Questions tagged [arctic]

For questions pertaining to land and waters above 60 degrees North.

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3 votes
1 answer
54 views

Does Arctic sea ice form a continuous flat sheet in winter between Russia and Canada, or are there gaps of water?

In the footage of Arctic sea ice in the spring or summer you can see gaps of water, lines of water between ice sheets, or kind of lakes of water mixed with icebergs. Even as far north as the North ...
3 votes
1 answer
70 views

Is or was there oil on Sakhalin?

There are certainly oilfields under the sea floor off the coast of Sakhalin, that are being actively exploited. This map shows their locations: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Sakhalin-...
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3 votes
1 answer
64 views

Change in thermohaline circulation due to climate change

The melting of the North Polar ice masses removes a driving factor from the thermohaline circulation, known as the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic. I wonder how much the thermohaline circulation has ...
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9 votes
4 answers
141 views

Why does the Arctic warm so fast despite being so white?

It may be a silly question but why does the Arctic warm so fast despite being so white ("albedo" is the word, I believe)? Isn't all that whiteness supposed to deflect all those pesky sun ...
1 vote
0 answers
104 views

How serious is the issue of vast quantities of methane release from an ice-free Arctic?

A bunch of climate scientists claim that humans will go extinct by 2026, when humanity crosses the major tipping point known as "Arctic Blue Ocean Event (BOE)". According to the climate ...
5 votes
0 answers
85 views

Dynamic of glacier retreat? (here: in Greenland)

During the last years I have taken many pictures of obviously retreating glaciers and empty moraines in Greenland - just like this one. Looks devastating, actually. In my understanding, the current ...
0 votes
0 answers
40 views

Are events like the Siberian heat wave factored into models of sea ice decline?

I've been looking at a lot of charts of Arctic Sea Ice lately, wondering when it will be gone, and whether the more extreme predictions are credible. When scientists come up with a chart that points ...
0 votes
1 answer
92 views

Is Alert (in Canada) a harbor/port? [closed]

Alert, in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, is northernmost permanently inhabited place in world. The site was first visited by Sir George Nares, who commanded HMS Alert in 1875-76, the first ...
27 votes
3 answers
10k views

Antarctic and arctic meltwater is "bad" because it's dark, but why is transparent liquid on white stuff so dark?

The Washington Post's Antarctic heat wave melted 20 percent of an island’s snow cover in days, caused melt ponds to proliferate includes the figure below of meltwater ponds on top of snow/ice. The ...
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5 votes
2 answers
264 views

Is the Arctic sea ice disappearing in a linear or non-linear way?

I'd like help to understand these charts. They are charts of Sea Ice Volume. One is drawn with linear decline, the other has all sorts of curves fitted onto it. Why do we have these different line ...
5 votes
1 answer
201 views

What is the chasm in the Arctic on Google satellite map?

In the image below, taken from Google Maps satellite view, between Svalbard and Greenland there is what looks like a massive crevasse, chasm, crack, &c. What is it? Should I be worried?
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1 vote
0 answers
28 views

less albedo feedback under high (BAU) emissions?

i've recently read Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09863-x the study estimates the ...
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4 votes
1 answer
62 views

Is the Arctic already ice-free during summer?

Not an expert in this field but I'm just curious as to how accurate the Google Map is here Also, from the interview with scientist Peter Wadhams, his estimate seems to be spot-on. I still remember, ...
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6 votes
2 answers
366 views

What is the relevance of Arctic coastal erosion to the Earth's climate?

Due to global warming and Arctic amplification, Northern Hemispheric permafrost is thawing and becoming a source of carbon and many greenhouse gases, which then positively feedback to global warming ...
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3 votes
1 answer
93 views

Simple way to understand these narrow frequency peaks in recently published "ice shelf singing"?

The Earther.Gizmodo.com article Scientists Discover a Weird Noise Coming From Antarctic Ice Shelf links to the American Geophysical Union video (an more importantly audio) (AGU) This is what an ...
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9 votes
1 answer
124 views

How much of arctic ice is from snow fall versus frozen sea water?

How much of arctic ice is from snow fall versus frozen sea water? I presume arctic ice comes from both sources. Is there a way to tell how the ice was formed? In other words, if you made a core ...
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8 votes
1 answer
147 views

Is the Arctic ice dissapearing faster than IPCC models say?

Are observations of Arctic sea ice in accord with what the IPCC forecasts says they should be? And as such is the ice reducing in an exponential or linear way? For instance, from https://www....
10 votes
2 answers
1k views

Can the Bering Sea Rule be used to predict the weather?

Recently, a colleague explained that the recent cold spell in the eastern United States could have been predicted using the Bering Sea Rule. The idea is that 17-21 days after a storm appears in the ...
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9 votes
2 answers
1k views

Will global warming lead to agriculture in the Arctic?

From what I understand, global warming will make growing food a lot harder in areas like the American Midwest because temperatures will become too high for most crops. At the same time, Arctic (and ...
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3 votes
2 answers
187 views

Implications of recent 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20C) anomaly at North Pole?

This extreme difference from normal -- could it occur in climates that are warmer, making some places unlivable? Additionally, is there a reason why extremely cold places should expect to have ...
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5 votes
0 answers
474 views

Does the Labrador current affect North Atlantic climate?

This summer has seen very low sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic. Using animations of these over the last year I feel the runoff of freshwater from Hudson Bay, into the Labrador ...
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6 votes
1 answer
89 views

Observations of sea ice typology in the Arctic

What are the main datasets characterizing sea ice typology, thickness, density, "passability", presence of pressure ridges in the Arctic? Is it something that can be detected from the air or a space ...
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5 votes
0 answers
58 views

Weekly atmospheric or oceanic oscillation within Arctic region

I'm in the middle of writing my Master's thesis. I've analyzed Ocean Bottom Pressure (OBP) signals derived from observations by the GRACE satellites.These observations are able to reproduce sub-...
2 votes
0 answers
34 views

What are the impacts of pollutants from North America and elsewhere on Arctic wildlife?

What are the impacts of pollutants from North America and elsewhere on Arctic wildlife?
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7 votes
1 answer
225 views

What is the mechanism for deep-sea volcanism of the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic?

Related to an earlier question, What is the geochemical source for the helium detected in deep Arctic explosive eruptions?, where it is stated in the linked article that there is evidence of explosive ...
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11 votes
1 answer
129 views

Why is there a bend in the Lomonosov Ridge?

Why is there a bend in the Lomonosov Ridge? This is a supplementary question to that asked by Sabre Tooth in What is the tectonic explanation for parallel ridges in the Arctic ocean
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5 votes
1 answer
518 views

What is the tectonic explanation for parallel ridges in the Arctic Ocean?

Looking at a map of the underwater features of the Arctic Ocean reveals three roughly parallel ridges, separated by basins (see image below): Image source The three ridges, as labelled are the Alpha ...
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7 votes
1 answer
111 views

What is the geochemical source for the helium detected in deep Arctic explosive eruptions?

Recently, there has been explosive deep-ocean volcanism detected along the slowly-spreading Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean (see map below), according the National Geographic news article Arctic ...
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