sea ice

During the course of a freezing season, sea ice may form at the surface up to thickness of 2 meters at the high latitudes.

A stranded female polar bear and mother of two cubs waits for the sea ice to return to be able to hunt.

It said the Arctic Sea ice dropped to its second-lowest level during the melt season since satellite measurements began in 1979.

Antarctic sea ice, for instance, does not seem to be shrinking, probably because increased melting is balanced by more snow.

Along the left edge of the image, the sea ice is thinner, with gaps that reveal the dark ocean below.

There is no doubt that the ice formed on land, freshwater, but interestingly, the sea ice is frozen water.

A couple of years ago, the sea ice did not form at all until December and was gone again in March.

He said the animals only started appearing on shore for extended periods in the late 1990s, after the sea ice receded.

This time of year, they should be foraging from the sea ice floating over the productive waters of the continental shelf.

The sea ice estimates from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, NASA's archive for sea ice data, assume that this hole is ice-filled.

Measurements from ice buoys show that indeed melting at the bottom of the sea ice has increased significantly in recent years.

As this boat will navigate the Polar Regions, it was necessary to have motors to travel through the sea ice.

Climate change is now opening up the Arctic for potential oil and gas exploration as the sea ice retreats.

As the researchers pointed out, because polar bears live primarily on sea ice, their remains often end up in the ocean.

The loss of Arctic sea ice helps accelerate the warming of the atmosphere in the far north, thanks to what's known as the albedo effect.

This paper introduces the Sea Ice Management System (SIMS) used for winter oil production for Bohai oilfield.

They usually live on sea ice and am one of the few members of my family able to spend long amounts of time in water.

Well, in the first few years of this decade there was some extraordinarily fast decline in Arctic sea ice.

"June is going to be a new record low (for sea ice extent), " said Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

This difference allows the satellite to capture a year-round sea ice record, despite cloud cover and months of polar night.

A rainy summer might be one reason for an apparent lack of public attention with respect to the ongoing sea-ice loss.

The Arctic sea ice is shrinking so fast that within the next few decades, if not years, it could be completely gone in summertime.

Thorsten Markus: Sea ice is white and it reflects most of the sunlight back into space, in drastic contrast to the dark ocean.

Super high- resolution spy satellites have been imaging sea ice at the poles for the last decade on behalf of earth scientists.

Sea ice around the North Pole, for instance, could almost disappear in summer by the end of the century.

And for the last few decades, that snow kept surface waters from warming even more, added bulk to sea ice, and reflected sunlight.

The East Greenland Current flows southward from the Arctic along the island's eastern coast, carrying sea ice with it.

Partly it's the fact that some predicted changes, like a decline in Arctic Sea ice, are happening much faster than expected.

With the new info in hand, scientists should be able to build better models of smaller sea-ice features like melt ponds and ridges.

The presence of sea ice and of permafrost helps protect Arctic barrier islands for much of the year.

Scientists have already shown that the amount of sea ice in the Arctic is falling, and the latest data confirms the long-term trend.

"We only have 50 years of observations of the Arctic, " Miller said, referring primarily to satellite sea ice observations.

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this summer its sea ice is melting at a near-record pace.

Over the past two-and-a-half decades, the extent of sea ice at the end of summer (mid-September) has declined significantly.

If there were such a thing, now would not be a good time to buy shares in Arctic sea ice.

The sea ice minimum is usually in mid-September.

A scientist measures the length of a core sample taken from a floe of sea ice.

Sea ice extent - simply put, the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by sea ice varies every year, but trends can be established over time.

IT MAY come as a surprise to a walrus wondering where all the Arctic's summer sea ice has gone.

Without the sea ice habitat, the polar bear will not survive in the long term.

Similar changes to habitats are also threatening Arctic species like polar bears, as the sea ice they dwell on gradually melts away.

The bears couldn't make it to shore, as the sea ice was several hundred miles offshore when it ice broke up.

The sea ice around us is breaking up and the chances of finding a decent runway for the pick up planes was getting increasingly slim.

It said the melt strongly reinforces the 30-year downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent.

By the end of summer, the Arctic sea ice has retreated, leaving the walrus herd to search for a safe haven on land.

In 1883 he became the first to break through the great sea ice barrier of the southeastern Greenland coast.

Markus saw some of the sea ice images last December when the committee reviewed the scientific value of the spy satellite data.

