culturally sensitive marine mammals. Shell Oil and associated agencies lack huge gaps of information of the harsh conditions, current and tidal systems, ever changing and unpredictable ice, and dangers of the Arctic Ocean; in turn, which could potentially lead to a very large oil spill. An oil spill in the remote Arctic ecosystem would be devastating – currently, there is no effective way to clean up an oil spill in Arctic conditions, and there is a lack of infrastructure in the region to support an adequately safe drilling or cleanup program.
The company has spent $ 4.5bn securing permits to drill in Arctic waters, however they have been proven incapable of operating here. Shell’s experiences should serve as a reality check as decisions are made about whether to authorize these activities in the future. This is why we sent Mae Hank to the Shell AGM, to assert that Shell should not move forward with Arctic Drilling! After the Shell AGM, Mae spoke eloquently about the experience:
“Shell has stated that despite their current ‘pause’ in their Arctic offshore Alaska activities, the company is committed to drill there again in the future,” she said. “As an Inupiat Mother and Grandmother, I strongly oppose this plan, as do a majority of Inupiat. There is still no viable spill plan in place not only for cleaning up spills but how the company will compensate our community for the loss of food and food security. I asked the Chairman and the Board to explain how they would compensate our community’s food security and needs when the next major oil spill disaster happens. The Chairman and the board simply danced around the question and did nothing to quell my concerns.”
In this author’s humble opinion, when it comes to offshore drilling in Alaska the risks outweigh the benefits in this case, and there is absolutely no way that shell can operate safely in the Arctic environment under the cover of darkness, severe cold weather, perilous storms and broken ice conditions. When we take a look at the ridiculous mishaps that occurred with their Arctic Activity last year, this is very clear. To date there is still no viable spill plan in place. If drilling offshore in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas resumes we could be left with another spill like the deepwater horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the destruction of one of our planet’s most vital ecosystems.
