Scientists test the age of sea ice off the northern coast of Russia.
The northern coast of Russia (click here) is largely considered the most important spot for the formation of new sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, fueled by the area’s shallow waters, frigid winter temperatures, and a strong wind that pushes ice to the open sea. But scientists have discovered that 80 percent of this new sea ice now melts before it can leave coastal waters — up from 50 percent in 2000.
The melting is being driven by the region’s rapid warming, according to the new research published this week in the journal Scientific Reports. Temperatures in the Arctic have risen twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
With just 20 percent of new Russian sea ice making its way to the central Arctic Ocean, the region is losing an important means of transporting nutrients, algae, and sediment, the scientists note. And without new sea ice to replenish the region’s more stable, older ice, “the world is one major step closer to a sea-ice-free summer in the Arctic,” warned Thomas Krumpen, a sea-ice physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and lead author of the new study....
Sea ice floats through the seas. When it freezes it traps all kinds of nutrients and microscopic food into the seas and oceans. The loss of sea ice off Russia is a threat to the global marine food chain.
The sea ice floats out of the Arctic and melts as it reaches the oceans and seas. That melting will engage the food chain. If the ice can't reach global circulation full of these nutrients to the North Atlantic after passing through the Arctic Ocean, there will be a loss of viability in the oceans.
Fish don't happen by magic. The fisheries need to be monitored closely for loss of productivity. We already know there is the migration of species toward the north and the south as the equatorial regions warm and become a threatened habitat by many species. What occurs then when there is an inadequate food chain when they arrive in their migration?
