#seaice — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #seaice, aggregated by home.social.
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13 min ago @ Seattle, WA, USA
https://iceout.org/en/reportInfo/145978
#SeaICE #SeattleICE #ICE #Seattle -
Sea ice extent in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas is at the lowest of the season, though it's still the highest for Sept 12 since 2018 in NSIDC data. The ongoing stormy weather is likely to increase the open water area at least a bit in the next few days. @Climatologist49 @ZLabe
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Sea ice extent in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas is at the lowest of the season, though it's still the highest for Sept 12 since 2018 in NSIDC data. The ongoing stormy weather is likely to increase the open water area at least a bit in the next few days. @Climatologist49 @ZLabe
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Sea ice extent in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas is at the lowest of the season, though it's still the highest for Sept 12 since 2018 in NSIDC data. The ongoing stormy weather is likely to increase the open water area at least a bit in the next few days. @Climatologist49 @ZLabe
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Sea ice extent in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas is at the lowest of the season, though it's still the highest for Sept 12 since 2018 in NSIDC data. The ongoing stormy weather is likely to increase the open water area at least a bit in the next few days. @Climatologist49 @ZLabe
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Sea ice extent in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas is at the lowest of the season, though it's still the highest for Sept 12 since 2018 in NSIDC data. The ongoing stormy weather is likely to increase the open water area at least a bit in the next few days. @Climatologist49 @ZLabe
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17 min ago @ 2250 4th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98134, USA
https://iceout.org/en/reportInfo/145609
#SeaICE #SeattleICE #ICE #Seattle -
17 min ago @ 2250 4th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98134, USA
https://iceout.org/en/reportInfo/145609
#SeaICE #SeattleICE #ICE #Seattle -
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Mapping Snow On Northern Winter Roads - A Dual-Frequency Polarimetric Radar Approach For Snow Characterization Over Land, Lake And Sea Ice
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https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-4367-2026 <-- shared paper
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H/T @Monojit Saha | Geospatial Analysis | Remote Sensing | Satellite Altimetry | Cryosphere
“Winter roads are essential transportation links for many remote northern communities, but their safety and reliability depend strongly on snow conditions and ice growth. In this study [link above], [the authors] evaluated a fully polarimetric, dual-frequency Ku- and Ka-band radar approach for retrieving snow depth across landfast sea ice, lake ice, and tundra.
Using field measurements near Churchill, Manitoba, and Resolute Bay, Nunavut [Canada], [they] found that the approach produced snow-depth retrieval bias and error within 3 cm over landfast ice, with encouraging Ku-band performance over frozen ground as well. [They] also developed an interface-detection approach for lake ice that can retrieve both snow depth and ice thickness - a promising direction for characterizing conditions relevant to winter-road planning and safety…”
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“Winter roads are lifelines for remote northern communities. Built over land, lakes, rivers, and sea ice, these travel routes are increasingly vulnerable to warming temperatures and variable precipitation. To ensure safety and adapt to these changes, operators require high-resolution monitoring of snow depth across these diverse surfaces, as natural snow accumulation dictates ice growth rates, route viability and road stability. This study extends our polarimetric radar method, previously demonstrated on pack ice, to landfast sea ice, tundra, and frozen lakes and assesses how well we can retrieve snow depth over these surfaces. Results indicate consistency with earlier sea ice analyses, maintaining a mean snow depth retrieval bias and error within 3 cm over the landfast ice. Promising performance is also found over frozen ground using Ku-band (mean biases less than 6 cm). To address the specific challenge of lake ice, which includes strong returns from the ice/water interface, we present a new interface-detection technique that simultaneously retrieves snow depth and ice thickness. While current validation focuses on undisturbed snow, this approach could provide a path forward for characterizing the cryospheric environment in a way that can directly support the optimization of winter roads…”
#Cryosphere #RemoteSensing #Snow #SeaIce #LakeIce #WinterRoads #characterisation #ArcticResearch #EarthObservation #PolarScience #maintainence #ploughing #winter #roads #transportation #northern #communities #mines #FirstNation #canada #remotesensing #polarimetric #radar #snowdepth #ice #landfastice #iceroad #tundra #Churchill #Manitoba #ResoluteBay #Nunavut #monitoring #planning #safety #trucking #freight -
#SeaIce loss in the #Arctic has triggered a critical #TippingPoint that's destroying the food chain
Story by Sascha Pare, June 8, 2026
"The Arctic Ocean has crossed a tipping point that is wreaking havoc on the region's food chain, with potentially dire consequences for commercial fishing and the ocean's capacity to soak up carbon, a new study reports.
"Scientists found that vast areas of melting sea ice in the Arctic are leading to a significant reduction in nitrate, a key nutrient that forms the base of the marine food web and thus underpins important regional fisheries. As the ice disappears, more light hits the water's surface, promoting the growth of microscopic, plant-like organisms called phytoplankton. When phytoplankton die, their cells sink to the seafloor and are decomposed by nitrate- and oxygen-consuming bacteria.
"The new study, published May 28 in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, found that the bacteria are consuming more nitrate than the Arctic ecosystem can withstand.
"This effect, known as 'denitrification,"' is irreversible under current climate conditions because we have passed a threshold where so much sunlight reaches the ocean that it's supercharging phytoplankton's productivity, said Marta Santos-García, a doctoral student of Arctic marine biogeochemistry at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the first author of the study.