The amplification of global warming in the Arctic has had significant impacts on this region, including melting of the Arctic sea ice.

Well, in the firstfew years of this decade, therewerewas someextraordinaryextraordinarily fast decline in Arctic sea ice.

She then spent three days on the ice, another day swimming, and a further 49 days on the sea ice before being found again.

The last two annual minimum sea-ice extents are the lowest since satellite records have begun.

An energy irony clouds the work of the powerful U. S. computers that have tracked the retreating Arctic sea ice.

The retreat of Arctic sea ice has opened new, shorter fuel-saving routes for shipping during the warmer months of the year.

The heat is not only melting glaciers and sea ice, it's also shifting precipitation patterns and setting animals on the move.

Weather patterns such as this simply cannot be understood well enough months in advance to help inform sea-ice predictions.

The proposal was triggered by rising temperatures in the Arctic that are reducing the sea ice polar bears need for hunting .

Now his sea ice is melting away too, leaving him little space for his own hunting, for seal.

Again, there was a near-record melting of Arctic sea ice and the UN has recorded more than 700 extreme-weather related disasters.

The data were automatically sent to a satellite when the narwhals surfaced for air between cracks in the sea ice.

Two of its three lasers, used to judge the sea ice height, have already failed and the third is on its last legs.

Walrus, ringed seals, and other animals living on the sea ice along the northern coasts, then become prey for polar bears.

These biases can be amplified through the interactions with the ocean and sea ice after coupling.

Ideally, sea ice volume - extent multiplied by thickness - is the best indicator of the health of the Arctic sea ice.

"This dependency on sea ice potentially makes polar bears one of the most at-risk large mammals to climate change, " says Mr Durner.

No undisputed that higher temperatures in the bear's Arctic habitat have disrupted the sea ice that bears use to catch food and breed.

Once that heat release has cooled the ocean to its freezing temperature, sea ice forms again.

Scientists expect that climate change will impact on the Antarctic marine ecosystem. A reduction in sea ice is one anticipated outcome.

Why has Arctic sea ice recovered partially in the last two years?

The ice temperature feedbacks have likely strengthened in the last decade or so due to the dramatic declines in sea ice.

The local wind field over the Chukchi Sea is also an important factor affecting the sea ice pattern variation.

The scientists say that as more sea ice melts, polar bears have to swim greater distances in search of food.

when the first mode of sea ice distribution in north Atlantic has the positive phase, the temperature anomaly keeps negative all over China.

But as the sea ice retreats sooner and returns later, the bears are facing prolonged fasts before the hunts start again.

The Arctic sea ice has retreated steadily for the past 10 years reaching record lows, or close to it, every year.

For scientists studying the health of Arctic sea ice, satellite observations are absolutely essential for providing the big picture.

Three British explorers are about to embark on a survey to map the Arctic Ocean's sea-ice cover.

The Arctic Ocean's sea ice is in a "death spiral" due to rising temperatures, scientists said in 2008.

In fact, the sea-ice extent for every month since June 2010 has been among the five lowest values ever recorded by satellites.

Four indicators were declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers, spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere and stratospheric temperatures.

Arctic sea ice extent during the 2008 melt season dropped to its second-lowest level since satellite measurements began in 1979.

The experiment result indicates that the proposed algorithm is effective in correcting SAR sea ice image's incidence angle bias field.

Summary: . Arctic air is warming twice as fast as the atmosphere and Arctic sea ice is melting year by year.

The disappearance of this summer sea ice pose significant dangers, scientists have warned.

By the time the Marsh joins the immense Nimrod Glacier, some 35 miles from our camp, the ice is on a rapid charge to the Ross Sea Ice Shelf.

The sea ice usually braced the shelves and without it, wind and waves more easily broke them apart, he explained.

The pair of images above shows Arctic sea ice concentrations for September 2010 (left) and March 2011.

The Atmospheric Response to Realistic Arctic Sea Ice Anomalies in an AGCM during Winter .

He says a warmer Arctic and thinner sea ice changes the balance between the normally cold Arctic and warmer areas.

The continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice is expected, with the Arctic region being particularly affected.

A warmer global climate would bring more precipitation, with more snow falling on the sea ice in winter.

The loss of Arctic sea ice due to global warming is widely recognised as the greatest threat to the polar bears' survival.

