Cool Geo-Pic: "Net-net" Global Sea Ice is Shrinking

Today's cool geo-pic is again from NASA's Earth Observatory. It provides a "net-net" comparison of polar ice loss, and comes to the conclusion that global sea ice is still shrinking.

"Cut & Paste" Highlights:
"....Examining 35 years of sea ice data, Parkinson has shown that increases around Antarctica do not make up for the accelerated Arctic sea ice loss of the last decades. Earth has been shedding sea ice at an average annual rate of 35,000 square kilometers (13,500 square miles) since 1979—the equivalent of losing an area of sea ice larger than the state of Maryland every year...."

.... “Even though Antarctic sea ice reached a new record maximum in September 2014, global sea ice is still decreasing,” said Parkinson, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “That’s because the decreases in Arctic sea ice far exceed the increases in Antarctic sea ice.....”

".....The line graphs above plot the monthly deviations and overall trends in polar sea ice from 1979 to 2013 as measured by satellites. The top line shows the Arctic, the middle shows Antarctica, and the third line shows the global, combined total. The sparklines at the bottom of the graphs show each year separately, enabling month-to-month comparisons across each year. The thickness of each sparkline indicates the overall growth or loss in sea ice globally. The thinning of the sparklines is indicative of the downward trend in total polar sea ice......"

Full Article:  Despite Antarctic Gains, Global Sea Ice Is Shrinking February 11, 2015
 Click Here

References:

• Parkinson, C.L. (2014) Global Sea Ice Coverage from Satellite Data: Annual Cycle and 35-Yr Trends. Journal of Climate, 27, 9377–9382.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2014, September 24) A Tale of Two Poles.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2014) Antarctic Sea Ice.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2014) Arctic Sea Ice.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2009, April 20) Sea Ice.

Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens. Caption by Maria-Jose Viñas and Mike Carlowicz.

Instrument(s): DMSP - SSM/I

Mapping Ice - Arctic and Antarctic Ice Depths

Recently the European Space Agency posted imagery of sea-ice thickness from ESA’s CryoSat mission to both poles of the earth. Here is a link to a nice time series image of ice loss over three decades: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cryosat/SEMQK4908BE_1.html 

From their site:
" ...CryoSat measures the height of the sea ice above the water line, known as the freeboard, to calculate the thickness. The measurements used to generate this first map of the Arctic were from January and February 2011, as the ice approaches its annual maximum.."

"... For the first time, data from ESA’s CryoSat mission have been used

to map the height of the ice sheet that blankets Antarctica. The preliminary data used here are from February and March 2011... CryoSat's ability to map the edges of the ice sheet is demonstrated by the detail that can be seen of the flow from east Antarctica onto the Ronne-Filchner ice shelf in the west. ... [t]he outer white circle represents the limits of earlier missions and the inner circle shows that CryoSat is collecting data up 88° latitude..."

Full credit to the Map Room for bringing this to my attention.

Cool Geo-Pic: Antarctic Ozone Hole 2009

This Cool Geo-Pic comes again from NASA's Earth Observatory. The news of ozone decade is cautiously optimitistic as the rate of decay seems to be "holding" for now ....

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:

" ... The annual ozone hole started developing over the South Pole in late August 2009, and by September 10, it appeared that the ozone hole of 2009 would be comparable to ozone depletions over the past decade. This composite image from September 10 depicts ozone concentrations in Dobson units, with purple and blues depicting severe deficits of ozone. The image was made from data collected by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument onboard NASA’s Aura satellite...."


"...Recent observations and several studies have shown that the size of the annual ozone hole has stabilized and the level of ozone-depleting substances has decreased by 4 percent since 2001. But since chlorine and bromine compounds have long lifetimes in the atmosphere, a recovery of atmospheric ozone is not likely to be noticeable until 2020 or later.

Visit NASA’s Ozone Watch page for current imagery, data, and animations of the year to date..."

Full Article - Click Here


References / Credits:

Antarctic Ozone Hole: 1979 to 2008
Climate Change and Atmospheric Circulation Will Make for Uneven Ozone Recovery
New Simulation Shows Consequences of a World Without Earth's Natural Sunscreen
Ozone Day 2009
What’s Holding Antarctic Sea Ice Back From Melting?
NASA image courtesy Ozone Watch. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.
Instrument:
Aura - OMI

Cool Geo-Pic: Antarctic Warming Trends

This Cool Geo-Pic comes again from NASA's Earth Observatory. The image is significant because of the data behind its display - the temperature changes are based on nearly a half century of temperature collections (1957-2006). Five decades of data has allot of relevance.

download large image (2 MB, JPEG) acquired 1957 - 2006

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:

" ... For a long time, it seemed that Antarctica was immune to global warming. Most of the icy southern continent, where temperatures can plummet to minus 80 degrees Celsius (-112 degrees Fahrenheit), seemed to be holding steady or even cooling as the rest of the planet warmed. But a new analysis of satellite and weather station data has shown that Antarctica has warmed at a rate of about 0.12 degrees Celsius (0.22 degrees F) per decade since 1957, for a total average temperature rise of 0.5 degrees Celsius (1 degree F)...."

Full Article - Click Here

References / Credits:

Hansen, K. (2009, January 22). Satellites confirm half-century of West Antarctic warming. NASA. Accessed January 22, 2009.
Steig, E., Schneider, D., Rutherford, S., Mann, M., Comiso, J., and Shindell, D. (2009, January 22). Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year. Nature, 457, 459-463. doi:10.1038/nature07669.
Steig, E. (2009, January 21). State of Antarctica: red or blue? RealClimate. Accessed January 22, 2009.
Image courtesy Trent Schindler, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
Instrument:
NOAA-15 POES - AVHRR