Arctic Sea Ice Sees Strange Cold Season Retreat

Arctic Sea Ice Sees Strange Cold Season Retreat
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-sea-ice-sees-strange-retreat-20940

While fall ushers in the season of sea ice growth, November saw a brief retreat that was virtually unprecedented in nearly 40 years of satellite records, according to data released Tuesday by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. That dip helped November set a record low for sea ice area — the seventh month to do so this year, also a record.

Unusual Cold Season Retreat

Arctic sea ice follows a seasonal cycle, waxing during the cold, dark months of fall and winter, and waning when the sun re-emerges in spring and summer.
But skyrocketing Arctic temperatures, which are rising twice as fast as the global average, have set off a downward spiral in sea ice levels. Summer has seen the biggest decline, with the end-of-season minimum half of what it was just three decades ago.

A recent study found that emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent to that from a single transatlantic flight translates to a loss of 30 square feet of sea ice. If emissions aren’t brought under control and temperatures continue to rise, the Arctic could become ice-free during summer by the middle of the century.
That loss of ice affects regional flora and fauna, native communities, and industrial activities like shipping. It may even exert an influence on weather patterns of North America, Europe and Asia.
The end-of-winter maximum this year hit a record low thanks to remarkably warm winter conditions in the Arctic, with air temperatures 4°F to 11°F (2°C to 6°C) above average. But relatively cool and cloudy summer weather kept the summer minimum from beating out the 2012 record low.

Then, in mid-November, an odd thing happened: the sea ice began to decline. Before it resumed its upward trajectory, sea ice area dropped by 19,300 square miles — a feat virtually unprecedented in the records. The only similar occurrence was a much smaller drop of 5,400 square miles in November 2013.
That unusual cold-season dip helped November finish with a sea ice area 753,000 square miles below the 1981 to 2010 long-term average for the month (even though the growth rate of sea ice was slightly higher than average), just a bit smaller than the area of Mexico.