Permafrost in the Altai Mountains in central Asia, sea ice in Alaska and glaciers in the Rocky Mountains were studied for the research.

Krill populations are dwindling, especially on the Antarctic Peninsula, where warming temperatures mean less sea ice.

Like the hunters, the bears can't find seals when there is so little sea ice.

Antarctic ice microalgae refers to micro algae which lives in the Antarctic sea ice, the sea ice edge or water.

One of the scientists says the past six years have shown the lowest Arctic sea ice cover ever measured.

Sea ice covers the Arctic Sea, occupying 7% of the surface of the world's oceans.

sea ice covers the arctic sea , occupying 7 % of the surface of the world ' s oceans.

"I'm pretty sure that the low sea ice in the summer has triggered this migration through this area, " Dr Heide-Jorgensen told BBC News.

The invention realizes the repeatable observation of large-scale sea ice, and can measure the sea ice thickness accurately.

Pieces of glacier that break off become mixed with thin sea ice in a jumble of ice fragments on the fjord's surface.

I have swum in front of glaciers which have retreated so much. And I have also , every year, seen less and less sea ice .

The salinity in seawater will increase when the sea ice are exploited and desalinated extensively.

Scientists are working with the Greenpeace crew, researching the effects of climate change on fast depleting sea ice.

A third process by which salinity may be altered is associated with the formation and melting of sea ice.

Results from ICESat have shown that just since 2003, when ICESat was launched, the sea ice thickness has decreased by over two feet.

When sea ice melts, the newly exposed dark water absorbs radiation rather than reflecting it, as snow or ice would.

Much of this ice then survives the following summer, and sea-ice conditions can quickly return to those before the artificial perturbation.

The lack of polar sea ice cover, sea relatively warm air to cold air will move, affecting the polar atmospheric circulation.

Both are believed to have important roles in sea ice dynamics, but how important they are remains unclear.

If the sea ice goes completely, there will be no need for the dogs [huskies] and our culture will disappear.

One requirement for the success of this deal: a further retreat of Arctic sea ice.

East of that, sea ice spans the Bering Strait.

This meant that about 70 per cent of the sea ice present this spring was single-year ice formed over last winter.

It even helps to put this month's sea ice melting into perspective.

The WWF says that if current sea ice trends continue, two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be lost by the middle of the century.

Sea ice also increased the occurrence of oil spill of ice region. And ince oil spill prevention is much more difficult.

In the two years before my swim, 23 percent of the arctic sea ice cover just melted away.

"That's a dramatic change in one year, " Dr Meier said of this year's sea ice decrease.

Therefore, the difference of inclusions inside sea ice will result in different PAR, and impact the attenuation of PAR.

The smallest amount of space on land, sea, ice, and air that scientists can study is about the size of Virginia.

That oscillation caused a change in winds and ocean that accelerated a normal flushing of sea ice in the Arctic.

Thinner sea ice is also making it easier to drill for oil and gas in the region, a second factor which could improve its prospects.

In cold areas marine project, detecting of sea-ice condition is an important content.

This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.

Life in Color: Blue A polar bear leaps off of sea ice near Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic.

But in 2008, Arctic sea ice extent was the second-lowest on record, with losses particularly acute in the Beaufort Sea.

Satellite measurements of sea ice have only been available since 1979 when satellites were first commissioned for this purpose.

Photo 7 : Swarms of krill, a cornerstone of the entire Antarctic food chain, feed on phytoplankton that grows on the underside of sea ice.

Sea ice is an important element affecting heat circulation of the earth.

The storms are getting heavier as the sea ice retreats.

The rapid melting of sea ice is a main reason that animals in the polar regions are most affected by even slight warming.

It result in biggish movement of the spatiotemporal transformation of the Bo-hai sea ice.

The scientists say they recently found that older, thicker sea ice was increasingly replaced with new ice.

Marika Holland: If you lose sea ice it leads to more warming, which leads to more sea ice loss, which leads to more warming.

One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.

Arctic summer sea ice goes, allowing more shipping and mining, removing a landscape of which indigenous peoples were once an integral part.

By mid-century the Arctic Ocean may be briefly free of sea ice in September, a boon to shipping.

the Antarctic sea ice is still at its greatest extent.

He also argued that much remains unknown about the interaction between Arctic sea ice, sea level, and temperature rise.

Arctic sea ice, Greenland's ice sheet, and glaciers in the Alps and the Antarctic Peninsula are all melting faster.

