the Arctic Council, made up of the eight nations with territory above the arctic circle. issued an 1800 page report on climate changes in circumpolar regions, representing four years of work by more 300 scientist. the report warned that arctic regions are warming.
The Arctic sea ice is melting. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1d3fFHXxZY
This one plot says a lot:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2016/09/monthly_ice_08_NH.png
To see how the Arctic sea ice extent evolves throughout the year and to compare years back to 1979, I highly recommend this site:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Keep in mind that these results speak to the sea ice extent only and not trends in the sea ice thickness or age.
Simply stated arctic ice is receding Refer to attached satellite photos.
There is little doubt that the loss of arctic ice has been accelerated and massive. One of the benefits is the ability to have better transportation routes. This would support the projections that greenhouse gas elevation is indeed changing our global environment. Many of the consequences of these changes will be less useful for our present and future generations. It does seem that this situation which is one from man's activity also can be mitigated and reversed with burgeoning knowledge of mankind. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing conclusive sequestration strategies are part of a growing greenhouse gas remediation tool chest.
Ice in the Arctic region melts rapidly; this observation can be verified even after occasional satellite image inspection. Temperature changes act in conjunction with other processes such as albedo modifying soot and dust deposition. The synopsis of complex interactions involved in the conversion of ice into a rapidly disappearing "black ice" is presented in the following site:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19042018/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-climate-change-arctic-pollution-sea-level-rise-algae-black-carbon
The black ice is shown in the photo attached to this note (Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images). It is remarkable that the ice-modifying compound deposition is often associated with episodic atmospheric transport, the process is very intermittent, for example, see the analysis of a single transport event:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/26/wildfires-can-cause-glaciers-to-melt-from-over-a-thousand-miles-away-scientists-find/?utm_term=.2c7f51add725
Disappearing ice is linked to the destabilization of the Arctic vortex and extreme fluctuations in weather conditions in the northern hemisphere. The interesting question is: to what extent the combustion process leading to soot deposition controls the atmospheric dynamics?
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27092017/polar-vortex-cold-snap-arctic-ice-loss-global-warming-climate-change
What are the thoughs about shift in the magnetic poles and climate change at bth poles? any correlation?
The problem of coupling between changes in the ice cover and the polar vortex is indeed very complex because it involves a non-linear dynamical system. According to some authors: “…whilst low sea ice may further weaken the polar vortex, it appears that in the first instance both the low sea ice and weakened polar vortex are driven by changes in lower latitude weather patterns”
https://phys.org/news/2017-12-arctic-sea-ice-affects-affected.html
The role of “shift in the magnetic poles” is also a subject of the ongoing debate; some interesting ideas are presented at:
https://planet-earth-2017.com/wandering-poles/
The fossil fuel use rises exponentially. Carbon dioxide rises exponentially. The temperature is rising. Ice melts and the sea level rises. The timing is related to the exponential rise of fossil fuel combustion maybe it is not so complex and it is not natural as the changes are coming at time frames not previously experienced and from sources which were not previously available. Not that complex and pictures say a thousand words.
According to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
publishing information about Arctic ice cover in a real time (nearly...) there is certainly a noticeable decline as shown in the time series for different years.
For the current ice cover map, I have attached an NSIDC map dated January 23, 2019.
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