Arctic Sea Ice Rapidly Disappears

The Northwest Passage is finally open. Give thanks to the massive loss of arctic ice over the last few years. Whether you believe global climate change is the result of human influence or not, this graphic from the NYT Science section should give pause.

It's a map of the world looking straight down on the North Pole. It's interactive so you can see the loss of Arctic sea ice since 2003 (slider in upper right corner). The loss of sea ice is really startling. The loss of "perennial sea ice" is even more unnerving. Perennial sea ice is ice that has always been present since satellite observation of the Arctic started in 1979. One million square millions of normally ice covered ocean has been exposed. That's the size of six Californias.

Some that have previously argued that the loss of ice is not due to human influence are now beginning to wonder:

Some scientists who have long doubted that a human influence could be clearly discerned in the Arctic’s changing climate now agree that the trend is hard to ascribe to anything else.

“We used to argue that a lot of the variability up to the late 1990s was induced by changes in the winds, natural changes not obviously related to global warming,” said John Michael Wallace, a scientist at the University of Washington. “But changes in the last few years make you have to question that. I’m much more open to the idea that we might have passed a point where it’s becoming essentially irreversible.”

It will be interesting to sea how much ice is formed during the coming Arctic winter.