Fischbach suspects that walrus moms have a harder time keeping track of their pups once the sea ice disappears.

And retreating Arctic sea ice provides even more visible data to support conclusions of warming.

The animals were forced to swim to shore after the Arctic Sea ice they usually live on disappeared from the Chukchi Sea.

Recent research reveals that the area covered by Arctic sea ice is rapidly receding.

Since accurate satellite measurements became available in 1979, the extent of summertime Arctic sea ice has shrunk by about one third.

The predicted year when summers in the Arctic would be free of sea ice has fallen from 2100 to 2050 to 2030 in a couple of years.

The research team blamed these changes on recent warming and anomalies in sea ice circulation.

" The vanishing of Arctic sea ice has direct connection with the fate of polar bears. " Said research team leader Steve Amstrup.

Arctic sea-ice cover reached its lowest ever recorded average level for the month of June.

As the climate is getting warmer their sea ice habitat is disappearing.

Various types of sea ice congregated along the east coast of Greenland in late March 2010.

Arctic sea ice, for instance, is clearly shrinking faster than the climate-change computers predicted.

That weather has also made it less likely that the upcoming 2010 sea ice minimum will set a new record.

Images showing the extent of sea ice have been available for decades.

It is late September in the High Arctic, the outside temperature is -3C and there is little hope of the sea ice forming any time soon.

The emperor penguin is the largest in the world and depends on sea ice for breeding and feeding.

Three are falling: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere.

Many hunters use more traditional methods in the spring, traveling across sea ice and paddling toward whales in sealskin boats.

Sea ice freezes and melts seasonally, but never had it ebbed to this small a patch.

The loss of thick ice has been implicated as a major cause of the very low September sea ice minima observed in recent years.

How will changes in glaciers, ice sheets, snow cover and sea ice affect the global Earth system?

The dwindling expanse of Arctic sea ice has become gradually more vulnerable to summer sunshine, according to a new study.

Chunks of sea ice float in the water between the smooth iceberg and the coast.

Sea-ice loss and rising seas are "overall a clear indication the planet is warming, " he added.

The invention further provides a sea ice thickness measuring method.

Closest to land, land-fast sea ice clings to the shore, impervious to ocean currents.

Ship dragging and ship icing are two of the common disasters of sea ice when the ships are at sea.

They are measuring the sea ice in the Greenland Sea, Fram Strait and Arctic Ocean.

Arctic sea ice is also disappearing, reducing the territory of the polar bear's seal prey.

White sea ice, by contrast, reflects sunlight, slowing warming.

For Arctic sea ice, the trend is clear, DeWeaver says - all models point to widespread reductions in sea ice in coming decades.

One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore.

In this manner, sea water directly beneath freshly formed sea ice has a higher salinity than it did before the ice appeared.

All sea ice is gone from both poles; mountain glaciers are gone from the Andes, Alps and Rockies.

Thorsten Markus: We are able, for the first time really, to measure the sea ice thickness at large scales.

"There is a definite link between changes in the sea ice and the welfare of polar bears, " said Steve Amstrup, who led the research team.

"Polar bears are unlikely to survive as a species if there is an almost complete loss of summer sea-ice cover, " the report said.

But Notz is less optimistic about Antarctic sea ice, its undersides heated by eddying Southern Ocean currents.

This image taken by NASA's Aqua satellite in 2008 shows the state of Arctic sea ice.

As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting.

Were it to flip over, pressed by sea ice from behind, it might cause a tsunami.

There are also fears that any drilling could lead to oil spills which would be impossible to clean up amid the Arctic's broken sea ice.

Ice flowers are formed on new layers of sea ice, from saturated water vapors that come up from under the ice through cracks.

Thin sea-ice melts into pool shapes in the radiant heat of the Arctic summer.

Scientists use the observations to map sea ice concentrations.

Holland's models look at the physical response of sea ice to different levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

A link between summer sea ice in the Arctic and winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere was first proposed in 1914.

Characteristics of sea ice floe size distribution in the seasonal ice zone.

But for soldiers protecting China's border islands, sea ice means trouble.

Since the start of satellite records in 1979, total Antarctic sea ice has increased by about 1% a decade, according to Nasa.

The amount of older sea ice that was lost is larger than the state of Texas.

Where sea ice exists, nutrients produced in the water below the ice feed plankton.

