Humor4u

Record low Arctic sea ice extent for the time of year Arctic sea ice minimum extent typically occurs about half September. In 2012, minimum extent was reached on September 17, 2012, when extent was 3.387 million km². On July 28, 2019, Arctic sea ice extent was 6.576 million km². How much extent do you think there will be by September 17, 2019? From July 28, 2019, to September 17, 2019, that's a period of 52 days during which a lot of melting can occur. Could there be a Blue Ocean Event in 2019, with virtually all sea ice disappearing in the Arctic? Consider this. Extent was 6.926 million km² on September 17, 1989. Extent was 3.387 million km² on September 17, 2012, so 3.539 million km² had disappeared in 23 years. Over those years, more ice extent disappeared than what was left on September 17, 2012. The question is how much sea ice extent will be left when it will reach its minimum this year, i.e. in September 2019. The red dashed line on the image at the top continues the path of...

Smoke covers much of Siberia, as shown by the NASA Worldview image dated July 25, 2019. The enormous intensity of the fires is illustrated by the image below, showing carbon monoxide (CO) levels as high as 80,665 ppb on July 25, 2019. The image below shows that, at that same spot on July 25, 2019, carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels were as high as 1205 ppm. The image below shows that aerosols from biomass burning were at the top end of the scale. When soot from fires settles on snow and ice, it darkens the surface, resulting in more sunlight getting absorbed (instead of reflected back into space, as was previously the case), thus further speeding up the melting. The loss of sea ice north of Greenland is particularly worrying, since this is the area where once the thickest sea ice was present. The image below shows the situation on July 24, 2019. The image below shows the sea ice disappearing north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island on July 25, 2019. The huge recent fall in sea ice volume is il...