The past October was extremely hot in many places (one, two, three examples), and for that reason, I checked NASA's NSIDC website to see if the northern sea ice might also have started melting. However, this was not the case; rather, it was the fifth largest in recorded history, as shown in the image below, which presents the polar ice area for each October over the years.
The October area of the northern sea ice was at its smallest in 2020, followed in order by 2007, 2016, and 2019. After these years comes the current year, 2024.
Thus, the area of northern sea ice has not responded to the exceptionally high temperatures on Earth’s surface—or, alternatively, there may be inaccuracies in the measurements of either the surface temperature or the ice area. Time will eventually reveal which explanation is correct.
In any case, throughout 2024, the northern sea ice area has not been the smallest on record for any month. In January, it ranked as the 24th smallest, in February the 14th smallest, in March the 25th smallest, in April the 27th smallest, in May the 24th smallest, and even in June it was the 11th smallest. After that, the melting rate of the ice accelerated compared to other years, and in July its area was the 5th smallest on record, in August the 2nd smallest, in September the 4th smallest, and in October the 5th smallest.
I won’t attempt to predict the coming months. Instead, I would like to point out to you - my esteemed readers - that the image above, which I generated based on NSIDC data seems to suggest that the melting of the ice, which began in the early 1990s, may have stabilized around 2007 and is now oscillating around a new equilibrium or is decreasing noticeably more slowly than in previous years.
I wrote earlier this year about a similar phenomenon in the July statistics, and indeed, it is also evident in the statistics for all other months. So, it remains to be seen how the ice area will develop over the last three months of this year.
Given the wide variation in the history of global climate, it is clear that no balance will last forever.
ReplyDelete