When A-Team is not improving masterpiece paintings, he makes great animations. Here's yet another one, showing the speed with which the cracked ice pack in the Beaufort Sea has been moving in past weeks:
The largest crack functions as a reference point. In the Arctic Sea Ice Forum I jokingly said Banks Island fits in there -- okay, I acted as if it was a joke when it turned out I had it wrong, but it's still pretty big. I'm very curious what will happen once the thin ice in that crack gets properly introduced to the Sun.
According to A-Team's calculations (which he probably does while painting):
The Beaufort ice pack is very much on the move. The fast-moving western tip of a recognizable central feature, traced for 41 days (23 Feb 13 to 2 Apr 13), has moved 479 km or 11.7 km per day at 0.49 km per hour. The angular velocity about the feature's Euler pole at 82.5º N 140º W is quite rapid, about 1.2º per day.
As evidenced by the 60-day drift track of the IABP buoys in the Beaufort area:
And it's not over yet. We have yet another blue high-pressure area:
That high is going to weaken, but it'll pull at the ice a bit more for a couple of days before moving away. The cracking event is slowly making way for the consequences of the cracking event.
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