'Vorsprung durch technik' - Laser-equipped icebreakers could appear in Russian Arctic.

'Vorsprung durch technik' - Laser-equipped icebreakers could appear in Russian Arctic. (RBTH).

While the Arctic remains one of the least explored frontiers on Earth, various new ice protection devices, seismic prospecting technologies and power installations for ships have recently been appearing on the market.

One of the latest Russian inventions is a laser ice cutter, developed by the Moscow-based KURS research institute. Engineers at KURS believe their laser will revolutionize Arctic exploration, helping to increase traffic several-fold along the Northern Sea Route, the main shipping lane passing along the Russian Arctic coast. According to KURS Head Lev Klyachko, the project was based on research conducted by Russian scientists over the past decade and is approaching completion.

Science of ice slicing

The laser works like a glass-cutting tool, making incisions in the ice in front of an icebreaker to facilitate the passage of the vessel. The inventors claim the device will enable the making of wider paths in ice so that icebreakers can escort ships of greater width.

Experts at Rostec State Corporation (a Russian non-profit entity promoting the development of high-tech products) say the laser cutter will be economically profitable, as it will allow for the creation of new shipping lanes and increase traffic volumes.

Vladimir Pushkarev, the director of the Russian Arctic Exploration Institute, also emphasizes the issue of traffic. “If the laser can help speed up the icebreakers traveling along Northern seas, it must be installed,” Pushkarev told RBTH.

Can a laser be efficient in an Arctic climate?

The inventors at KURS say their laser cutters will be capable of making incisions and cuts in a layer of ice several meters thick and will help make passages possible for heavy icebreakers, as well as transport vessels. However, famous Russian polar explorer Viktor Boyarsky says the cold temperatures in the Arctic will restore the ice too quickly for the laser to cut through it efficiently. Hmmm....Nuclear powered icebreakers with Lasers.....has a ring to it. Read the full story here.

Emperor penguins in Antarctica threatened by melting sea ice.....But Antarctic sea ice at record level.

Emperor penguins in Antarctica threatened by melting sea ice.......But Antarctic sea ice at record level. HT: NewIceAge.

Warning comes even as Antarctic sea ice hits second all-time record in a week.

Unfortunately, lies like this seem to flourish in today’s world.

According to this Danish website, “The population of emperor penguins in Antarctica will fall significantly at the end of this century because of global warming will reduce the sea ice around Antarctica, predicts an international research team.”

A 50-year field study of a colony of emperor penguins in Terre Adéliein East Antarctica showed that breeding pairs of emperor penguins were very exposed when the sea ice disappears, the article moans.
Mathematical models developed by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts paint a somewhat bleak picture for the Emperor penguin’s future, the article continues.

Two-thirds of the colonies could be reduced by more than 50 percent within a hundred years.

It then quotes Professor Jens-Christian Svenning from the Department of Bioscience at Aarhus University as to why sea ice disappearance is a threat to the emperor penguins:

“When sea ice melts, then lose emperor penguins also a major source of food in the form of krill, small shrimp-like animals that graze on algae and bacteria that grows under the sea ice. Krill are important to the food chain in Antarctica because the fish feed on them, and the fish themselves are an important food source for, among other emperor penguins. So when the sea ice thinned out and disappear, lose emperor penguins an important food source, “said Jens-Christian Svenning.

Well, yes, professor Svenning, a lack of sea ice might threaten the penguins … when it melts, if it melts.

But the fact is, professor, that Antarctic sea ice extent has been growing by leaps and bounds.

Why does no one mention the fact that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellite records began?

Why does no one mention the that Antarctic sea ice just  hit its second all-time record in a week?

Video - NASA satellite witnesses Arctic ice sheet being torn to shreds.

Video - NASA satellite witnesses Arctic ice sheet being torn to shreds.(Yahoo).The fracturing started in late January, as a warm-weather system over Alaska fed an ocean current known as the Beaufort Gyre. This strengthened current picked away at the southwest corner of the ice sheet until a massive crack opened up north of central Alaska (at about 3 secs into the video), and then another crack, apparently around 1,000 kms long, opens up in late February (at around 30 sec in the video), leading to the collapse of the rest of the ice sheet, all the way east to Bank Island.

“It took just seven days for the fractures to progress across the entire area from west to east,” Trudy Wohlleben, senior ice forecaster at the Canadian Ice Service, told the National Post.
According to Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), it's not unusual for this area to experience fracturing events. However, what is unusual is the extent of the fracturing and the scale (both length and width) of the cracks being seen, and it's the age of the ice that's being blamed.Read the full story here.

Huge patches of warm air over the Arctic.Arctic sea ice, may well disappear altogether this summer

                                                


Huge patches of warm air over the Arctic.Arctic sea ice, may well disappear altogether this summer.(AN).

Over the past month or so, huge patches with temperature anomalies of over 20 degrees Celsius have been forming over the Arctic.

The three images below show such patches stretch out from Svalbard to Novaya Zemlya (top), north of Eastern Siberia (middle) and over West Greenland and Baffin Bay (bottom).

Paul Beckwith, regular contributor to the Arctic-news blog, comments:

"The problem with this type of pattern is that there is a tendency for what is termed the AD (Arctic Dipole) consisting of exceptionally high pressures over Northern Canada to Greenland. When the air leaves this region heading for the low pressure regions (winds) it curves to the right (due to Coriolis force) and is thus driven from the Bering Strait region to the North Pole and then out Fram Strait, this conduit is like flushing the toilet on the ice. Warm water is pulled to the cold North Pole and the ice is driven out the Fram Strait into the warm Atlantic where it is melted."

"But the really big problem is that this high pressure area over Northern Canada is a ridge (blocking) that stays pretty stationary over the summers and is directly causing the heat waves and drought in the western US (2003, 2011, 2012).
Another really big problem is that the part of the ridge over Greenland (or large GBI = Greenland Blocking Index); as discussed by Overland, Francis, et. al. in 2012 causes excessive melt in Greenland (as we saw in July, 2012 when 97% of Greenland was melting on the surface instead of the usual 40%). This is sending the Greenland albedo into a steep drop, causing even more heat absorption and melting."

Paul adds: "The Greenland high could reach 1070 mb in next few days; that will bring huge temperatures! By comparison, the world record highest was 1085 in Mongolia in December 19, 2001".

Indeed, as the jet stream slows down and becomes more wavier, such patches of warm air can be expected to extend more regularly into the Arctic. The result can be a huge melt of Arctic sea ice, as well as a huge melt of snow cover in Greenland, which also dramatically lowers albedo, as occurred in 2012 and as discussed in the earlier post Greenland is melting at incredible rate.

This spells bad news for the Arctic sea ice, which may well disappear altogether this summer.

Paul further adds: "For the record; I do not think that any sea ice will survive this summer. An event unprecedented in human history is today, this very moment, transpiring in the Arctic Ocean. The cracks in the sea ice that I reported on my Sierra Club Canada blog and elsewhere over the last several days have spread and at this moment the entire sea ice sheet (or about 99% of it) covering the Arctic Ocean is on the move. Clockwise. The ice is thin, and slushy, and breaking apart."

"This is abrupt climate change in real-time. Humans have benefitted greatly from a stable climate for the last 11,000 years or roughly 400 generations. Not any more. We now face an angry climate. One that we have poked in the eye with our fossil fuel stick and awakened. And now we must deal with the consequences. We must set aside our differences and prepare for what we can no longer avoid. And that is massive disruption to our civilizations."Hmmmmm........Shutdown of thermohaline circulation.Read the full story here.