Polar Melting

Mass Die-Off of Puffins Raises More Fears About Arctic's Warming Climate

Inside Climate News 06/01/2019

The people of St. Paul Island, an Aleut community in the Bering Sea, are accustomed to seeing a lot of birds—millions stop there during their annual migrations. But they're not used to seeing them like this. What was happening in October 2016 was the beginning of a mass die-off. Thousands of tufted puffins were dying for no apparent reason, except for maybe one: changes in the ecosystem due to climate change.

‘Extraordinary thinning’ of ice sheets revealed deep inside Antarctica

The Guardian Thinning Ice Sheets 5/16/2019

The warming of the Southern Ocean is resulting in glaciers sliding into the sea increasingly rapidly, with ice now being lost five times faster than in the 1990s. The West Antarctic ice sheet was stable in 1992 but up to a quarter of its expanse is now thinning. More than 100 metres of ice thickness has been lost in the worst-hit places.

Daily Kos Greenland Heat Dome

Daily Kos Greenland Heat Dome 4/29/2019

Greenland’s Snow and Ice started melting in early April this year, weeks earlier than normal. Unprecedented early surface melting is well underway on the southeastern coastline now.

‘Archived’ heat has reached deep into the Arctic interior, researchers say

Yale News-Archived Heat in the Arctic

Arctic sea ice isn’t just threatened by the melting of ice around its edges, a new study has found: Warmer water that originated hundreds of miles away has penetrated deep into the interior of the Arctic.
That “archived” heat, currently trapped below the surface, has the potential to melt the region’s entire sea-ice pack if it reaches the surface, researchers say.

Scientists are keeping a close eye on the Beaufort Gyre

PRI- Beaufort Gyre

The Beaufort Gyre, an immense 60-mile-diameter pool of cold freshwater and sea ice, is “stuck” in a clockwise rotation that should have ended years ago. Its eventual reversal could send massive amounts of chilly water straight toward western Europe, plunging it into brutal winters and disrupting fisheries.

Warming of the interior Arctic Ocean linked to sea ice losses at the basin margins

Science Advances- Warming of the interior Arctic Ocean linked to sea ice losses at the basin margins

Arctic Ocean measurements reveal a near doubling of ocean heat content relative to the freezing temperature in the Beaufort Gyre halocline over the past three decades (1987–2017). This warming is linked to anomalous solar heating of surface waters in the northern Chukchi Sea, a main entryway for halocline waters to join the interior Beaufort Gyre. 

If We Lose the Ice we Lose the Entire Ecosystem

Paul Nicklen- If we lose the ice we lose the ecosystem 8/18

The photographer has been documenting life at the poles for years. He is determined to safeguard these fragile habitats

'We've never seen this': Massive Canadian Glaciers Shrinking Rapidly

The Guardian- Glacier Shrinkage-10/30/2018

Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.