Satellite images used to monitor the extent of the Arctic sea ice, shows that the waters north of Spitsbergen and north of Novaya Zemlya are still not ice-covered this week. Scientists at the National Snow & Ice Data Centre at the University of Colorado are closely following the dramatic changes in the Arctic as the climate changes heat up the sea temperatures in the north.
The January 9th map clearly shows that the waters covered by sea ice in the Barents- and Kara seas are far north of the median extent for the period 1979-2000. The satellite monitoring of the Arctic sea cap started in 1979.
Normally, the Kara gate and the Pechora Sea in the eastern Barents Sea are both ice-covered this time of the year, but not so this January. Also the entire west coast of Novaya Zemlya is ice-free.
As BarentsObserver has reported, the late autumn 2011 was exceptionally warm in most parts of the Barents Region with temperatures up to 7 degrees Celsius over normal in the northern parts of the European mainland.
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In the Russian Far East and the north-American part of the Arctic, the extent of the sea ice is now frozen more than average, due to fast freezing in December. In early December, the sea ice extent in that part of the Arctic was also delayed.
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For the Arctic as a whole, ice extent for the month remained far below average, the information from the study Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis reads.
Longer jump for the Polar bear. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