" 'Even if sea ice were to increase temporarily, the Arctic nutrient system responds over much longer timescales,' Santos-García told Live Science in an email. 'Short-term increases in sea ice would be unlikely to rapidly reverse the decline in nitrate inventories, which may take much longer to recover.'
"Dropping nitrate levels may eventually come back to bite phytoplankton, because these tiny organisms need nitrate to carry out photosynthesis. As a result, the transition to a low-nitrate regime could accelerate #ClimateChange, as nitrate plays an essential role in the ocean's biological pump, which takes #CarbonDioxide from the atmosphere via photosynthesis and locks it away at depth when #phytoplankton and the animals that eat it die.
" 'With nutrients such as nitrate in limited supply this mechanism cannot work effectively,' Santos-García said.
"To understand ecosystem changes in the Arctic, the researchers analyzed two decades of data from the Fram Strait, a passage between Greenland and Svalbard, Norway, that is the main gateway through which Arctic waters flow into the Atlantic Ocean. They found a sharp decline in nitrate levels in this region after 2009, which coincided with a dramatic reduction in Arctic sea ice and a gradual shift in phytoplankton communities toward smaller species that can cope with low nutrient levels.
" 'Shifts towards smaller phytoplankton have already been observed in parts of the Arctic, although these changes have not previously been linked to nitrate losses,' Santos-García said. 'This matters because smaller phytoplankton are generally less efficient at transferring energy up the food web. More of the energy is recycled within microbial communities rather than being passed on to larger zooplankton, fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.'
"Phytoplankton sit at the very bottom of the marine food chain, so the impacts of nitrate depletion will ripple through the Arctic ecosystem, impacting species at the highest levels. This could also affect fisheries in regions that depend on Arctic nutrient exports, such as the North Atlantic. But pinpointing what will happen in ecosystems downstream of the Arctic Ocean requires more research, Santos-García said.
"For years, researchers thought the long-term impact of sea ice loss in the Arctic would be an increase in phytoplankton, because more organisms can bathe in sunlight and multiply when the sea ice extent is small. However, the increase in phytoplankton since 2009 has depleted nitrate levels enough to limit future phytoplankton growth.
"Whereas phytoplankton proliferation used to be limited by how much sunlight reached surface waters, it is now controlled by nitrate levels. Therefore, nitrate must be considered as a key driver of future changes in the Arctic, Santos-García said.
" 'As nitrate is the nutrient that limits Arctic productivity, understanding these changes is therefore important not only for Arctic communities and ecosystems, but also for improving projections of future climate change,' she said."
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/E1Dlw#ClimateChange #TippingPoint #GlobalWarming #WarmingOceans #ArcticEcosystems #SeaIce #OceansAreLife
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'Last Ice Area' In The Arctic Could Disappear Much Sooner Than Previously Thought
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https://phys.org/news/2025-01-ice-area-arctic-sooner-previously.html <-- shared technical article
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02034-5 <-- shared paper
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #Arctic #Canada #LastIceArea #LIA #icedependent #species #ArcticOcean #icefree #climatechange #ecology #polarbears #belugas #bowheadwhales #walruses #ringedseals #beardedseals #ivorygulls #spatialanalysis #model #modeling #spatiotemporal #Tuvaijuittuq #FirstNation #inuit #indigenous #seaice #simulations #archipelago -
Oceanic Evasion Fuels Arctic Summertime Rebound Of Atmospheric Mercury And Drives Transport To Arctic Terrestrial Ecosystems
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56300-3 <-- shared paper
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #mercury #Hg #contamination #summerrebound #arctic #summertime #atmospheric #transport #contaminate #terrestrial #ecosystems #Hg0 #model #modeling #framework #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #concentrations #seaice #atmosphere #river #riverine #GDAS #GEOS #GEOSChem #MERRA2 #GTMM #global #NDVI #remotesensing #cycling #marine #ocean #water #hydrology #seawater #icemelt #anthropogenic #coast #coastal #tundra #permafrost #climatechange #evasion #vegetation #uptake #mitigation -
#Biden-#Harris Administration injects $1.8m into Arctic sea ice research https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/biden-harris-injects-1-8m-fund-into-arctic-sea-ice-research/ #USpol
"This will improve #NOAA’s access to #climate information in the #Arctic, helping us better understand and address the impacts of #ClimateChange in the region... the expansion of the #ArgoFloats array into the Arctic, bolstering its monitoring capabilities while advancing the existing tech to detect and avoid #SeaIce... & new sensors to improve understanding of Arctic sea ice"
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The median date for #BeringSea maximum #SeaIce extent is still above a week away, so there's still time for ice to expand significantly IF there is a sustained period of north to northeast winds. However, it's now virtually certain that the 2023 maximum extent will be lower than the 1991-2020 average. #akwx #Arctic #ClimateMonitoring
@Climatologist49 @ZLabe -
We'll be tracking the Bering Sea ice extent for the seasonal maximum in the coming weeks. It's possible the max extent happening, now as south to southeast winds are coming this weekend and will continue into next week. But as the graphic shows, it's not uncommon for max #BeringSea #seaice extent to occur in late March or even early April.
#akwx #Arctic
@Climatologist49 @ZLabe -
Views from the flight from #Yellowknife to #Kugluktuk and on to #CambridgeBay. From rocky Canadian Shield and #boreal forest to ice- and snow-covered landscapes in late May 2019. #cryosphere #Arctic #subarctic #SeaIce #LakeIce #fieldwork