That's why doing fieldwork on Arctic sea ice is so important.

Arctic sea ice has also retreated at a faster than average rate.

A new analysis shows thatdwindling levels of sea ice are responsible for unusual levels of global warming in the region.

Although unusual for the past decade, the late-season growth spurt probably doesn't indicate a return to normal sea ice conditions.

Scientists say it's actually much easier to remove salt from sea ice than from water.

Sea ice in the Arctic is melting more rapidly than climate models had predicted.

the trawler "Elizabeth Corner" in the Russian Far East because of the sea ice trapped in the Sea of Okhotsk, 78 crew members on board.

Although sea ice often forms around Shikotan, the extent varies widely from year to year, and even day to day.

In addition, sea ice can block glaciers on land from falling into the ocean, so its loss could raise sea levels.

A retreat of sea ice throughout the entire year is obvious.

Sea ice is different than icebergs and forms as sea surface water freezes.

Polar bears depend on solid sea ice for survival; it's where they do their hunting.

Polar bears live on top of Arctic sea ice, where they mate and raise their young.

Sheets of newly formed sea ice break into pieces under stress of wind and waves.

Polar bears live mostly on sea ice, which they use as a platform for hunting seals.

Arctic sea ice is melting far faster than climate models predict. Why?

For all these perturbations, sea-ice extent recovered rapidly to the unperturbed extent.

Part of the Arctic sea ice melts each summer before refreezing in the winter.

Melting sea ice affects ecosystems and currents.

In recent decades, the Arctic summer sea ice has decreased by 20%, if this situation continues, the Arctic ice will all melt in 2040.

Floating sea ice covers about 11 million square miles of Earth's oceans in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

Sea ice retreat and snow melt reduce Earth's albedo, which can lead to increased warmth and further melting.

In the winter the absence of reliable sea ice makes the life of hunters much more difficult.

Figure 3: Evolution of September sea-ice extent in coupled climate model simulations.

Will it ever be possible to model Arctic sea-ice decline accurately?

It means that large sea ice anomalies in some specific regions may lead to great anomalies in the corresponding atmospheric circulation.

With the global exploitation to the ocean and frequent sea ice disaster, the whole world has paid attention to oil spill of ice region.

On July 1, 2010, NSIDC reported that Arctic sea ice extent had continued its rapid decline through the month of June.

A simulation suggests that both the extent and volume of polar sea ice will decrease in the 21st century.

Figure 2: Distribution of record minima and record maxima of Arctic sea-ice extent (NSIDC).

Since sea-ice is already in the water, its melting has little effect on sea levels.

The lowest Arctic sea-ice extent on record is that of 2007, with 4. 13 million square kilometers.

A polar bear leaps off of sea ice near Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic.

Journeys around Greenland's coast that would take three weeks in the 1970s because of sea ice now take a day.

So there's this vicious cycle that sets up when you start losing sea ice cover.

Yes, the Bohai Sea waters have very serious sea-ice disaster.

West and north of Greenland, sea ice appears pale gray-blue.

Disappearing sea ice is making that task easier.

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

'The average thickness of the Arctic sea ice cover is declining because it is rapidly losing its thick component, the multi-year ice.

Sea ice plays an important role in the global climate system.

The previously off-limits sea ice data has a resolution of one meter.

In other words, less sea ice could cause more warming.

That Arctic sea ice is disappearing has been known for decades.

They are on par with the trend of continuously shrinking sea ice.

This means the region could be free of summer sea ice as soon as 2020, three decades earlier than predicted.

The area of Antarctic sea ice takes about 58% of all the area of south hemisphere cryosphere , and 3. 58% of Earth surface area.

When the sea ice in the Arctic melts, the sea level of the world will not rise because the water is already displaced by the ice.

The spring Arctic sea ice might provide a precursor for both Chinese summer rainfall and the summer monsoon mode P31.

the edge of the sea ice.

Sea ice in the Arctic has two main effects on the weather.

The rapid disappearance of sea ice leaves little time to lose.

Arctic summertime sea ice is decreasing by just over 7% a decade.

The lead undetwater photographer breaks through arctic sea ice dropping into -2degree water from a -30 degree world above.

A similar result was found for sea-ice volume.

Sea ice mimicked the Kamchatka coastline in mid-April 2010.

Sea-ice extent in August was also extremely low, second only to August 2007 (Fig. 1).