Sunday, September 16, 2018

Extreme weather in Europe linked to less sea ice and warming in the Barents Sea

The cold, remote Arctic Ocean and its surrounding marginal seas have experienced climate change at a rate not seen at lower latitudes. Warming air, land and sea temperatures, and large declines in seasonal Arctic sea ice cover are all symptoms of the changing Arctic climate. Although these changes are occurring in relatively remote locations, there is growing evidence to link Arctic sea ice retreat to increasingly erratic weather patterns over the northern hemisphere.
As sea ice declines, areas of open water increase, allowing the ocean to lose more heat to the atmosphere. Heat lost from the ocean to the atmosphere reduces the atmospheric pressure which provides more energy to storms and increases their cloud content through evaporation.
Water flowing north from the Atlantic Ocean provides a major source of heat to the Arctic Ocean and surrounding continental shelf seas. While the Atlantic Water (the particular water mass in the Arctic ocean) carries enough heat to melt all the floating Arctic sea ice in less than five years, it is currently insulated from the surface by a lighter, fresher layer of water over most of the central Arctic Ocean.https://www.yahoo.com/news/extreme-weather-europe-linked-less-100519707.html

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