The cold snap in Europe that has killed more than 600 people and buried communities under record snow cover has had an entirely different impact in the Arctic, which is where you’d normally expect to find frigid weather at this time of year. In parts of the Far North, it has been unusually mild recently, and broad expanses of open water have emerged. This open water has raised questions about whether Arctic sea ice is declining even faster than before.
The open water, located in the Barents and Kara Seas, led one blogger to claim that the developments are “unprecedented” in the satellite era (since 1979), and that the winter buildup of Arctic sea ice had ground to a halt this year — possibly leading to a record low maximum sea ice extent for the winter season.
Neven Acropolis, who writes the Arctic Sea Ice blog, wrote in a guest post for Climate Progress, “I think it’s safe to say that this is unprecedented ever since satellites started monitoring Arctic sea ice in 1979 . . . It’s almost as if the melting season has already started in the Barents and Kara Seas, more than two months earlier than normal.”
That’s not the case, though, according to sea ice expert Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center(NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo. “I can’t say it’s unprecedented, but it’s certainly not something that we see regularly” during the winter, Meier said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s happened before.”
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