Rare dual polar ice minimum stuns scientists

Where's the ice?

That's what many wide eyed climate scientists are asking these days as they study some highly unusual ice patterns at the poles.

We've talked a lot in this space about the unusual to unprecedented warmth in the Arctic where temps have run anywhere from 10 to as much as 36 degrees above normal.

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NOAA

The result? Record low Arctic Sea ice in October and November.

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NOAA's National Snow and Ice Data Center elaborates.

Average Arctic sea ice extent for November set a record low, reflecting unusually high air temperatures, winds from the south, and a warm ocean. Since October, Arctic ice extent has been more than two standard deviations lower than the long-term average. Antarctic sea ice extent quickly declined in November, also setting a record low for the month and tracking more than two standard deviations below average during the entire month. For the globe as a whole, sea ice cover was exceptionally low.

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Arctic sea ice near Ellsmere Island in Canada. Image: Michael D. Lemonick

Antarctic too

At the other end of the earth, Antarctic Sea ice also shows a rapid and steep decline.

The combined figures for total global sea ice are at new record lows.

Triple whammy?

So what's going on here to cause the dueling polar ice disappearing act?

Here's some perspective from NOAA ice experts via the piece from Oliver Milman at the Guardian.

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“It looks like a triple whammy – a warm ocean, a warm atmosphere, and a wind pattern all working against the ice in the Arctic,” said NSIDC director Mark Serreze.

In Antarctica, the average extent of sea ice in November was 14.54m sq km (5.61m sq miles), which is 1.81m sq km (699,000 sq miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average. This more than doubles the previous record low for the month of November.

Ted Scambos, the lead scientist at NSIDC, said: “Antarctic sea ice really went down the rabbit hole this time.” His colleague Walt Meier, who also works at Nasa, added: “The Arctic has typically been where the most interest lies, but this month, the Antarctic has flipped the script and it is southern sea ice that is surprising us.”

The Washington Post's Chris Mooney further elaborates.

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In the Arctic, the explanation is simpler — temperatures have just been extremely warm, so the ice hasn’t been able to refreeze, heading into winter, in the way that it normally would. In fact, there was even a super anomalous period during the month when it actually shrank, “an almost unprecedented occurrence for November over the period of satellite observations,” says the center.

“Air temperatures at the 925 hPa level (about 2,500 feet above sea level) were above the 1981 to 2010 average over the entire Arctic Ocean and, locally up to 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) above average near the North Pole,” notes the group. And that’s for the entire month of November.

In contrast, Antarctica’s behavior is more mysterious. Warmer than average air temperatures were again part of the story — though not as dramatically as in the Arctic. But what seems to also have been dramatic is shifting wind patterns around Antarctica, which created areas with little ice.

It will take some time to determine if this unprecedented ice loss at both poles is a blip, or the start of a bigger trend. Stay tuned.