How about last year (click on image, etc.)?
Comments:
- This isn't what happened in 2006-2007, the winter just before the massacre-melt of Summer 2007?
- Tenney Naumer said...
- Well, really, nothing up there is the same as it was in 2006-2007 because the multi-year ice this year is pretty much gone. That was not the case 3 years ago. I can only say for certain that the ice of early 2008 was still pretty thick and the ancient ice shelves were still attached to the northern shores of the Canadian archipelago. That stuff is all gone now.
- Anonymous said...
- Hasn't the multiyear ice partially recovered in 2009 as not all first-year ice melted, so that it become second-year ice? So maybe the situation is less precarious in 2010 than was in 2009. Or second-year ice is equally vulnerable to melt than first year ice?
- susan said...
- I had to enlarge and print them both to get a good look. Wow!
- Tenney Naumer said...
- From what I have read, first year ice is crusty and salty. Second year ice is a bit thicker and better. What we lost was the really good thick multi-year ice that was 5-6 years old and more than two meters deep. Thus, this younger ice is brittle, fragile, breaks up very easily, gets shoved around by the currents and the winds, and flows out of the straits much faster. It also moves a lot faster. The ice arches had prevented much of the outflow through the Nares Strait. It's going out gangbusters now. Also, with regard to the ancient ice shelves that were attached to the northern shores of the Canadian archipelago -- these had functioned as buttresses, holding back the speed of the glaciers. Further, there was a simply enormous ice shelf that detached from the extreme northeastern shore of Greenland. It too had been a buttress. No longer... So, when comparing the ice extent or thickness of 2009-2010 with any preceding year, we are simple trying to compare apples to oranges, which is no comparison at all. But as to your question about some of the ice hanging around from last year -- it is doing its best to break up and go out the straits.
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5 comments:
This isn't what happened in 2006-2007, the winter just before the massacre-melt of Summer 2007?
Well, really, nothing up there is the same as it was in 2006-2007 because the multi-year ice this year is pretty much gone. That was not the case 3 years ago.
I can only say for certain that the ice of early 2008 was still pretty thick and the ancient ice shelves were still attached to the northern shores of the Canadian archipelago. That stuff is all gone now.
Hasn't the multiyear ice partially recovered in 2009 as not all first-year ice melted, so that it become second-year ice?
So maybe the situation is less precarious in 2010 than was in 2009.
Or second-year ice is equally vulnerable to melt than first year ice?
I had to enlarge and print them both to get a good look. Wow!
From what I have read, first year ice is crusty and salty. Second year ice is a bit thicker and better.
What we lost was the really good thick multi-year ice that was 5-6 years old and more than two meters deep.
Thus, this younger ice is brittle, fragile, breaks up very easily, gets shoved around by the currents and the winds, and flows out of the straits much faster. It also moves a lot faster.
The ice arches had prevented much of the outflow through the Nares Strait. It's going out gangbusters now.
Also, with regard to the ancient ice shelves that were attached to the northern shores of the Canadian archipelago -- these had functioned as buttresses, holding back the speed of the glaciers.
Further, there was a simply enormous ice shelf that detached from the extreme northeastern shore of Greenland. It too had been a buttress. No longer...
So, when comparing the ice extent or thickness of 2009-2010 with any preceding year, we are simple trying to compare apples to oranges, which is no comparison at all.
But as to your question about some of the ice hanging around from last year -- it is doing its best to break up and go out the straits.
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