Sea Ice Outline

Water from the falling ice fall into the ocean 10. In recent years humans have alerted 11. Climate change is different than daily weather

Climate change will cause the air in the arctic to get warmer which melts the permafrost in the ground. The Sea ice will melt due to higher temperatures of the air and ocean, ending in rising sea levels and the melting of glaciers. You might think we have lots of time before this happens but in reality each year we lose about twice the size

As important as it is, Arctic coastal sea ice plays a vital role in dynamics of the coastline, covers stretches of open water which serve as important biological habitats, and serves as a platform for a broad range of activities by residents and industries (Druckenmiller et al., 2009). Sea ice is also important because it is used as a platform for harvesting seals and whales in spring, transport of personnel and supplies to camps, and as a network of trails (Druckenmiller et al., 2009). Dangerous effects of climate change include “ice breakouts” which are when large chunks of ice that whalers are using as working areas break off of the main ice blocks and take whaling camps out to sea (Druckenmiller et al.,

Have you ever wanted to spend months in temperatures that regularly are -30°? Many people cannot stand cold temperatures such as 32° even just for the couple minutes it takes while they are walking from their car to the store. In the story “Extreme Research Shows How Arctic Ice Is Dwindling” by Andy Isaacson he discusses how the arctic ice is dwindling, what will happen as a result of that and then finally about his trip where he was able to observe it all firsthand. The sea of ice is unlike how most people would imagine it to be as depicted on maps, instead it is not all connected but rather it is many different pieces all just floating near one another.

the oceans are also affected by the climate change because the climate change affects the sea animals that live on corals or any fish that feed off the

For many years now, scientists have believed that our climate is changing. This climate change has caused water currents up north, near Antarctica to shift leading to warm waters taking the place of the usual cold arctic waters. Warm water melts the glaciers and causes the top of the glaciers to float off into the sea, allowing the warm water to melt even more glaciers. The extra glacier melting into our sea has caused the sea levels to raise and the

As a result, we’re seeing more dramatic weather patterns across the globe. 
The effects of Earth’s changing weather not only cause devastating natural disasters but shrinking of the world’s ice shelves and glaciers due to warming sea water. Because ice acts as a solar reflector, the less ice there is the less heat the Earth reflects.

Sunlight provides energy as we all know to help out organisms. It is also important to the organisms that undertake photosynthesis. Some you may not think about is ice and how it is a major abiotic factor to the arctic ocean. Without ice many organisms, for example polar bears would be left without a place to live in the arctic. Organisms like seals for instance would be left without a safe spot from its predators. In the arctic ocean, the circulation of its depth is different compared to the circulation on the surface. All the water is coming from the north Atlantic rarely comes back because it cannot escape the current. Atlantic waters that dive down to the extensive boreal basin always show temperature readings above zero degrees Celsius and salinity higher than thirty-five percent. Currents help organisms survive, that is why it is such an important

One is that sea water is much darker than sea ice. Water absorbs heat rather than reflecting it back into space as does ice. That melts more ice, which leaves more seawater exposed, which melts more ice. And so on. In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice in the Arctic Ocean has fallen by one-half. This helps explain why the Arctic is warming so much faster than the rest of the planet. The surface temperature of Arctic seas in August 2016 was 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) above the August average for

As Earth’s surface temperature rises, the ocean also becomes hotter which results in an increase in sea level and decrease in Earth’s ice. “The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969” (“Climate Change: How Do We Know?”). Since greenhouse gases are trapping energy from the sun, the oceans absorb more heat which ultimately increases surface temperature. Oceans are able to absorb large amounts of heat energy because water has a greater heat capacity than air. As oceans become warmer, the frozen water on Earth melts at an accelerated pace. The thickness of Arctic Sea ice has dramatically declined throughout the last several decades. “Arctic sea ice

In order to provide context for the recent decline of ice in the sea, it is imperative to understand how the sea ice has varied over the past two centuries. Of particular interest, the period around 1920-1940 showed an “increase in almost twice the global average rate in past 100 years. [ ]” The warming during this time can be used to compare the decline of sea ice observed since 1979, but what will also be discussed is how this time period was also quite controversial due to its substantial variance between the official views and views held by other people. The reliability of the sea ice observations during the first half of the 20th century according to some people cannot provide certainty to estimating

Sea ice has significant importance in the northern Arctic. The sea ice is extremely vital for the marine animals that live in this ecosystem. In particular the sea ice allows them to hunt, mate, and travel. The sea ice allows animals such as polar bears to hunt and search for their prey that lives underwater. It helps females and males find mates to grow their population, and lastly the sea ice allows for polar bears to travel from different locations. Another reason for the importance of sea ice is that it helps keep our planet cool particularly through the albedo effect (Kaitlin, 2016). Potential consequences of the melting of the sea ice could have devastating effects of marine animals in the north, and also for our entire planet because

Albedo always has a reflection coefficient ( the amount of electromagnetic wave reflected) of less than 1, that goes from 0 (no reflection) to 1 (perfect reflection) (Coakley, 2003). Factors that go into the amount of albedo is the angle the light and the wavelength of the light shone on the ice. The absorption of solar energy causes surface temperatures to increase, evaporating water and melting ice and snow (Coakley, 2003). Hence making albedo one of the leading causes of climate change. Sea ice is classified in many ways. There are many variations of sea ice that differ from ice thickness to growth rate and to age of the ice (Light et al., 2003). Sea ice that has no more than one year of growth from fall to winter are considered first-year sea ice (FYI), also known as young ice. Multi-year sea ice (MYI), also known as old ice, is ice that has survived more than one summer melt. It is also much thicker than first year ice, but throughout the years there has been an increase in first-year sea ice and a decrease in multi-year sea

As ocean temperatures increase due to global warming they increase ice melt of these ice sheets and glaciers by melting the floating ice from below. If the air temperatures increase then the ice will begin to melt from above, creating pools of melted water that will in turn melt more of the surrounding ice. This may not always result in a problem as it’s expected that ice sheets reduce in size in the summer months but recently what has been found is that less ice is formed during winter so in total the ice sheets and glaciers are being reduced in size, adding more and more fresh water to our

One of the effects of global warming is the polar ice caps’ melting. Scientists have been researching and examining the polar ice caps for a long time and they have come to the conclusion that the thin ice sheets are slowly wasting away. They have also found out that Greenland’s glaciers are getting smaller and smaller. Places around the globe that use to be covered in ice and snow are now showing more green terrain as the years go on and as the winter months grow warmer. The polar ice caps are melting more and more due to higher global temperatures. This is really bad because the ice caps “reflect and help regulate the Earth’s temperatures.”