2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week.

Editor's Pick

2018 Arctic sea ice melt season just got a big headstart

 Arctic sea ice in East Greenland

Pack ice after sunset in East Greenland near Kulusuk. Predicting the Arctic September minimum in advance remains beyond science’s predictive capabilities. However, signs so far this year indicate the possibility for a new record low ice extent, beating 2012. Image by Markus Trienke, Flickr. 

Close, but no cigar. That assessment, though unscientific, well describes May 2018 sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean – a month some polar experts thought could be one for the record books.

At the month’s mid-point, freakishly warm weather brewed above the northern ocean. But in the end, May 2018 staggered over the finish line in second place, and far from a photo finish at 12.2 million square kilometers (4.7 million square miles). That’s 310,000 square kilometers (120,000 square miles) greater than the all time May record set in 2016.

Yet the fact that so much debate swirled around May this year is news enough, as it’s often a month overlooked by the sea ice community and by the media, with May falling between March’s winter maximum sea ice extent and September’s summer minimum. But attention is shifting as global warming escalates.

“Now, what’s happening in winter and spring is starting to become very, very interesting,” says Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center which tracks and analyzes sea ice. September, he says, is no longer the only hot topic: “We’re seeing these big heatwaves over the North Pole in the middle of winter. Wow. That’s not supposed to happen and yet [it has] the last four winters.” 

2018 Arctic sea ice melt season just got a big headstart by Gloria Dickey, Mongabay, June 19, 2018


Links posted on Facebook

Sun June 17, 2018

Mon June 18, 2018

Tue June 19, 2018

Wed June 20, 2018

Thu June 21, 2018

Fri June 22, 2018

Sat June 23, 2018

Posted by John Hartz on Saturday, 23 June, 2018


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